The Center for Election Confidence (CEC) is pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 landmark decision in Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ____ (2026) (No. 24-109, together with No. 24-110) adopts several key lines of argument from CEC’s amicus brief, protecting equal voting rights in redistricting.

The Court adopted CEC’s points relating to the importance of preserving the Voting Rights Act’s (VRA) consequential remedies against unconstitutional and immoral discrimination, of emphasizing the constitutional baseline of equal voting rights across the entire electorate and race-neutral application of both traditional districting bases and state political goals, and of recognizing that the VRA is not a broad tool for ensuring specific partisan outcomes.

In 2025, CEC submitted an amicus curiae brief at the re-argument merits stage in support of Appellees, arguing that the Court should affirm the three-judge court decision below to preserve the VRA’s important remedies and to protect equal voting rights in the redistricting process.

Callais involves Louisiana’s congressional district map, which it drew explicitly based on race following a federal district court decision that the VRA required an additional majority-minority district. The map was challenged as an unlawful racial gerrymander. A three-judge court in the Western District of Louisiana agreed, holding that the Louisiana map violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

CEC’s work emphasizes that “all eligible citizens [must be able to] vote freely within an election system of reasonable procedures that promote election integrity, prevent vote dilution and disenfranchisement, and instill public confidence in election systems and outcomes.” In its brief, CEC argues that the Constitution and the VRA require primary adherence to race-neutral traditional districting bases, that the Fourteenth Amendment has no special exemption for drawing district lines using blatantly racial assumptions, that the Gingles factors must be clarified and reinvigorated if they are to survive, and that the “anything goes” approach to the remedial district-drawing process imposes significant election administration costs and undermines election integrity.

The Court specifically heeds CEC’s encouragement to clarify the Gingles factors, writing that its “interpretation of §2 does not require abandonment of the Gingles framework” and that the Court “need only update the framework so it aligns with the statutory text and reflects important developments since we decided Gingles 40 years ago.“

CEC’s brief emphasizes that “our racial progress should be celebrated“, lamenting that “the §2 litigation movement does not celebrate this progress . . . since integration interferes with its partisan uses of §2.” The Court specifically adopts CEC’s language, writing that, “if, as a result of this progress, it is hard to find pertinent evidence relating to intentional present-day voting discrimination, that is cause for celebration.”

Further, the Court’s opinion incorporates five key points from CEC’s brief:

1. The purpose of VRA §2 is to remedy unconstitutional and immoral efforts to limit minority voting rights:
   [M]any §2 plaintiffs have simply provided illustrative maps with their desired number of majority-minority districts. E.g., Allen, 599 U. S., at 20. Such maps, however, are not alone sufficient. They prove only that the State could create an additional majority-minority district, not that the State’s failure to do so violated §2 of the Voting Rights Act. Slip Op. at 29.
2. The constitutional baseline is equal voting rights across the entire electorate:
   [A] randomly selected individual voter and group of voters can expect regarding their opportunity to elect a preferred candidate. And under §2, a minority voter is entitled to nothing less and nothing more. Slip Op. at 22.
   ***
   In short, §2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race. Not only does this interpretation follow from the plain text of §2, but it is consistent with the limited authority that the Fifteenth Amendment confers. Slip Op. at 26.
3. The Constitution requires race-neutral application of traditional districting bases and state political goals:
   Properly understood, §2 thus does not intrude on States’ prerogative to draw districts based on nonracial factors. Slip Op. at 24.
   ***
   With the advent of such technology, if it is possible to identify an alternative map that fully achieves all the State’s legitimate goals while producing “‘greater racial balance,’” then a §2 plaintiff can easily do so. Slip Op. at 28.
4. There is no general Fourteenth Amendment exemption in favor of race-based line-drawing, only to remedy actual discrimination.
   The Constitution almost never permits the Federal Government or a State to discriminate on the basis of race. Such discrimination triggers strict scrutiny. Slip Op. at 17.
   ***
   [T]he 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. Slip Op. at 2-3.
5. The VRA is not a broad tool to reserve seats for partisan purposes:
   If race and politics are not disentangled and a §2 claim is cynically used as a tool for advancing a partisan end, the VRA’s noble goal will be perverted. Slip Op. at 36.

The Center for Election Confidence thanks Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernay of Benbrook Law Group for their representation in this matter. CEC Board Member Edward D. Greim, Esq., took no part in the development or approval of this brief.