The Supreme Court just delivered a historic ruling that could reshape the U.S. House of Representatives for the rest of history.
And it has left Democratic Party leaders furious.
In a 6-3 decision Wednesday that was split along ideological lines, the court’s conservative majority struck down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district, ruling it was “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
The case, Louisiana v. Callais, doesn’t just redraw one state’s map. Indeed, it guts the legal shield Democratic establishment leaders have used for decades to carve out heavily gerrymandered minority-majority districts that reliably elect Democrats.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that the Constitution leaves almost no room for race to play any part in how districts are drawn, even when states claim they’re doing it to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
“Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost any other context,” Alito wrote. “Compliance with Section 2, as properly construed, can provide such a reason — but it did not here.”
Louisiana Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill celebrated the ruling, and said it was exactly what she had argued all along.
“The Supreme Court has ended Louisiana’s long-running nightmare of federal courts coercing the state to draw a racially discriminatory map,” Murrill said. “That was always unconstitutional — and this is a seismic decision reaffirming equal protection under our nation’s laws. I vigorously defended our first map and said then that the only way to draw a second majority-minority district was to expressly take race into account. It is gratifying that the Supreme Court has finally vindicated our original position.”
The national implications are huge. One analysis estimates that as many as 12 Democratic-held House districts could be redrawn into Republican-held ones now that the Gingles standard — the long-standing precedent requiring states to draw minority-majority districts — has effectively been ended.
Another estimate by left-wing group Fair Fight Action puts the number of vulnerable Democratic seats as high as 19. Nearly 70 of the 435 congressional districts nationwide are currently protected under the rule the court just hammered.
The left wasted no time sounding the alarm. NAACP President Derrick Johnson called it a betrayal.
“The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy,” Johnson said. “This ruling is a major setback for our nation and threatens to erode the hard-won victories we’ve fought, bled and died for.”
Louisiana now must redraw its map — again — with its primary just two weeks away on May 16. The Republican-controlled state is expected to act quickly on the ruling before the 2026 midterms.
For congressional maps across the South and beyond, the ruling is already being called one of the most significant in generations.