NRF Submits Amicus Brief Calling on SCOTUS to Adhere to Its Precedent in Louisiana Redistricting Case
For Immediate Release
September 3, 2025
Contact
Madia Coleman
comms@redistrictingfoundation.org
Washington, D.C. – Today, voters supported by the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF), submitted an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the Galmon Amici in Louisiana v. Callais, asking the Court to uphold the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and permanently reinstate Louisiana’s Voting Rights Act (VRA)-compliant congressional map, which includes two Black opportunity districts.
“The brazen mid-decade gerrymander in Texas is proof that strong legal protections, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, remain necessary to stop politicians from disenfranchising voters and that the courts must continue to enforce those protections to protect the rights of the American people,” said Marina Jenkins, Executive Director of the NRF. “Just two years ago, in Allen v. Milligan, this very Court affirmed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In Louisiana, the Fifth Circuit and the District Court used a textbook application of Section 2 and required Louisiana to have a congressional map with two Black opportunity districts. There is no contradiction between the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2 – if anything, the VRA is the embodiment of the promise and protection of American voters’ right to equal representation. If the very same justices undo the precedent they themselves set in Milligan, it would be a head-spinning reversal, violate decades of legal precedent, and leave millions of American voters without any legal recourse to protect their constitutional rights. With the State of Louisiana abandoning its defense of the map it enacted, it is all the more important that the Court enforce the law and adhere to its own precedent by reinstating Louisiana’s Voting Rights Act-compliant map to protect the voting rights of Black Louisianans.”
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
The congressional map passed into law by the state of Louisiana in 2022 denied Black voters the equal ability to elect a candidate of their choice in the state’s congressional map. In response, the NRF initiated Galmon v. Ardoin, consolidated with Robinson v. Ardoin, a lawsuit that challenged Louisiana’s gerrymandered congressional map for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. That litigation was ultimately successful in requiring the state of Louisiana to enact a new map that includes two Black opportunity districts, in compliance with Section 2.
Immediately after enactment of this new map, a separate lawsuit—the Callais case—was filed, and a lower federal court struck down Louisiana’s VRA-compliant map. Following that decision, the NRF-supported voters from the Galmon case, alongside the Robinson group, filed an emergency stay request to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court granted that request. This kept Louisiana’s VRA-compliant map in place for the 2024 election, which allowed Louisianans to elect two Black Members of Congress to represent their state simultaneously for the first time in almost three decades.
In March 2025, oral argument in Louisiana v. Callais took place before the U.S. Supreme Court, and, leading up to that day, the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Galmon Amici in support of Louisiana’s VRA-compliant map. However, in June 2025, the Court announced that the case would be re-argued during its next term. In early August, the court directed the parties to submit supplemental briefing to address the question of whether the creation of a second Black opportunity district in Louisiana violates the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Subsequently, the Court scheduled oral argument in the rehearing of the case for October 15. A decision by the Court will determine whether Louisiana’s Voting Rights Act-compliant congressional map, which includes two Black opportunity districts, will remain in place. In the meantime, a stay has been issued, which ensures that Louisiana’s Voting Rights Act-compliant map remains in place at least until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a decision in this case. To learn more about the NRF’s work, click here.
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