Supreme Court Faces Questions on When Voting Rights Act Compliance Became Unconstitutional

The Supreme Court has applied two different standards to racial gerrymandering claims in ways that create practical contradictions, according to legal analysis of recent decisions.

In *Callais v. Louisiana*, decided in 2026, the Court struck down an electoral map. The decision raises questions about what test the Court now uses to determine if a map violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

For decades, the Court has held that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits only government actions taken with discriminatory racial intent or purpose. In practice, courts asked whether a map satisfied "traditional districting criteria" such as compact shapes and preservation of political subdivisions. Under this approach, known as the Pattern Rule, states could draw maps to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bars voting practices that result in minority voters having less opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

In *Allen v. Milligan*, decided in 2023, the Court applied that standard. It affirmed that Alabama's initial map diluted Black voters' power under Section 2 and held that remedial maps proposed to comply with the Voting Rights Act would not constitute racial gerrymanders because they followed traditional districting criteria.

The *Callais* decision treated the same question differently. Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion noted only that Louisiana's "underlying goal was racial" because the state sought to "achieve a black voting-age population over 50%" in one district. Alito did not analyze whether the map otherwise adhered to traditional districting criteria. Instead, he emphasized Louisiana's intent to avoid Voting Rights Act liability by creating an additional minority opportunity district.

This shift raises a doctrinal question: Does the Court now find a map unconstitutional whenever a legislature considers race in any way, or does the Pattern Rule remain the governing standard?

If the Court adopted the former approach, termed "Race-Indifference" by some legal scholars, maps drawn specifically to comply with the Voting Rights Act would face challenge under the Equal Protection Clause. Any districting choice made to conform with the statute or to provide minority voting power could trigger strict scrutiny.

That approach conflicts with the Court's 2023 decision in *Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP*. There, the Court held that when a state legislature asserts partisan gerrymandering goals, those goals effectively shield the map from racial discrimination claims. The Court reasoned that "if either politics or race could explain a district's contours, the plaintiff has not cleared its bar." This means partisan intent operates as a practical defense against racial intent findings.

The tension centers on burden of proof and intent standards. Under *Alexander*, a state asserting partisan motives receives favorable treatment in racial gerrymandering litigation. Under a *Callais* application of Race-Indifference, a state asserting Voting Rights Act compliance goals would face heightened scrutiny.

Legal analysts note the Court has not explained when or why the constitutional status of Voting Rights Act compliance changed. The Voting Rights Act became law in 1965 with Section 2's effects test added in 1982. The *Callais* majority acknowledged that prior cases "left open whether 'race-based redistricting' under Section 2, even if permissible when the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1982, could 'extend indefinitely into the future' despite significant changes in relevant conditions."

The majority opinion did not specify what conditions changed or when compliance shifted from permissible to constitutionally problematic.

Critics of the *Callais* reasoning argue the Court cannot simultaneously treat race as a classification requiring strict scrutiny in voting rights cases while stating that racial political polarization no longer justifies statutory protection. Legal scholars contend the Court must resolve this tension by either subjecting voting rights questions to ordinary political processes or maintaining strict scrutiny standards that permit Voting Rights Act remedies.