Robinson v. Callais

Questions presented

SCOTUS records

1. By January 2024, the Middle District of Louisiana and two separate panels of the Fifth Circuit had unanimously come to the same conclusion: Louisiana's 2022 congressional map likely violated §2 of the Voting Rights Act because it failed to include two districts in which Black voters had an opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. See Robinson v. Ardoin, 86 F.4th 574 (5th Cir. 2023). To avoid ceding its districting prerogative to the courts, Louisiana's Legislature enacted Senate Bill 8 ("SB8"), a new plan with two majority- Black districts. SB8 was selected over more compact plans that also satisfied §2 for the avowed political purpose of protecting favored incumbents and damaging a political rival of the Governor. After an extraordinarily - and improperly - expedited trial, the divided three-judge district court dismissed Louisiana's political rationale for SB8, failed to holistically analyze the plan, and ignored record evidence to conclude that SB8 was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The majority never afforded the Legislature the presumption of good faith this Court requires, imposed on the challengers the heavy burden of overcoming that presumption, scrutinized how the specific contours of SB8's Congressional District 6 ("CD6") reflected the Legislature's non-racial objectives, nor required the challengers to identify an alternative map that accomplished Louisiana's political objectives while also resolving the §2 litigation and retaining legislative control of the redistricting process. The questions presented are:
2. Did the District Court err in concluding that race predominated in the design of CD6 based on the Legislature's stated intent to comply with the rulings of the Robinson courts without presuming the good faith of the legislature, attempting to disentangle the Legislature's racial and political considerations, or requiring an alternative map that satisfied both §2 and the Legislature's political objectives, as required by Alexander v. S. C. State Conf. of NAACP, 144 S. Ct. 1221, 1233-1234 (2024)?
3. Did the District Court err when it disregarded the rulings of the courts in Robinson that the Gingles preconditions could be (and had been) satisfied and instead required that the State's enacted map satisfy the first Gingles precondition to survive strict scrutiny?
4. Did the District Court err in failing to accord the Louisiana Legislature sufficient breathing room to account for political considerations that resulted in a less compact district than necessary to satisfy §2?
5. Did the District Court err in relying on extra-record evidence and ignoring the evidence in the record on SB8's respect for communities of interest in concluding that SB8 failed to satisfy strict scrutiny?
6. Did the District Court abuse its discretion by unnecessarily expediting the proceedings and limiting the evidence presented in this complex, fact-intensive case? CONSOLIDATED FOR ONE HOUR ORAL ARGUMENT WITH 24-109. THESE CASES ARE RESTORED TO THE CALENDAR FOR REARGUMENT. IN DUE COURSE, THE COURT WILL ISSUE AN ORDER SCHEDULING ARGUMENT AND SPECIFYING ANY ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED IN SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEFING. Order of August 1, 2025: THE PARTIES ARE DIRECTED TO FILE SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEFS ADDRESSING THE FOLLOWING QUESTION RAISED ON PAGES 36—38 OF THE BRIEF FOR APPELLEES: WHETHER THE STATE’S INTENTIONAL CREATION OF A SECOND MAJORITY-MINORITY CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT VIOLATES THE FOURTEENTH OR FIFTEENTH AMENDMENTS TO THE U. S. CONSTITUTION. JURISDICTION NOTED 11/4/2024

Opinion summary

Etalia.ai summary of the majority opinion

Louisiana challenged a congressional map after it was redrawn to include a second majority-black district. The Court held that the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create that additional district, so race could not justify the State’s use of race in drawing SB8. The Court read Section 2 to focus on whether minority voters have less opportunity than others to elect representatives of their choice, but said that properly understood the statute enforces only intentional racial discrimination and must be applied through an updated Gingles framework. Under that framework, the plaintiffs had not shown a viable Section 2 violation because their proposed maps did not satisfy the State’s legitimate goals, their voting analysis did not control for party affiliation, and their totality-of-circumstances evidence did not show an objective likelihood of intentional discrimination. The Court therefore affirmed and remanded.

Dissent summary

Etalia.ai summary of the dissenting opinions

Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, dissented. She argued that Congress wrote Section 2 to bar electoral schemes that result in minority voters having less opportunity than others to elect candidates of their choice, without requiring proof of discriminatory motive. She said the Court’s new approach rewrites that statute, departs from Gingles and Allen, and will make Section 2 largely ineffective in places where residential segregation and racially polarized voting still matter. She warned that the decision would allow minority communities to be cracked out of effective political participation and would sharply reduce minority representation.