The Supreme Court on Friday announced it would rehear arguments over a Louisiana congressional map that added a second majority-black district, leaving the fate of one of the most closely-watched redistricting battles undecided until the next term.
The unsigned decision to schedule additional arguments was only dissented from by Justice Clarence Thomas, who argued the high court has “an obligation to resolve such challenges promptly.”
“We should have decided these cases this Term. These are the only cases argued this Term in which our jurisdiction is mandatory,” Thomas wrote. “That an Act of Congress requires that we decide these cases should have prompted us to resolve them expeditiously.”
Thomas also stressed the importance of the constitutional question regarding the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which will now remain unanswered until the next Supreme Court term.
“These cases put the Court to a choice: It may permit patent racial gerrymandering under the auspices of [section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965] compliance, or it may admit that, as the Court has construed the statute, a violation of §2 is insufficient to justify a race-based remedy. That decision should be straightforward. Nevertheless, the Court demurs,” Thomas wrote.
The decision to rehear arguments was announced on the final regular decision day of the high court’s 2024-2025 term. The Supreme Court’s 2025-2026 term is scheduled to begin in September, with the first oral arguments scheduled for Oct. 6.
The case, Louisiana v. Callais, centered on the 6th Congressional District, which was drawn in a snake-like form stretching from Shreveport to Baton Rouge, after a federal district court in 2022 found the state’s prior map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The district court’s 2022 decision sided with black voting rights plaintiffs who argued in favor of the creation of a second majority-black district to ensure minority voters had a fair opportunity to elect U.S. House representatives of their choice.
In redrawing the map, Louisiana lawmakers said they aimed to comply with the district court’s order while also protecting high-profile Republican incumbents, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA), whose districts were at risk under other proposals.
The lawsuit challenging the additional black-majority district was filed by lawyers for Phillip Callais, a resident who led a group of predominantly non-black voters against the 2024 redistricting plan. His counsel argued the state went too far in using race as the driving factor for their new map, in violation of the equal protection clause. A three-judge panel agreed, ruling in April last year that the state legislature had improperly prioritized racial composition over traditional criteria such as compactness and geography.
The Supreme Court temporarily paused that ruling last May and last fall agreed to hear the case on the merits during the current term.
The legal fight exposed a persistent conflict in redistricting law. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act often requires states to consider race to avoid diluting minority voting power, putting the state “between a rock and a hard place,” as said by professor Michael Dimino Sr. of Widener University Commonwealth Law School. Other redistricting experts, such as Dave Wasserman, speculated that the GOP drew the map in an “unnecessarily mangled” way in an effort to see it struck down as a racial gerrymander.
Because the Constitution’s equal protection clause bars states from making race the predominant factor in redistricting, Louisiana’s attorneys argued the state was caught between those two contradicting mandates and contended the legislature acted in good faith by responding to judicial orders while factoring in the Republican majority’s own political concerns.
During oral arguments in March, the high court’s Republican-appointed justices appeared skeptical about the redrawn map. Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned whether the district’s unusual shape could be justified, while Justice Samuel Alito suggested the state’s reliance on a preliminary court ruling was not enough to justify race-based line drawing. Justice Clarence Thomas pressed for a clearer explanation of what actual Section 2 violation the state was addressing.
Meanwhile, the high court’s Democratic-appointed wing of three justices emphasized that states need flexibility when attempting to fix possible violations of the Voting Rights Act. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested the challengers failed to prove that race, not politics, was the true motivation behind the new map.
The three justices at the center of the high court’s swing votes — Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett —signaled doubts about whether a lower court’s preliminary injunction should compel a state to use race in future redistricting decisions. Kavanaugh also questioned how long Section 2 should authorize race-conscious remedies decades after its passage.
SUPREME COURT DIVIDED OVER LOUISIANA MAP WITH SECOND BLACK-MAJORITY DISTRICT
Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguinaga told the justices the state would have used its original map with one majority-black district if not for the federal court’s intervention.
“We don’t want to be back here again,” he said, urging the high court to give states clear guidance and room to balance race and politics without triggering conflicting constitutional rulings.