Louisiana asked the U.S. Supreme Court this week to declare Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional and to bar any use of race in drawing congressional districts, marking a sharp reversal of the state’s previous position in Louisiana v. Callais. In a 47-page brief filed 27 Aug., Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga wrote that the state "wants out of this abhorrent system of racial discrimination" and argued that race-based redistricting cannot be justified under the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments. Section 2 prohibits electoral practices that dilute minority voting power and, since the Court’s 1986 decision in Thornburg v. Gingles, has required states with sizable minority populations to draw districts in which those voters can elect candidates of their choice. Louisiana—where roughly one-third of residents are Black—created a second majority-Black district under court order in 2024 but now contends that doing so violated constitutional equal-protection principles. The state is also asking the Court to overturn Gingles and related precedents that permit race-conscious map-making. By switching sides, Louisiana has left civil-rights groups including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU as the principal defenders of Section 2. They warn that eliminating the provision could reduce minority representation nationwide and upend the closely divided U.S. House. Voting-rights scholars note that the Court, which preserved Section 2 as recently as 2023 in an Alabama case, has nonetheless grown increasingly skeptical of race-based policies. The justices ordered additional briefing during their summer recess and scheduled a rare second round of oral arguments for 15 Oct. 2025. A ruling next term could redefine the balance between the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantees, with implications for redistricting cycles after the 2030 Census.