by WorldTribune Staff, April 29, 2026 Non-AI Real World News

In a 6-3 decision on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court placed key restrictions on the Voting Rights Act (VRA) as it voided Louisiana’s racially gerrymandering congressional map.

Writing for the majority in Callais v. Louisiana, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the court was not striking down Section 2 of the VRA, but rather “properly” interpreting it as “impos[ing] liability only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.”

“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it. Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s §2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids,” Justice Alito wrote for the majority.

“This tension between §2 and the Constitution came to a head when Louisiana redrew its congressional districts after the 2020 census. In 2022, a federal judge in the Middle District of Louisiana held that the map adopted by the state legislature likely violated §2 because it did not include an additional majority-black district,” he continued. “But when the State drew a new map that contained such a district, its new map was challenged as a racial gerrymander. A three-judge court in the Western District of Louisiana held that the new map violated the Equal Protection Clause, and the State appealed to this Court.”

“For over 30 years, we have assumed for the sake of argument that the answer is yes. And we have gone further and assumed that it is enough if a State ‘ha[s] a strong basis in evidence’ for thinking that the Voting Rights Act requires race-based conduct,” Alito wrote. “But allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context. These and other problems convinced us that the time had come to resolve whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act can indeed provide a compelling reason for race-based districting.”

“We now answer that question: Compliance with §2, as properly construed, can provide such a reason. Correctly understood, §2 does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map” he wrote. “Compliance with §2 thus could not justify the State’s use of race-based redistricting here. The State’s attempt to satisfy the Middle District’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, and we therefore affirm the decision below.”

The conservative majority ruled 6-3 that Louisiana’s map “is an unconstitutional gerrymander.”

Revolver News noted: “The Court didn’t toss Section 2 in the bin. It did something much more surgical to it. It narrowed how it can be used, and by doing that, it may have turned one of the Left’s favorite redistricting weapons right back on them…

“See, Dems and their activist machine have used the Voting Rights Act to pressure states into drawing majority-minority districts by claiming that minority voters needed those districts to have a ‘fair chance’ at representation. But the problem with that claim is that once the government starts sorting voters by race, it runs head-first, straight into the Constitution.”

The Left saw Section 2 as a permanent racial mapmaking mandate. Alito saw it differently.

Attorney Will Chamberlain pointed out that Alito’s move may be more devastating to the Left than simply striking Section 2 down:

“This is the key passage in Louisiana v. Callais. While not overturning section 2 of the VRA, it construes it into near-irrelevance. All minority voters are entitled to is that the map drawers NOT use race as a metric in drawing their maps. No more majority-minority districts.

“You have to understand how brilliant Alito is. This is actually better than getting rid of section 2 outright, because it means section 2 can be used to CHALLENGE majority-minority districts (for impermissibly using race).”

Justice Elena Kagan, in dissent, accused the majority of making changes that “eviscerate the law.”

(Read the entire ruling here.)

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  Supreme Court limits use of race in redistricting, voids Louisiana’s race-based map, WorldTribune.com