Landry Signs Louisiana Map Eliminating Its Second Black-Represented District, First Under Callais

On May 29, 2026, Governor Jeff Landry signed a new Louisiana congressional map eliminating one of the two plurality-Black districts the state had drawn in response to an earlier Voting Rights Act injunction. The map implements the Supreme Court’s April 29, 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which held 6-3 (Alito) that the second majority-Black district was itself an unconstitutional racial gerrymander — reworking the Thornburg v. Gingles standard so that compliance with Section 2 can no longer justify race-conscious mapping.

This is the first map signed under that holding, and it demonstrates the ratchet the ruling created. Louisiana drew the second district because a federal court found Section 2 required it; the Supreme Court then held that the district drawn in compliance was unconstitutional; the state has now removed it. The same statute that compelled the district’s creation supplied the grounds for its elimination, and the state faced no penalty at either end.

Six states are implementing new congressional maps for the November 2026 midterms under the Callais precedent. Civil rights organizations have warned that the ruling gives states across the South a durable path to eliminating Black-represented districts, and the compressed timing — maps redrawn between an April ruling and a November election — leaves little room for the pre-election litigation that would ordinarily test them.