The U.S. Supreme Court issued an unusual order Friday, scheduling the closely watched Louisiana redistricting case, Louisiana v. Callais, for reargument rather than deciding it this term. The move prompted a sharp dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas, who argued the Court was avoiding a necessary constitutional confrontation.
The case centers on Louisiana's congressional map, which includes two majority-Black districts out of six total seats. The map was created after federal courts ordered the state to add a second majority-Black district to comply with the Voting Rights Act (VRA), but was later challenged as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
Louisiana found itself in what Thomas described as an impossible situation. The state initially drew a map with only one majority-Black district, despite Black residents comprising roughly one-third of Louisiana's population. After federal courts ruled this likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Louisiana redrew the map to include a second majority-Black district stretching "some 250 miles from Shreveport in the northwest corner of the state to Baton Rouge in southeast Louisiana."
However, a three-judge federal panel ruled 2-1 that this compliance map itself violated the Equal Protection Clause by making race the predominant factor in redistricting.
Thomas' Scathing Dissent
"States do not know how to draw maps that survive both constitutional and VRA review," Louisiana argued in its brief, highlighting the legal bind facing redistricting authorities nationwide.
In his dissent from the reargument order, Thomas argued the Court had a constitutional obligation to resolve the case promptly, particularly because Congress requires the Court to exercise mandatory jurisdiction over redistricting challenges.
"Congress requires this Court to exercise jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to congressional redistricting, and we accordingly have an obligation to resolve such challenges promptly," Thomas wrote. "That resolution is particularly critical here, as these cases highlight the intractable conflict between this Court's interpretation of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."
He described the Court's VRA jurisprudence as a "disastrous misadventure" and expressed hope "that this Court will soon realize that the conflict its §2 jurisprudence has sown with the Constitution is too severe to ignore."
Complicating the 2026 Midterms
Because the map drew a second majority-minority district, Democrat Cleo Fields was able to pick up a congressional seat from outgoing Rep. Garrett Graves, making the Republican majority under Speaker Mike Johnson, also from Louisiana, that much narrower. Conservatives and legal groups in Louisiana were hoping to see the Supreme Court rule the current map, which is erratically drawn in the shape of a backslash across the state from Baton Rouge in the southeast to Shreveport in the northwest, was racially gerrymandered and thus unconstitutional.
The state's argument supporting the map, which was notably pushed by Republican governor Jeff Landry and passed through the Republican House and Senate, was that racial considerations were minimal and instead the map focused on avoiding political complications for incumbents like Johnson and Rep. Julia Letlow.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill was hoping for a decision, but welcomes the opportunity for Louisiana to be heard before the Court again.
"Although we hoped for a decision this Term," she said in a statement, "we welcome a further opportunity to present argument to the Court regarding the States' impossible task of complying with the Court's voting precedence."
But with the reargument scheduled for next term, that all but ensures Fields' district and seat are safe for the 2026 midterms.
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