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Callais v. Louisiana, Supreme Court narrows Section 2; Kagan dissents

newsApr 29, 20264410,172

In Callais v. Louisiana the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision that struck down Louisiana’s congressional map and narrowed how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act applies to redistricting. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito raised the standard plaintiffs must meet to prove vote dilution, limiting when courts can order districts to be configured to ensure minority electoral opportunities. Justice Elena Kagan dissented, saying the ruling leaves Section 2 "all but a dead letter" and warning it will make it harder to challenge racially discriminatory maps and could reduce opportunities for minority voters to elect their chosen representatives.

Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1.bsky.social

Justice Kagan: "I dissent. The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—'one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation's history.'

666410h ago
Kyle Griffin689

"It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. And it has been repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people's representatives…

J.J.205

John Roberts has dedicated his adult life to diminishing the rights of non white people. His court is illegitimate and his legacy is putrid.

Sterling A Minor19

Remaking the Court into a 13 member body is a direct way for a Democratic Congress to make a correction when a Democrat is president. Alito's statement that the South is now a place of two-party contests (unlike in 1965) is absurd as a fact-finding, since all that changed is majority party switch.

futbolsound19

That says it all. The fever dream of the right is now a reality. they have erased many of the hard fought gains of the Civil rights era. The VRA is essentially dead.

Jerelle18

Thanks to SCOTUS for setting Americans’ civil rights back sixty years in just one day.

Sterling A Minor14

Congress (a Democratic congress) can re-write the Voting Rights Act to seriously dampen the Supreme Court's ignoring of its present text, and not just its Section 2. This should be carried out with due attention to a political fact that Alito points out - the South is less discriminating than 1965.

Sherel F.11

Democrats must expand the courts starting January 2027. The work to impeach, starting with Roberts.

Cyberdyneboy6

Somewhere in Hell, Andrew Johnson is smiling

ladyelizadeath.bsky.social6

Btw, SCOTUSBlog is having a livechat of the dissenting arguments on the Callais case and now the Haitian and Sudanese TPS case: www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/oral...

Sherel F.5

Democrats must expand the courts starting January 2027. The work to impeach, starting with Roberts.

Saint Sherman - The Ultimate Patriot5

Jim Crow Roberts is back.

Blue Collar Kevin 👨‍🏭4

If SCOTUS wants to remove peoples' ability to peacefully choose their representatives, then they are leaving people with no choice but to use non-peaceful to choose their representatives.

jmwarren.bsky.social3

She needs to dissent by concluding that this decision is an anti- American, racist , fascist decision that should cause this Court to be treated as de facto illegitimate and its decisions null & void

olegreymar.bsky.social3

Hard to not believe most republicans are racists.

Puget Bob3

How can you conclude anything except "Republicans like racist policies"?

Sparkie3

Supreme Court wants to make people of color slaves amid white supremacy.

iwalkthetalk.bsky.social2

65 -- 225 -- 290 1. Reform the Supreme Court 2. Remove Big $ from Politics 3. Stop Foreign Interference 4. Make Graft and Corruption Illegal Again 5. Lock them up 6. Ban gerrymandering outright

murphysgirl.bsky.social2

And the six CORRUPT AF Justices are 🙈🙉. They couldn't care less. This is part of their mission.

Sam2

Fk the corrupt SCOTUS-6: Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett 😡💀

What's a Display Name2

This is an easy one. If it was the other way around and Republicans were intentionally drawing whites only districts, all of you would freak out. So why would intentionally drawing black only districts be okay? Wouldn't they both be racist? It seems this is more about power, not doing what's right

Jay Willis
@jaywillis.net

What do conservatives always say when liberals criticize a Supreme Court decision? "Get Congress to pass a law," right? That is EXACTLY what happened here. In 1982, Congress explicitly overruled a Court case that narrowly interpreted the VRA. Today, Sam Alito said, nope, we were right all along.

In 1982, when Congress passed a series of amendments strengthening the Voting Rights Act of 1965, lawmakers wanted to make one thing very clear: that minority voters seeking to prove violations of the Voting Rights Act do not have to prove that lawmakers intentionally discriminated against them based on race. Instead, under a provision of the law known as Section 2, Congress said, it is enough for voters to show that a given policy—a redistricting plan, for example—has the effect of making it more difficult for them to actually participate in democracy. At the time, Congress had good reason to be specific. Two years earlier, the Supreme Court in City of Mobile v. Bolden had held that a facially neutral electoral map did not violate the Voting Rights Act, even though it had the practical effect of reducing Black voting strength. In the 1982 amendments, Congress explicitly overruled Bolden; in its final report on the bill, the Senate Judiciary Committee affirmed that requiring challengers to prove discriminatory intent would impose an “inordinately difficult burden,” and would make it too easy for racist lawmakers to disguise their true motivations by leaving a “false trail” of non-discriminatory justifications.
10371h ago
Jay Willis127

The conservative justices talk all this shit about how they are mere faithful "interpreters" of laws that Congress passes. They are lying, but they are never lying harder than when, as here, their response to Congress passing a law they don't PERSONALLY like is "nah, we know better."

chrisvls.bsky.social20

And when is Congress going to be more at the height of its power than when the Constitution says it shall have the power to pass "appropriate legislation" for the purpose? The amendment could have had a time limit, a stricter standard, etc. It didn't then. It doesn't now.

Jason J13

The Court is corrupted and broken beyond repair as long as these people are on it.

steveehrstein.bsky.social7

For a ripost a Democratic Congress should defund the Supreme Court, sell their building, and put them into rented space in a Northern Virginia strip mall while also taking all their clerk funding away. Enjoy, mofos...

local counter modulo 74

cool. let's pass a law that the supreme court is a random group of fedral judges explicitly chosen for each case to grant cret, sit on the case, rule and then dissolve as the next case and supreme court forms. honestly would increase the number of cases heard (

✊🏼 NoFilterBoomer3

WE THE PEOPLE still have something to say no matter what the confederate wing of SCOTUS says.🖕🏼

ACLU
@aclu.org

The Voting Rights Act has been essential to protecting everyone’s freedom to vote. By destroying a key provision of the VRA that ensured Black voters were fairly represented, the Supreme Court today betrayed the legacy of the civil rights movement. We won’t stop fighting.

Black graphic with white text reading "[The Voting Rights Act] was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. And it has been repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed—not the Members of this Court." The quote is attributed to Justice Elena Kagan dissenting in Supreme Court case Louisiana v. Callais
6003h ago
HiroshiDelta4

We've all been betrayed both locally and globally. I believe the Republican Party what I call the Fallen Republican Party, has for years been against much of what Franklin D. Roosevelt granted in the Great Depression. The very rights that helped even the Republicans. Another stain on their legacy.

Harry Litman
@harrylitman.bsky.social

Callais is out with the glum predicable result on ideological lines striking down Louisiana map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Kagan in dissent for 3 says Court has gutted sec 2 of Voting Rights Act. One of biggest decisions of the term and another wrecking ball from the right.

41010h ago
James Who Lives in Queens6

All six conservative justices are crooks and they betray their country. Time for change. And if the Democrats don’t make it, they go, too.

K Carlin5

Yep - the Supreme Court has lost credibility bc they are manipulating decisions to provide outcomes their masters want not what’s legally correct

Andy Olsen2

It's the Jim Crow Court, not the Roberts Court. It's a packed court and must be unpacked.

Kate Riga
@kateriga.bsky.social

Kagan: "I dissent, then, from this latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act."

24110h ago
Kate Riga203

Really is astonishing to follow Kagan's paean to the once great Voting Rights Act: "In just five years, almost as many African Americans registered to vote in six Southern States as in the entire century before 1965," she writes

Ben Wikler
@benwikler.bsky.social

Today’s reprehensible Supreme Court decision, as Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent, eviscerates the Voting Rights Act. Fight back. Help flip two seats on the Georgia Supreme Court on May 19. Read about why this battle matters and how to get involved: www.benwikler.com/p/want-to-fi...

1765h ago
Rick Hasen
@rickhasen.bsky.social

Here's the conclusion of my post on the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais, gutting the remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act:

Justice Kagan’s strenuous dissent is exactly right. She notes the history of the Reconstruction Amendments, the subsequent failure to protect minority voting rights, the strong bipartisan nature of various amendments to the Voting Rights Act beginning in 1965, including the response to City of Mobile, to the 1982 Congress that broadly embraced a stronger vote dilution standard, the Supreme Court’s repeated acceptance of the VRA’s provisions as constitutional, to the retrograde turn of the Supreme Court in Shelby County and elsewhere, making the current Supreme Court the most hostile to voting rights in at least a century. And it is all done by Alito with subterfuge. The opinion adopts Justice Alito’s dissent in Allen v. Milligan while denying it is doing so. It brings back the requirement that minority voters prove discriminatory intent while denying it is doing so—in contravention to text, congressional intent, and common sense. Justice Kagan noted, citing my recent Yale Law Journal article, the effects of the Alito treatment in Brnovich: “Since the Court ruled, not a single Section 2 suit has successfully challenged such a restriction on voting, however discriminatory in operation. See R. Hasen, The Stagnation, Retrogression, and Potential Pro-Voter Transformation of U. S. Election Law, 134 Yale L. J. 1673, 1686 (2025).” It is not hyperbole when Kagan writes: “Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.” In other words, Justice Alito knows exactly what he’s doing: make it seem like he’s not gutting the Voting Rights Act through technical language, turning both the statute and the Constitution on its head. It’s the product of his long mission: to favor the white Republicans he seems to think he represents on the Supreme Court, rather than all Americans.
16110h ago
My Father’s Daughter2

as 1st-degree-descendants, it feels like we should tear an outer garment & spend a week in mourning, sitting in lamentation, accepting the comfort of others followed by reintegration into daily life with community support & a permanently cooperative network for safe passage

50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑
@50501movement.bsky.social

Trump's Supreme Court just gutted the voting rights act in a historic decision. The Voting Rights act ended Jim Crowe. This decision erodes voter protections nationwide, especially amongst Black voters. #50501movement #callais #votingrightsact

BREAKING NEWS CALLAIS DECISION PASSES SUPREME COURT The nation's highest court has gutted the federal Voting Rights Act. Read More e fiftyfifty.one
1314h ago
50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑65

Make sure to register to vote and check your voter registration at vote.org

patriciaadvocate.bsky.social2

The lack of ethics and disregard for voters is horrible. We can’t stand by these cheaters. Violating my privacy rights is wrong. Voter intimidation is unacceptable. Harrassment of Election workers is unAmerican. The bots, online misinformation and propaganda must be stopped.

Susanorand2

Pray for our democracy Resist trump Resistance is hope Resistance is patriotic 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

USDemocracy
@usdemocracy.bsky.social

When Justice Kagan drops the word respectfully from her dissent, the silence is deafening. We are watching the result of a decades-long Republican project to dismantle the Courts duty. They built this moment, and they got exactly what they wanted. #USDemocracy

1222h ago
Jill7

John Roberts will go down in history as the worst Supreme Court Justice in history. This was always his goal. And fuck him and his sanctimonious persona.

DreamingDrama ♡
@dreamingdramabsky.bsky.social

When Kagan began announcing her dissent for the three Democratic appointees, she was abrupt and direct, with an anger simmering just below the surface as she described the “historic” place of the Voting Rights Act in the history of the United States.

“For more than a decade,” she told the pin-drop silent courtroom, “this court has had the act in its sights,” laying out a series of rulings beginning with 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder decision ending the requirement that certain jurisdictions get preclearance for voting rights changes, including redistricting. Following that, she continued, there were the court’s more recent decisions that partisan gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable in Rucho v. Common Cause and that limited challenges to “time, place, and manner“ voting restrictions under Section 2 in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. Wednesday’s decision, Kagan continued, is “the last piece” in the effort to “destroy” the voting rights law — making it “nearly impossible“ to succeed in bringing a constitutional vote-dilution claim, the last real task the law was accomplishing.
952h ago
Congresswoman Sara Jacobs
@sarajacobs.house.gov

The Supreme Court just gutted the Voting Rights Act. As Justice Kagan writes in her dissent, the Court’s changes don’t just “update” the law – they eviscerate it. This is a devastating blow to our democracy and undermines decades of progress.

669h ago
Julie Cohen ❌👑
@filmmakerjulie.bsky.social

The Voting Rights Act “was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers & civil rights marchers. It ushered…this nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality…I dissent from…the majority’s now completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.” Kagan (w Sotomayor & Jackson)

489h ago
Indivisible ❌👑
@indivisible.org

Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson: What does Callais v. Louisiana have to do with May Day? Well, let's not be confused. One, an attack on any of us is an attack on all of us, that's the labor way. But also this Supreme Court decision is clearly their attempt to build a political system that shuts us out.

441h ago
Lee West
@whodat35.bsky.social

The president of the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights group, said SCOTUS decision in Louisiana v Callais delivers “a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act”. The ruling is "a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities."

343h ago
Janai Nelson
@janainelson.bsky.social

Following SCOTUS’s abominable voting rights decision in Louisiana v. Callais, Florida’s Legislature jumped at the opportunity to discriminate with impunity and passed DeSantis’ new congressional map. Other states are now on track to pass racist Alito maps. politi.co/4eRagHS

315h ago
3 sources
msmagazine.comJustice Kagan Sounds the Alarm as Supreme Court Dismantles Voting Rights Protections: 'Elected Politicians Picking Their Voters'yahoo.comJustice Kagan Rips SCOTUS For Gutting Voting Rights Act In Dour Dissentdemocracydocket.comSupreme Court guts Voting Rights Act, greenlights GOP gerrymanders

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