Let’s pick up where we left off 12 weeks ago.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was before the U.S. Supreme Court again, this time in Louisiana v. Callais.

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Writing for the six-justice majority, Justice Samuel Alito observes that the court’s first opinion regarding Section 2’s current text issued in 1986. It “was decided at a time when th(e Supreme) Court often paid insufficient attention to the language of statutory provisions … . Instead of analyzing what the statute said, the opinion simply ‘quoted the text of amended (Section) 2 and then jumped right to the Senate Judiciary Committee (r)eport.'”

Alito begins with the text. So do we.

Section 2 bans states and their political subdivisions from having any

�–� “voting qualification,”

�–� “prerequisite to voting,” or

�–� “standard, practice, or procedure”

that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” Such “denial or abridgment” occurs if “based on the totality of circumstances, … the political processes leading to nomination or election in the (s)tate or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected … in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate”

�–� “to participate in the political process and”

�–� “to elect representatives of their choice.

“The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the (s)tate or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered(. However,) nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.”

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Thus, Alito says, “a districting map may run afoul of (Section) 2 if it ‘results in a denial or abridgement’ of the right to vote ‘on account of race or color.’ …

“(S)uch a denial or abridgment occurs … when ‘the political processes leading to nomination or election’ are ‘not equally open to participation by’ members of a racial group of voters ‘in that (they) have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to … elect representatives of their choice.”

Alito continues: “Putting all these terms together, the baseline is the chance enjoyed by nonminority voters to secure the election of their preferred candidates. What, then, is the chance that any given nonminority voter or group of nonminority voters has to secure the election of a preferred candidate? The answer … depends on the voting preferences of other voters in the district. …

“Not only is this the best reading of the statutory text, but it also ensures that (Section) 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not ex­ceed Congress’s authority under (Section) 2 of the Fifteenth Amend­ment. That provision confers the ‘power to enforce (the amendment) by appropriate legislation.’ …

“(T)he Fifteenth Amendment bars only state action ‘”motivated by a discriminatory purpose.”‘ So a law that seeks to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment by prohibiting mere disparate impact would fail to enforce a right that the (a)mendment secures. …

“In short, Section 2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the (s)tate intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race. Not only does this interpretation follow from the plain text of (Section) 2, but it is consistent with the limited authority that the Fifteenth Amendment confers.”

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What does that mean for the congressional district challenged in Louisiana v. Callais? It cannot stand.

You, faithful reader of this column, will recall that this district wasn’t a normal-looking district. Instead, it looked like a Rorschach test. To put it simplistically, this district ran from southeastern Louisiana to northwest Louisiana, sweeping up black neighborhoods and communities while excluding non-black neighborhoods and communities.

Louisiana’s “underlying goal was racial,” Alito writes. Louisiana “never hid the ball: It configured (the challenged district) to achieve a black voting-age population over 50” percent.

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The Supreme Court’s Callais holding greatly restricts the sordid practice of gerrymandering election districts based, in Section 2’s words, on “race or color.”

As a result, during electoral campaigns and while governing, people will need to talk and work together more across the lines of “race or color.”

Good.

Polarizing candidates of whichever party or whichever race will have a harder time.

Good.

Chautauqua County residents know better than to believe that, for example, black candidates can win only in black-majority or near-black-majority districts.

We have known multiple such candidates–Democrats and Republicans–who have won races without being in black-majority or near-black majority districts.

Good for them.

Good for all of us.

All of us.

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Dr. Randy Elf urges you, if you want more information on Callais, to read the opinion.

COPYRIGHT © 2026 BY RANDY ELF