For Immediate Release:
April 29, 2026
For press inquiries only, contact:
Amanda Priest (334) 322-5694
William Califf (334) 604-3230
(Montgomery, Ala.) – Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today in Louisiana v. Callais holding that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution neither require nor allow States to use race to draw voting districts, either to create additional minority-majority districts or to intentionally dilute the vote of minority voters. States must use race-neutral considerations when crafting districts.
“The Supreme Court has spoken. States cannot be forced to gerrymander by race. Louisiana v. Callais is a watershed moment. The Court has shut the door on vote-dilution claims that use racial data to disguise what are really partisan disputes. Alabama has been fighting this battle for many years, and today the Supreme Court confirmed our long-held argument that States must not use race, either to help or to harm particular voters, when drawing voting districts. The Court rightly acknowledged that the South has made extraordinary progress, and that laws designed for a different era do not reflect the present reality. We will act as quickly as possible to apply this ruling to Alabama’s redistricting efforts and ensure that our congressional maps reflect the will of the people, not a racial quota system the Constitution forbids,” Attorney General Steve Marshall said.
The Supreme Court’s decision arises from two lawsuits challenging Louisiana’s redistricting efforts. In 2022, after the State redrew, its congressional districts following the 2020 census, a federal judge held that the map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it did not include an additional majority-black district. When the State drew such a map, however, a separate federal court held that the map violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the State intentionally used race to draw the map.
The Supreme Court resolved the dispute by holding that the plaintiffs in the first case had not shown that Louisiana’s initial map violated the Voting Rights Act. The court held that the evidence showed that the State used race-neutral redistricting criteria, including partisan goals to protect incumbents, to draw the districts. According to the court, Section 2 imposes liability on States “only when the circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination” on the basis of race occurred. And it is the plaintiff’s burden, the Court added, to disentangle race from any other goals the State Legislature may have had when drawing the districts.
Like Louisiana, Alabama was sued following the 2020 redistricting cycle and a federal court held that the State violated Section 2 by not including an additional majority-black congressional district. Last year, the court ordered Alabama to use a court-drawn map that included the additional district. The State sought review of that decision in the Supreme Court; those applications are still pending.
In September, Attorney General Marshall filed a brief with the Supreme Court in support of Louisiana’s original map.
The Supreme Court’s opinion can be read in full here.
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