Votebeat’s Nathaniel Rakich and Carrie Levine spoke with multiple legal experts:
Multiple experts said they were struck by the opinion’s embrace of partisan gerrymandering. Citing the Rucho decision, the Callais opinion updated the criteria for proving a Voting Rights Act violation to include the fact that any remedial maps must also achieve the map-drawer’s “specified political goals,” such as partisan gain. Li called this “nonsense.”
Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting for the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, pointed out that the court’s decision in Rucho treated partisan gerrymandering as undesirable, but something federal courts didn’t have jurisdiction to address. In Alito’s Callais opinion, though, “it’s the opposite, and it’s like some protected right that legislatures have,” Gaber said. Alito “elevated it in importance over a statute Congress actually passed, pursuant to its constitutional authority, to prohibit racial discrimination in voting.”
The implications of the decision will take time to play out, and it doesn’t necessarily mean there are no longer any guardrails in redistricting. Partisan gerrymandering is still illegal under some state constitutions, and some states have independent redistricting commissions whose goal is to draw fairer political maps.
But efforts to depoliticize the map-drawing process, which Green noted had been gaining steam in the past couple decades, have hit a major roadblock with states’ 2025-26 decisions to redraw their congressional maps for partisan gain.
However, opponents of partisan redistricting are not entirely out of options. “This decision leaves some room for Congress — not much, but some — to correct the court’s understanding, to readjust the Voting Rights Act, and that will be an imperative,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School.
Vox’s Ian Millhiser is also struck by the new green light for partisan cynicism:
More broadly, Callais is such an effusive love letter to the concept of partisan gerrymandering that it is likely to eliminate any remaining concerns political parties may have that the Supreme Court might push back if states draw maps too obviously rigged in their favor. Rucho already established that partisan gerrymandering is allowed. Callais effectively rules that racial gerrymandering is also allowed, so long as it also achieves partisan ends.
And welcome to this new world:
