AG’s Office Joins Amicus to Challenge Unconstitutional Gerrymandering

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - Attorney General Sean D. Reyes joined 12 States in an amicus brief at the Supreme Court of the United States in Louisiana v. Callais. The brief, led by the State of Alabama, challenges racial gerrymandering of congressional districts.

In its most recent redistricting endeavor, Louisiana enacted a congressional map that was challenged and enjoined in 2022 (Robinson v. Ardoin) for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it lacked two majority-black districts. After Louisiana created a new district map to satisfy the injunction in Robinson, these efforts were again challenged and enjoined for violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The amici States argue that the nation's high court should affirm the violation of the Equal Protection Clause, making clear for future legal precedent that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act cannot be read to require racial gerrymandering.

As the States write, "Evidence that black Louisianans have less opportunity to participate in the political process is absent from the record, as the Robinson district court expressly acknowledged. Still, the court held that [Section 2] requires Louisiana to sort voters by race. That betrays an atextual and standardless approach to [Section 2] that this Court should squarely reject…. There is no [Section 2] violation in present-day Louisiana and thus no [Section 2] basis for racially sorting Louisianans." Put simply, "'[t]he courts made us do it' is no excuse to racially gerrymander."

Joining Utah and Alabama on the brief were the States of Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

Read the brief here.