Ketanji Brown Jackson rebukes attorney in Supreme Court case: ‘No it’s not’

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Clashes with Louisiana Over Voting Rights in High-Stakes Supreme Court Case

Dur­ing heat­ed oral argu­ments on Wednes­day in Louisiana v. Callais, Jus­tice Ketan­ji Brown Jack­son force­ful­ly pushed back against an attor­ney defend­ing Louisiana’s con­gres­sion­al map — inter­rupt­ing his claim that plain­tiffs were sim­ply seek­ing a sec­ond major­i­ty-Black dis­trict.

“No, it’s not,” Jack­son cut in sharply. “This case is about proven vote dilu­tion and the con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion to rem­e­dy racial dis­crim­i­na­tion.”

Her exchange under­scored the cen­tral ten­sion in the case: whether efforts to fix racial inequities in redis­trict­ing can them­selves be seen as racial dis­crim­i­na­tion.

The Stakes

The out­come of Louisiana v. Callais could pro­found­ly reshape how race is con­sid­ered in draw­ing elec­toral maps — and poten­tial­ly weak­en Sec­tion 2 of the Vot­ing Rights Act, the key fed­er­al safe­guard against racial vote dilu­tion.

If the con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty sides with Louisiana, experts warn it could become far hard­er to jus­ti­fy race-con­scious redis­trict­ing, even when used to cor­rect long-stand­ing inequities. That could dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce minor­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Con­gress and state leg­is­la­tures — par­tic­u­lar­ly as the 2026 midterms approach.

How We Got Here

After the 2020 cen­sus, Louisiana’s leg­is­la­ture approved a con­gres­sion­al map that includ­ed only one major­i­ty-Black dis­trict out of six, despite Black res­i­dents mak­ing up near­ly a third of the pop­u­la­tion.
Civ­il rights groups sued, argu­ing the map dilut­ed Black vot­ing pow­er under the Vot­ing Rights Act. A fed­er­al court agreed, order­ing law­mak­ers to add anoth­er major­i­ty-Black dis­trict.

Law­mak­ers com­plied — but soon after, white vot­ers chal­lenged the revised map, claim­ing it dis­crim­i­nat­ed against them by pri­or­i­tiz­ing race. A low­er court sided with those plain­tiffs, call­ing the new map an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al racial ger­ry­man­der.
The Supreme Court tem­porar­i­ly allowed the map for the 2024 elec­tions but reopened the case for fur­ther review this term — an unusu­al­ly rare step that sug­gests the jus­tices are con­sid­er­ing a broad­er rul­ing.

Jackson’s Rebuttal

When Louisiana Solic­i­tor Gen­er­al Ben­jamin Aguiña­ga argued that the plain­tiffs’ goal from the start was to gain “anoth­er major­i­ty-Black dis­trict,” Jus­tice Jack­son imme­di­ate­ly cor­rect­ed him:

“I thought they came in and said, we are not receiv­ing equal elec­toral oppor­tu­ni­ty because our votes are being dilut­ed,” Jack­son said.
“That’s not the same thing. The sec­ond dis­trict is a rem­e­dy for a proven prob­lem — not an enti­tle­ment.”

Why It Matters

Her remarks, echoed by Jus­tice Ele­na Kagan, high­light­ed the con­sti­tu­tion­al inter­est in rem­e­dy­ing racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, not rein­forc­ing racial divi­sions.

Legal schol­ars note that a rul­ing against the map could set a nation­al prece­dent lim­it­ing race-con­scious dis­trict­ing alto­geth­er — poten­tial­ly giv­ing Repub­li­cans up to 19 new safe House seats if sim­i­lar maps in oth­er states are struck down.

Advo­cates fear Callais could become the next Shel­by Coun­ty v. Hold­er (2013), the deci­sion that gut­ted pre­clear­ance pro­tec­tions and weak­ened fed­er­al over­sight of vot­ing laws in states with his­to­ries of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion.

What’s Next

A rul­ing is expect­ed lat­er this term. What­ev­er the out­come, Louisiana v. Callais is poised to be one of the most con­se­quen­tial vot­ing rights cas­es in a decade — defin­ing how, and whether, Amer­i­ca con­tin­ues to rem­e­dy racial inequities in rep­re­sen­ta­tion.