Louisiana v. Callais (2026)

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(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2025 1 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS ET AL. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA No. 24–109. Argued October 15, 2025—Decided April 29, 2026* These cases concern whether Louisiana’s new congressional map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. In 2022, after the State redrew its congressional districts, a federal judge in Robinson v. Ardoin, 605 F. Supp. 3d 759 (MD La.), held that the 2022 map likely violated §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 52 U. S. C. §10301 et seq., because it did not include an additional majority-black district. But when the State drew a new map, SB8, that contained such a district, the new map was challenged as a racial gerrymander. A three-judge court in Callais v. Landry, 732 F. Supp. 3d 574 (WD La.), held that SB8 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the State appealed to this Court. The parties originally briefed and argued this suit last Term, and their arguments at that time highlighted problems in the existing body of §2 case law. One problem resulted from the rule that in racial ger- rymandering cases, unlike other cases involving claims of racial dis- crimination, strict scrutiny is triggered only if race “predominated” in the State’s decisionmaking process. Another problem stemmed from the long-unresolved question whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act provides a compelling reason that may justify the inten- tional use of race in drawing legislative districts. For over 30 years, the Court has simply assumed for the sake of argument that the an- swer is yes. These and other problems convinced the Court that the time had come to resolve whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act can indeed provide a compelling reason for race-based districting. —————— *Together with No. 24–110, Robinson et al. v. Callais et al., on appeal from the same court. 2 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Syllabus Held: Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justi- fied the State’s use of race in creating SB8, and that map is an uncon- stitutional racial gerrymander. Pp. 17–36. (a) The Constitution almost never permits a State to discriminate on the basis of race, and such discrimination triggers strict scrutiny. The Court’s precedents have identified “only two compelling interests” that can satisfy strict scrutiny: “avoiding imminent and serious risks to hu- man safety in prisons,” and “remediating specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute.” Stu- dents for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U. S. 181. The question presented is whether compliance with §2 of the Voting Rights Act should be added to this very short list of compelling interests. The Court now holds that compliance with §2, as properly construed, can provide such an interest. A proper interpre- tation of §2 requires examining the statutory text to understand what it demands with respect to drawing legislative districts. Pp. 17–26. (1) Under Section 2(a), the Court takes as a given that a legislative districting map may constitute a “standard, practice, or procedure” that may violate §2 if it “results in a denial or abridgement” of the right to vote “on account of race or color.” Section 2(b) establishes that a violation occurs when political processes are “not equally open to par- ticipation by” members of a racial group “in that [they] have less op- portunity than other members of the electorate to . . . elect represent- atives of their choice.” The key concept is “less opportunity than other members of the electorate,” which sets a baseline against which to as- sess the opportunity of minority voters. That baseline—the oppor- tunity that any given group of voters has to elect their candidate of choice—depends on the voting preferences of other voters in the dis- trict. For example, in a district where most voters prefer Democratic candidates, a Republican voter in that district will have a low chance of securing the election of his or her preferred candidate. The roster of voters who end up in a given district depends, in turn, on the district- ing criteria the State uses to draw a legislative map. Thus, the “oppor- tunity” of these “members of the electorate” to contribute their votes to a winning cause is whatever opportunity results from the application of the State’s combination of permissible districting criteria. That is what a randomly selected individual voter and group of voters can ex- pect regarding their opportunity to elect their preferred candidate. Under §2, a minority voter is entitled to nothing less and nothing more. Pp. 19–22. (2) This interpretation is the best reading of the statutory text and ensures that §2 of the Voting Rights Act does not exceed Congress’s authority under §2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, which confers on Cite as: 608 U. S. ___ (2026) 3 Syllabus Congress the “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appropriate legis- lation.” As the Court has long held, the Fifteenth Amendment bars only state action “ ‘motivated by discriminatory purpose.’ ” Reno v. Bossier Parrish School Bd., 520 U. S. 471, 481. So a law that seeks to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment by prohibiting mere disparate im- pact would fail to enforce a right that the Amendment secures. That is never “appropriate,” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 308, because Congress cannot “enforce a constitutional right by chang- ing what the right is,” City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507, 519. For this reason, the focus of §2 must be enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment’s prohibition on intentional racial discrimination. When §2 of the Act is properly interpreted, it imposes liability only when cir- cumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimina- tion occurred. Properly understood, §2 thus does not intrude on States’ prerogative to draw districts based on nonracial factors, including to achieve partisan advantage. In short, §2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State 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 §2, but it is consistent with the limited authority that the Fifteenth Amendment confers. Pp. 22–26. (b) This interpretation does not require abandonment of the frame- work for evaluating §2 claims that the Court established in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30. The Court need only update the framework so it aligns with the statutory text and reflects important develop- ments since the Court decided Gingles 40 years ago. Four historical developments are of particular note. First, vast social change has oc- curred throughout the country and particularly in the South, which have made great strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination. Second, a full-blown two-party system has emerged in the States where §2 suits are most common, and there is frequently a correlation between race and party preference. Third, in Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U. S. 684, this Court held that partisan gerrymandering claims are not justiciable in federal court, and this holding creates an incen- tive for litigants to exploit §2 for partisan purposes by “repackag[ing] a partisan-gerrymandering claim as a racial-gerrymandering claim,” Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, 602 U. S. 1, 21. Fourth, the increased use and capabilities of computers in draw- ing districts and creating illustrative maps means that a §2 plaintiff can easily identify an alternative map that fully achieves all the State’s legitimate goals while producing greater racial balance, if such a map is possible. In light of these developments, the Court updates the Gin- gles framework and realigns it with the text of §2 and constitutional principles. Pp. 26–31. 4 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Syllabus (1) The first Gingles precondition is that a community of minority voters must be sufficiently numerous and compact to constitute a ma- jority in a reasonably configured district. While many §2 plaintiffs have simply provided illustrative maps with their desired number of majority-minority districts, such maps prove only that the State could create an additional majority-minority district, not that the State’s failure to do so violated §2 of the Voting Rights Act. To show the latter, plaintiffs’ illustrative maps must satisfy two conditions: Plaintiffs can- not use race as a districting criterion in drawing illustrative maps, and illustrative maps must meet all the State’s legitimate districting ob- jectives, including traditional districting criteria and the State’s spec- ified political goals. Pp. 29–30. (2) To satisfy the second and third preconditions—politically cohe- sive voting by the minority and racial-bloc voting by the majority—the plaintiffs must provide an analysis that controls for party affiliation, showing that voters engage in racial-bloc voting that cannot be ex- plained by partisan affiliation. P. 30. (3) On the “totality of circumstances” inquiry, the focus must be on evidence that has more than a remote bearing on what the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits: present-day intentional racial discrimination regarding voting. Discrimination that occurred some time ago and pre- sent-day disparities characterized as ongoing “effects of societal dis- crimination” are entitled to much less weight. Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 909–910. Pp. 30–31. (c) Nothing in Allen v. Milligan, 599 U. S. 1, dictates a different re- sult. That case merely addressed whether Alabama’s novel eviden- tiary standard required a change to existing §2 precedent. Allen did not address whether “race-based redistricting” under §2 could “extend indefinitely into the future” despite significant changes in conditions, 599 U. S., at 45 (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in part), nor did it address whether §2 plaintiffs must disentangle race from politics in proving their case. Indeed, Allen did not address the Fourteenth Amendment at all. But here, the decision before the Court is based on the Four- teenth Amendment. Pp. 31–32. (d) Under the updated Gingles framework, the facts of this suit eas- ily require affirmance. Louisiana’s enactment of SB8 triggered strict scrutiny because the State’s underlying goal was racial. The State con- figured District 6 to achieve a black voting-age population over 50% because the Robinson court held that §2 likely required the creation of an additional majority-black district. The State’s intentional compli- ance with the court’s demands constituted an “express acknowledg- ment that race played a role in the drawing of district lines.” Alexan- der, 602 U. S., at 8. No compelling interest justifies SB8 because §2 did not require the Cite as: 608 U. S. ___ (2026) 5 Syllabus State to create a new majority-minority district. At every step of the Gingles framework, the Robinson plaintiffs failed to prove their §2 case. On the first Gingles precondition, the Robinson plaintiffs did not meet their burden because they did not provide an illustrative map that met all the State’s nonracial goals, including the State’s political goals. On the second and third Gingles preconditions, the Robinson plaintiffs offered evidence that black and white voters consistently supported different candidates, but their analysis did not control for partisan preferences. And on the totality of circumstances, the Robin- son plaintiffs failed to show an objective likelihood of intentional dis- crimination, instead relying on historical evidence and evidence that failed to disentangle race from politics. Pp. 32–35. 732 F. Supp. 3d 574, affirmed and remanded. ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which GORSUCH, J., joined. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR and JACKSON, JJ., joined. Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 1 Opinion of the Court NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ Nos. 24–109 and 24–110 _________________ LOUISIANA, APPELLANT 24–109 v. PHILLIP CALLAIS, ET AL. PRESS ROBINSON, ET AL., APPELLANTS 24–110 v. PHILLIP CALLAIS, ET AL. ON APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA [April 29, 2026] JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 52 U. S. C. §10301 et seq., was designed to enforce the Constitution— not collide with it. Unfortunately, lower courts have some- times applied this Court’s §2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids. This tension between §2 and the Constitution came to a head when Louisiana redrew its congressional districts af- ter the 2020 census. In 2022, a federal judge in the Middle District of Louisiana held that the map adopted by the state legislature likely violated §2 because it did not include an additional majority-black district. But when the State drew a new map that contained such a district, its new map was challenged as a racial gerrymander. A three-judge court in the Western District of Louisiana held that the new map 2 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court violated the Equal Protection Clause, and the State ap- pealed to this Court. The parties originally briefed and argued this suit last Term, and their arguments at that time highlighted prob- lems in the existing body of §2 case law. One problem re- sulted from the rule that in racial gerrymandering cases, unlike other cases involving claims of racial discrimination, see, e.g., Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Devel- opment Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 265–266 (1977), strict scrutiny is triggered only if race “predominated” in the State’s deci- sionmaking process. In this suit, Louisiana adopted the challenged map and created the second majority-black dis- trict because it quite reasonably anticipated that, if it did not do so, the Middle District of Louisiana would order the use of a map with a differently configured second majority- black district that would effectively oust an incumbent whom the legislature sought to protect. Under our existing case law, that situation posed the question whether race or politics was the State’s “predominant” motivation. Another problem stemmed from the long-unresolved question whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act provides a compelling reason that may justify the inten- tional use of race in drawing legislative districts. For over 30 years, we have assumed for the sake of argument that the answer is yes. See infra, at 9–11. And we have gone further and assumed that it is enough if a State “ ‘ha[s] a strong basis in evidence’ ” for thinking that the Voting Rights Act requires race-based conduct. Cooper v. Harris, 581 U. S. 285, 292–293 (2017). But allowing race to play any part in government decisionmaking represents a depar- ture from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context. These and other problems convinced us that the time had come to resolve whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act can indeed provide a compelling reason for race-based districting. We now answer that question: Compliance with Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 3 Opinion of the Court §2, as properly construed, can provide such a reason. Cor- rectly understood, §2 does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map. Compliance with §2 thus could not justify the State’s use of race-based redistricting here. The State’s attempt to satisfy the Middle District’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, and we therefore affirm the decision below. I A Ratified in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment provides that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” For many years afterward, however, States “heavily sup- pressed” the right of black citizens to vote. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U. S. 647, 655 (2021). “States employed a variety of notorious methods, including poll taxes, literacy tests, property qualifications, white pri- maries, and grandfather clauses,” in a “blatant” effort to suppress black voting. Id., at 655–656, and n. 1 (citing H. R. Rep. No. 439, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 8, 11–13 (1965); S. Rep. No. 162, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, pp. 4–5 (1965); brack- ets and internal quotation marks omitted). Even “as late as the mid-1960s, black registration and voting rates in some States were appallingly low.” Brnovich, 594 U. S., at 656; see South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 309– 315 (1966). In addition, States employed legislative dis- tricting schemes to prevent the election of black candidates and candidates that black voters preferred. See Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, 602 U. S. 1, 35 (2024); Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 341 (1960). 4 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment authorizes Con- gress to enact “appropriate legislation” to enforce the Amendment’s protections, and in 1965 Congress invoked that power to enact the Voting Rights Act. Brnovich, 594 U. S., at 656. “The Act and its amendments in the 1970s specifically forbade some of the practices that had been used to suppress black voting,” including literacy tests and poll taxes. Ibid.; see 52 U. S. C. §10301; §§4(a), (c), 79 Stat. 438–439; §6, 84 Stat. 315; §102, 89 Stat. 400, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §§10303(a), (c), 10501 (prohibiting the denial of the right to vote in any election for failure to pass a test demonstrating literacy, educational achievement or knowledge of any particular subject, or good moral charac- ter); see also §10, 79 Stat. 442, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §10306 (declaring poll taxes unlawful); §11, 79 Stat. 443, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §10307 (prohibiting intimidation and the refusal to allow or count votes). We upheld many of these provisions in Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 316, 327–337. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in its original form “closely tracked the language of the Amendment it was adopted to enforce.” Brnovich, 594 U. S., at 656. At that time, §2 stated simply that “[n]o voting qualification or pre- requisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” 79 Stat. 437. In Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980), the Court inter- preted this language, and four Justices concluded in a plu- rality opinion that “facially neutral voting practices violate §2 only if motivated by a discriminatory purpose.” Brno- vich, 594 U. S., at 658. Justice Stevens, who concurred in the judgment, proposed a different but similarly demanding standard. See Bolden, 446 U. S., at 90–94. Indeed, in his view, a districting practice, even if motivated in part by race, would not violate §2 so long as it was “supported by valid and articulable justifications.” Id., at 91–92. Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 5 Opinion of the Court Bolden roused “ ‘an avalanche of criticism, both in the me- dia and within the civil rights community.’ ” Allen v. Milli- gan, 599 U. S. 1, 11 (2023) (quoting T. Boyd & S. Markman, The 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act: A Legisla- tive History, 40 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1347, 1355 (1983)). Critics argued that a focus on discriminatory intent, rather than discriminatory effects, would defeat worthy claims be- cause of the difficulty of proving intentional discrimination. See 599 U. S., at 11. Members of Congress evidently shared these concerns. In 1982, shortly after Bolden, Congress sought to abrogate that decision by amending §2. A House bill was “originally passed . . . under a loose understanding that §2 would pro- hibit all discriminatory ‘effects’ of voting practices, and that intent would be ‘irrelevant,’ ” but “[t]his version met stiff re- sistance in the Senate.” Mississippi Republican Executive Comm. v. Brooks, 469 U. S. 1002, 1010 (1984) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 97–227, p. 29 (1981)). Critics worried that an effects test would lead to “man- dat[ory] racial proportionality in elections,” a scenario “re- garded by many as intolerable.” Allen, 599 U. S., at 12. The House and Senate eventually compromised, and the final product included both an effects test in §2(a) and a “robust disclaimer against proportionality” in §2(b). Id., at 13. This latter provision also specifies what a plaintiff must establish to prove a §2 violation. The provision requires consideration of the “totality of circumstances” in each case and demands proof that the “political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation” by members of a pro- tected class “in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the politi- cal process and to elect representatives of their choice.” 52 U. S. C. §10301(b) (emphasis added). Congress took this language almost verbatim from Justice White’s opinion for the Court in White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973), which 6 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court involved a “vote dilution” claim, i.e., a claim that a district- ing scheme impermissibly lessens the weight of the votes of minority voters. In White, the Court affirmed a judgment that Texas had used two multimember electoral districts “invidiously to cancel out or minimize the voting strength of racial groups.” Id., at 765. According to White, a vote-dilution plaintiff had to show that “the political processes leading to nomination and election were not equally open to participation by the group in question—that its members had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.” Id., at 766. The decision in White did not say anything one way or another about proof of discriminatory purpose or intent, but the Court’s rationale rested on evidence that gave rise to an obvious inference that the State had set out to prevent the election of candidates preferred by minority voters. The Texas districting scheme generally used single-member dis- tricts but employed multimember districts in two parts of the State where single-member districts might have re- sulted in the election of minority candidates. The Court ob- served that the use of multimember districts is not “neces- sarily” or “per se” unconstitutional, but it recognized that such districts can be employed to achieve discriminatory ends. Id., at 765; see also Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S. 379, 389 (1971) (observing that a switch to at-large elec- tions could be a “metho[d] to maintain white control of the political process”); Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 569 (1969) (explaining that a change to at-large voting could nullify the ability of minority voters to elect their can- didate of choice). The Court also cited strong evidence that the legislature had done so in the case at hand. Writing at a time when the Democratic Party was dominant in much of Texas, the Court noted that a “white-dominated organi- zation,” which had “effective control” over candidate slating Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 7 Opinion of the Court within that party, had engaged in “ ‘racial campaign tactics in white precincts to defeat candidates who had the over- whelming support of the black community,’ ” thereby “ ‘ef- fectively exclud[ing]’ ” the black community “ ‘from partici- pation in the Democratic primary selection process.’ ” White, 412 U. S., at 766–767. The Court likewise cited evidence that the legislature had “invidiously excluded Mexican-Americans from effective participation in political life, specifically in the election of representatives to the Texas House of Representatives.” Id., at 769. Thus, White presented a situation in which circumstantial evidence sug- gested very strongly that the State had created multimem- ber districts for the purpose of diluting minority votes. A few years later, when Congress looked for language that would abrogate Mobile v. Bolden’s interpretation of §2, it selected terms that were nearly identical to language used in White. The accompanying Report of the Senate Ju- diciary Committee explained that the amendment’s pur- pose was to repudiate Bolden and establish a new vote- dilution test based on White. See S. Rep. No. 97–417, pp. 2, 15–16, 27 (1982). B This Court first construed the amended version of §2 in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986). Gingles con- cerned a challenge to North Carolina’s multimember dis- tricting scheme on the ground that it diluted the vote of black citizens. Id., at 34–36. Gingles was decided at a time when this Court often paid insufficient attention to the lan- guage of statutory provisions, and Justice Brennan’s opin- ion for the Court followed this pattern. Instead of analyzing what the statute said, the opinion simply “quoted the text of amended §2 and then jumped right to the Senate Judici- ary Committee Report.” Brnovich, 594 U. S., at 667; see Gingles, 478 U. S., at 42–46. Relying heavily on that Re- port, the opinion set out three threshold requirements for 8 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court proving a §2 vote-dilution claim, plus a nonexhaustive list of factors to be considered in making a final decision as to whether the State had violated §2. See id., at 44–45, 48– 51, 80. To succeed in proving a §2 violation, Gingles taught, a plaintiff must make four showings. First, the plaintiff must show that the minority group in question is “sufficiently large and [geographically] compact to constitute a majority in a reasonably configured district.” Wisconsin Legislature v. Wisconsin Elections Comm’n, 595 U. S. 398, 402 (2022) (per curiam) (citing Gingles, 478 U. S., at 50–51). A district is reasonably configured, we later explained, “if it comports with traditional districting criteria, such as being contigu- ous and reasonably compact.” Allen, 599 U. S., at 18. “Sec- ond, the minority group must be able to show that it is po- litically cohesive.” Gingles, 478 U. S., at 51. Third, “the minority must be able to demonstrate that the white major- ity votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it . . . to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.” Ibid. “Finally, a plaintiff who demonstrates the three preconditions must also show, based on the ‘totality of circumstances,’ that the political process is not ‘equally open’ to minority voters.” Allen, 599 U. S., at 18 (quoting Gingles, 478 U. S., at 45–46). C In later cases, redistricting plans that States created to comply with the Voting Rights Act were themselves chal- lenged as racial gerrymanders. This Court approached such cases by building on the framework from other racial- discrimination cases under the Equal Protection Clause. In those cases, if race played a role in a decision made by a government actor, strict scrutiny applied. See Arlington Heights, 429 U. S., at 265–266. Under this standard, the government needed to assert a compelling interest that jus- tified its use of race; and if the analysis progressed beyond this point, the government had to show that its use of race Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 9 Opinion of the Court was narrowly tailored to vindicate that interest. See, e.g., Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U. S. 181, 206 (2023) (SFFA). The Court modified this framework for racial gerryman- dering cases. Although any use of race in government deci- sionmaking generally triggers strict scrutiny, in gerryman- dering cases a challenger must show that race was the government’s predominant consideration. See Bush v. Vera, 517 U. S. 952, 964 (1996) (plurality opinion). And in cases where race predominated, States would sometimes assert that compliance with the Voting Rights Act provided a compelling interest justifying the use of race. Yet we never decided whether compliance with the Act could con- stitute a compelling interest. Instead, we repeatedly as- sumed without deciding that the Voting Rights Act could constitute a compelling interest because in all those cases, the Act actually did not demand the State’s race-predomi- nant districting. Thus, the States in those cases could not satisfy strict scrutiny regardless of whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act could provide a compelling in- terest. The first case in which the Court explicitly made this as- sumption was Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 917–920 (1995),1 which concerned a majority-black district that was designed to satisfy the Justice Department’s preclearance demands under §5 of the Voting Rights Act. The Miller Court first found that the legislature had “subordinated traditional race-neutral districting principles, including but not limited to compactness, contiguity, and respect for po- litical subdivisions or communities defined by actual shared interests, to racial considerations.” Id., at 916. For this reason, the Court held, race had predominated in the crea- tion of the new district, and the State had to “demonstrate —————— 1 Such an assumption may have been implicit in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 653–656 (1993) (Shaw I ). 10 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court that its districting legislation [wa]s narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling interest.” Id., at 920. The Court de- clined to address “[w]hether or not in some cases compli- ance with the [Voting Rights Act], standing alone, c[ould] provide a compelling interest independent of any interest in remedying past discrimination.” Id., at 921. Instead, the Court explained that the “challenged district was not rea- sonably necessary under a constitutional reading and ap- plication” of the Voting Rights Act, so the State’s goal of complying with the Act could not supply a compelling inter- est. Ibid. We repeated much the same analysis in Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 908 (1996) (Shaw II ), applying strict scrutiny to a redistricting plan that a State crafted to comply with both §2 and §5 of the Voting Rights Act. “[O]nce again,” we did not reach the question “expressly left open” in Miller: whether the Voting Rights Act could itself provide a com- pelling interest to justify race-predominant districting. 517 U. S., at 911. After “assum[ing], arguendo, for the purpose of resolving this suit, that compliance with §2 could be a compelling interest,” we held that the plan failed strict scrutiny because it was not reasonably required under a constitutional reading and application of the Voting Rights Act. Id., at 915. Likewise, in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Ala- bama, 575 U. S. 254, 259 (2015), we applied strict scrutiny to a race-predominant districting plan that the State had created for two purposes: first, to “come close to a one-per- son, one-vote ideal,” and second, to “ensure compliance” with §5 of the Voting Rights Act. We held that, even if the Voting Rights Act could provide a compelling interest, the map did not satisfy strict scrutiny because it was not re- quired by the Act. Id., at 277. Once again, we left open whether compliance with the Act “remain[ed] a compelling interest.” Id., at 279. Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 11 Opinion of the Court In Cooper, 581 U. S., at 301, we continued our “long”- standing assumption that “complying with the VRA is a compelling interest.” Again, we did not need to resolve this question because a constitutional reading and application of the Act did not require the district at issue. Id., at 306. And again, in Wisconsin Legislature, we once more “as- sumed that complying with the [Voting Rights Act] is a com- pelling interest.” 595 U. S., at 401. But because the Wis- consin Supreme Court had not properly analyzed whether the Act required the map at issue, we remanded for the court to “undertake a full strict-scrutiny analysis.” Id., at 406. This was the legal framework in place when the law- suits involving Louisiana’s congressional districts were filed and litigated in the lower courts. II As noted earlier, the underlying litigation in this suit re- sulted from Louisiana’s response to the population changes disclosed by the 2020 census. The subsequent reapportion- ment of House seats among the States left Louisiana with the same number of seats—six—that it had previously been allocated, but due to shifts in population, the State needed to recalibrate its districts. Figure 1. Louisiana’s map from 2013–2022 12 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court In 2022, Louisiana enacted a new map, “HB1,” that closely resembled its immediate predecessor: Figure 2. HB1, enacted in 2022 HB1, like its predecessor, included only one district in which black voters were a majority of the voting-age popu- lation. (In the above maps, it is the bat-shaped District 2 that includes much of New Orleans, blue in Figure 1 and yellow in Figure 2.) As soon as HB1 was enacted, lawsuits were filed in the Middle District of Louisiana asserting that the map violated the Voting Rights Act by “ ‘packing’ large numbers of Black voters into a single majority-Black con- gressional district . . . and ‘cracking’ the remaining Black voters among the other five districts.” Robinson v. Ardoin, 605 F. Supp. 3d 759, 768 (2022). After the suit was filed, the Robinson court issued a lengthy opinion concluding that HB1 likely violated the Voting Rights Act by failing to in- clude a second majority-black district. The court thus en- tered a preliminary injunction requiring Louisiana to Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 13 Opinion of the Court implement a new map before the 2022 election, which was less than six months away. Id., at 856. Louisiana objected to the decision and promptly ap- pealed. But because of circumstances outside the State’s control, its appeal ended up in limbo. This Court granted certiorari before judgment and held the case pending a de- cision in Allen. Nearly a year later, after deciding Allen, the Court dismissed the petition as improvidently granted and remanded the case to the Fifth Circuit to consider Lou- isiana’s appeal in the ordinary course. By that time, the 2022 election had passed, and the urgency that had justi- fied the preliminary injunction was no longer present. In a tentatively worded opinion, the Fifth Circuit held that the Robinson District Court’s decision “was valid when it was issued” but that the preliminary injunction was no longer needed. Robinson v. Ardoin, 86 F. 4th 574, 599–600 (2023). In the absence of urgency, the Fifth Circuit remanded the case to the District Court with instructions to give Louisi- ana time to draw a new map. If Louisiana failed to do so, the Fifth Circuit suggested, the District Court could pro- ceed with a trial on the merits and, if needed, remedial pro- ceedings. Id., at 601–602. After the Fifth Circuit’s remand, Louisiana did not have many options. In the Robinson decision, the District Court held that the plaintiffs were “likely to prevail” on their claim that the Voting Rights Act demanded the creation of a second majority-black district. 605 F. Supp. 3d, at 851. So if Louisiana refused to adopt such a map, the District Court would likely draw one and mandate its use. Wishing to avoid that outcome, Louisiana decided to draw its own map. After a deliberative process, Louisiana enacted the map at issue in this suit: SB8. 14 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court Figure 3. SB8 SB8 retains the original majority-minority district from HB1 (above in yellow). It then adds an additional majority- minority district, District 6 (above in green). To attain a majority-black voting-age population, District 6 connects black populations from Baton Rouge and Lafayette (in the southcentral region of the State) with the black population in Shreveport (in the far northwest of the State). SB8 dif- fered from the illustrative maps—shown below—on which the District Court relied in Robinson: Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 15 Opinion of the Court Figure 4. Robinson Court’s Illustrative Maps These illustrative maps also include a second majority- minority district, but one with very different boundaries (shown in blue in the top four maps and in green in the 16 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court bottom two maps). This district connects largely urban black communities in Baton Rouge and Lafayette with more rural black communities in the northeast corner of the State. By contrast, SB8’s District 6 connects the Baton Rouge and Lafayette black populations with the distant black population in Shreveport, in the northwest. Louisi- ana adopted this scheme, rather than the one used in the Robinson illustrative maps, because it protects the Repub- lican incumbents the State considered most important: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Appropriations Committee mem- ber Julia Letlow. See Brief for Appellant in No. 24–109, pp. 13–14, 17. Not long after SB8 was enacted, another lawsuit was filed, this time in the Western District of Louisiana. A group of plaintiffs (the Callais plaintiffs) asserted that SB8, and specifically District 6, was a racial gerrymander that violated the Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiffs from Robinson intervened in the litigation, seeking to defend Louisiana’s decision to draw a second majority-minority district. Because the Callais plaintiffs challenged “the con- stitutionality of the apportionment of congressional dis- tricts,” a District Court of three judges was convened to hear the suit. 28 U. S. C. §2284(a). The court held a 3-day preliminary injunction hearing, which was consolidated with a trial on the merits. Observing that SB8’s “second majority-minority district . . . stretches some 250 miles from Shreveport in the north- west corner of the state to Baton Rouge in southeast Loui- siana, slicing through metropolitan areas to scoop up pock- ets of predominantly Black populations from Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette, and Baton Rouge,” the court con- cluded that the map effected a racial gerrymander that “vi- olates the Equal Protection Clause.” Callais v. Landry, 732 F. Supp. 3d 574, 582, 588 (WD La. 2024). Judge Stewart of the Fifth Circuit dissented. See id., at 614. The State of Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 17 Opinion of the Court Louisiana and the Robinson intervenors appealed the deci- sion directly to this Court, and the Court noted probable ju- risdiction. 604 U. S. 1007 (2024). See 28 U. S. C. §1253. After an initial round of briefing and argument last Term, the Court restored these cases to the calendar for reargu- ment this Term. See 606 U. S. 923 (2025). We ordered sup- plemental briefing on the following question: “Whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.” 606 U. S. 993 (2025). And because the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority district had been prompted by an order suggesting that such a district is required by the Vot- ing Rights Act, our question necessarily implicated the cor- rectness of our longstanding assumption that compliance with the Voting Rights Act may justify what the Constitu- tion generally condemns: the use of race as a basis for gov- ernment action. This question was pending in several lower-court cases, but in light of the potential impact of those cases on upcoming elections, we concluded that reso- lution of the question in this suit was appropriate. III A In considering whether the Constitution permits the in- tentional use of race to comply with the Voting Rights Act, we start with the general rule that the Constitution almost never permits the Federal Government or a State to dis- criminate on the basis of race. Such discrimination triggers strict scrutiny, and our precedents have identified “only two compelling interests” that can satisfy that standard. SFFA, 600 U. S., at 207. One compelling interest, not relevant here, is “avoiding imminent and serious risks to human safety in prisons, such as a race riot.” Ibid.; see Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499, 512–513 (2005). The only other compelling interest we have found is “remediating specific, 18 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute.” SFFA, 600 U. S., at 207. To “rise to the level of a compelling state interest,” an ef- fort to remediate past discrimination “must satisfy two con- ditions.” Shaw II, 517 U. S., at 909. “First, the discrimina- tion must be ‘identified discrimination.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 499, 500, 505, 507, 509 (1989)). In other words, the State or Federal Gov- ernment must identify the specific instances of past dis- crimination that it aims to remediate and, in light of that specification, must “ ‘determine the precise scope of the in- jury it seeks to remedy.’ ” 517 U. S., at 909 (quoting Croson, 488 U. S., at 498 (opinion for the Court)). The States and Federal Government have no compelling interest in gener- ally remediating “past discrimination in a particular indus- try or region” or “the effects of societal discrimination.” 517 U. S., at 909–910. Second, after identifying the specific in- stance of discrimination, “the institution that makes the ra- cial distinction must have . . . a ‘strong basis in evidence’ to conclude that [its] remedial action [is] necessary.” Id., at 910 (quoting Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 277 (1986)). “Our acceptance of race-based state action has been rare for a reason.” SFFA, 600 U. S., at 208. “ ‘Distinctions be- tween citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U. S. 495, 517 (2000)). And in redistrict- ing, “where the State assumes from a group of voters’ race that they ‘think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls,’ it engages in racial stereotyping at odds with equal protection man- dates.” Miller, 515 U. S., at 920 (quoting Shaw I, 509 U. S. 630, 647 (1993)). The question before us now is whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act should be added to our very short list Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 19 Opinion of the Court of compelling interests that can justify racial discrimina- tion. To answer that question, we must understand exactly what §2 of the Voting Rights Act demands with respect to the drawing of legislative districts. We therefore turn to the text of that provision. B 1 As amended in 1982, §2 states: “(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a man- ner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on ac- count of race or color . . . as provided in subsection (b). “(b) A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect rep- resentatives of their choice. The extent to which mem- bers of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their pro- portion in the population.” 52 U. S. C. §10301. This is not the easiest language to parse, and we will therefore break it down in steps. Beginning with subsection (a), we take as given that a legislative districting map may constitute a “standard, practice, or procedure.” If that were not so, there would have been no statutory basis for any of 20 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court our §2 vote-dilution cases. See Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S. 874, 895–896 (1994) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment). Therefore, subsection (a) means that a districting map may run afoul of §2 if it “results in a denial or abridgement” of the right to vote “on account of race or color.” With that established, subsection (b) explains when such 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.” §2(b). In this complicated verbal formulation, the key concept for present purposes is “less opportunity than other mem- bers of the electorate to . . . elect representatives of their choice.” Ibid. This language sets a baseline against which to assess the opportunity of minority voters: the “oppor- tunity” that “other members of the electorate” have “to elect” their preferred candidates. To understand this base- line, we must nail down the meaning of three terms: “less opportunity,” “other members of the electorate,” and “elect.” In isolation, “opportunity” could refer to either a desired outcome or a chance to achieve that outcome. As used in §2(b), however, “opportunity” must mean a chance to achieve a desired result, because the Voting Rights Act does not guarantee equal outcomes. See White, 412 U. S., at 765–766. Accordingly, “less opportunity” must mean a lesser chance. In ordinary usage, “less opportunity” often takes on such meaning. One might say, for example, that men under 6 feet tall have less opportunity to play in the NBA than those who stand at least 6 feet 7 inches (the cur- rent median). The next term—“other members of the electorate”—spec- ifies the comparator to be used in determining whether the group protected by subsection (a) has suffered or is threat- ened with suffering “less opportunity . . . to elect represent- atives of their choice.” In conceptualizing the members of Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 21 Opinion of the Court this comparator group, we may think of a randomly selected member of the electorate who has particular voting prefer- ences, or we may think of a randomly selected group of vot- ers who share certain voting preferences. These voting preferences may be based on a candidate’s party affiliation, ideology, stance on a particular policy issue, personal cha- risma, or some other characteristic or set of characteristics. But whatever they are, the situation of these randomly se- lected voters must be compared with that of minority voters alleged to have suffered vote dilution. This brings us to the final term: “to elect.” As used in §2(b), this term must refer to the achievement of electoral victory by casting a ballot. 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 to this question depends on the voting prefer- ences of other voters in the district. For example, in a dis- trict where most voters prefer Democratic candidates, a Re- publican voter in that district will have a low chance of securing the election of his or her preferred candidate. But that chance would be substantially higher if the district were instead filled with voters who prefer Republican can- didates. The roster of voters who end up in a given district depends, in turn, on the districting criteria used by the State in drawing a legislative map. If a districting map is produced by computer, as is gener- ally the case today, we may think of all the parameters in the algorithm that the mapmaker uses. One necessary pa- rameter would be the number of districts required by law, and another would have to be a range of inter-district pop- ulation variations that is small enough to comply with the one-person, one-vote requirement. The algorithm might then go on to lay out and assign priorities to whatever 22 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court additional permissible criteria the legislature chooses to use. For example, the legislature might want to minimize changes in the prior map, avoid districts with discontiguous territory, and avoid splitting counties or municipalities. It might impose a certain standard of compactness, aim to protect some or all incumbents, or promote the prospects of a particular political party. When this algorithm is used, the map it produces may place a particular voter or group of voters in a district in which a majority generally agrees, generally disagrees, or only sometimes agrees with their voting preferences. But in any event, the “opportunity” of these “members of the electorate” to contribute their votes to a winning cause is whatever opportunity results from the application of the State’s combination of permissible crite- ria. That is what our randomly selected individual voter and group of voters can expect regarding their opportunity to elect a preferred candidate. And under §2, a minority voter is entitled to nothing less and nothing more. 2 Not only is this the best reading of the statutory text, but it also ensures that §2 of the Voting Rights Act does not ex- ceed Congress’s authority under §2 of the Fifteenth Amend- ment. That provision confers the “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appropriate legislation.” Thus, to lie within Congress’s authority, §2 of the Voting Rights Act must “effectuate by ‘appropriate’ measures the constitu- tional prohibition” in §1 of the Fifteenth Amendment. Kat- zenbach, 383 U. S., at 308. Our Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment jurisprudence delineates what constitutes “appropriate” legislation in the sense relevant here. See City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507, 518 (1997) (stating that Congress has “parallel power to enforce the provisions” of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments). In legislation enforcing these Amendments, Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 23 Opinion of the Court “[t]here must be a congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end.” Id., at 520. As the Court has long held, the Fifteenth Amendment bars only state action “ ‘motivated by a discriminatory pur- pose.’ ” Reno v. Bossier Parish School Bd., 520 U. S. 471, 481 (1997) (quoting Mobile, 446 U. S., at 62). So a law that seeks to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment by prohibiting mere disparate impact would fail to enforce a right that the Amendment secures. That is never “appropriate,” Katzen- bach, 383 U. S., at 308, because Congress cannot “enforce a constitutional right by changing what the right is,” City of Boerne, 521 U. S., at 519. For this reason, the focus of §2 must be enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment’s prohibition on intentional ra- cial discrimination. When §2 is properly interpreted in the way we have outlined, it is sufficiently congruent with and proportional to the Amendment’s prohibition. While that interpretation does not demand a finding of intentional dis- crimination, it imposes liability only when the circum- stances give rise to a strong inference that intentional dis- crimination occurred. Suppose, for example, that the application of a State’s districting algorithm yields numer- ous maps with districts in which the members of a minority group constitute a majority, and suppose that the State can- not provide a legitimate reason for rejecting all those maps and eliminating all majority-minority districts. In such a situation, the inference of racial motivation is strong, and §2 of the Fifteenth Amendment permits the imposition of liability without demanding that the courts engage in the fraught enterprise of attempting to determine whether the state legislature as an institution, as opposed to certain in- dividual members or the State’s hired mapmaker, was mo- tivated by race. Only when understood this way does §2 of the Voting Rights Act properly fit within Congress’s Fifteenth 24 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court Amendment enforcement power. See, e.g., I. N. S. v. St. Cyr, 533 U. S. 289, 299–300 (2001) (“[I]f an otherwise ac- ceptable construction of a statute would raise serious con- stitutional problems, and where an alternative interpreta- tion of the statute is ‘fairly possible,’ we are obligated to construe the statute to avoid such problems” (citation omit- ted)). By contrast, interpreting §2 of the Voting Rights Act to outlaw a map solely because it fails to provide a sufficient number of majority-minority districts would create a right that the Amendment does not protect. And such an inter- pretation would run headlong into the Act’s express dis- claimer against racial proportionality. Properly understood, §2 thus does not intrude on States’ prerogative to draw districts based on nonracial factors. “Redistricting constitutes a traditional domain of state leg- islative authority.” Alexander, 602 U. S., at 7. The Consti- tution imposes some important restrictions on the States’ exercise of this power, but they are otherwise free to draw districts as they please. We have held that they may use traditional districting factors such as “compactness, conti- guity,” “maintaining the integrity of political subdivisions, preserving the core of existing districts,” and protecting in- cumbents. Bush, 517 U. S., at 964; Miller, 515 U. S., at 906, 916. Nothing in the Constitution requires States to heed these criteria, of course, and the desirability of some of these criteria might be disputed. But because they are not forbidden by the Constitution, it is up to each State to de- cide what weight, if any, they warrant. The same is true with respect to the drawing of districts to achieve partisan advantage. Disapproval of partisan ger- rymandering dates back to the founding. See Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U. S. 684, 696–697 (2019). But parti- san gerrymandering claims are not justiciable in federal court. Id., at 718. “Federal judges have no license to real- locate political power between the two major political par- ties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 25 Opinion of the Court Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions.” Ibid. Thus, in considering the constitu- tionality of a districting scheme, courts must treat partisan advantage like any other race-neutral aim: a constitution- ally permissible criterion that States may rely on as de- sired. For this reason, as we have repeatedly made clear, when a State defends a districting scheme on the ground that it was drawn for partisan purposes, plaintiffs have a “ ‘spe- cial’ ” burden to overcome. Alexander, 602 U. S., at 9 (quot- ing Cooper, 581 U. S., at 308). “To prevail,” the plaintiff “must ‘disentangle race from politics’ by proving ‘that the former drove a district’s lines.’ ” 602 U. S., at 9 (quoting Cooper, 581 U. S., at 308). “That means, among other things, ruling out the competing explanation that political considerations dominated the legislature’s redistricting ef- forts. If either politics or race could explain a district’s con- tours, the plaintiff has not cleared its bar.” 602 U. S., at 9– 10; see Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S. 234, 258 (2001) (Cromartie II ) (rejecting a racial gerrymandering claim when the plaintiffs failed to show “that the legislature could have achieved its legitimate political objectives in alterna- tive ways that are comparably consistent with traditional districting principles”). A plaintiff may carry its disentanglement burden by of- fering an alternative map that achieves all the State’s ob- jectives—including partisan advantage and any of the State’s other political goals—at least as well as the State’s map. See Alexander, 602 U. S., at 10; Cromartie II, 532 U. S., at 258. Today, §2 litigants almost always have the wherewithal to proffer such a map if there is one to be found. See Abbott v. League of United Latin American Cit- izens, 607 U. S. ___ (2025) (holding that the lack of an alter- native map merits a “dispositive or near-dispositive adverse inference” against a racial-gerrymandering plaintiff ); Alex- ander, 602 U. S., at 10 (“[A]ny plaintiff with a strong case 26 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court has had every incentive to produce such an alternative map”); see also Allen, 599 U. S., at 23 (observing that “mod- ern computer technology” allows challengers to “generate millions of possible districting maps for a given State”). But if a §2 plaintiff cannot disentangle race from the State’s race-neutral considerations, including politics, then §2 can- not impose liability. In short, §2 imposes liability only when the evidence sup- ports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity be- cause of their race. Not only does this interpretation follow from the plain text of §2, but it is consistent with the limited authority that the Fifteenth Amendment confers. C This interpretation of §2 does not require abandonment of the Gingles framework. We need only update the frame- work so it aligns with the statutory text and reflects im- portant developments since we decided Gingles 40 years ago. Four historical developments are of particular note. First, vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, where many §2 suits arise. As this Court has recognized, “things have changed dramatically” in the decades since the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U. S. 529, 547 (2013). At the time of the Act’s passage, the Nation had faced nearly a century of “entrenched racial discrimination in voting, ‘an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unre- mitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution.’ ” Id., at 535 (quoting Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 309). But the Voting Rights Act led to “great strides” in the ensuing decades: “voting tests were abolished, disparities in voter registra- tion and turnout due to race were erased, and African- Americans attained political office in record numbers.” 570 U. S., at 549, 553. By 2004, the racial gap in voter Cite as: 608 U. S. ____ (2026) 27 Opinion of the Court registration and turnout had largely disappeared, with mi- norities registering and voting at levels that