James F. Blumstein, University Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law and Health Law and Policy, has filed an amicus brief in support of the appellees in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that challenges the validity of a Louisiana congressional map drawn in 2024. Twelve plaintiffs originally filed a civil action in January 2024 alleging that the map violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution.
Blumstein’s brief supports vacating the District Court decision, which required the Louisiana state legislature to draw a new congressional map that includes a second black-majority district, and remanding the case for fact finding.
These actions, Blumstein argues, act in accordance with the analytical structure and doctrinal requirements of Chisom v. Roemer, a 1991 Supreme Court case in which the Court distinguished between claims involving the opportunity to participate in the political process and claims involving the opportunity to elect representatives of minority voters’ choice.
Blumstein’s brief explains that, under Chisom’s interpretation of Section 2 and Section 2(b) of the Voting Rights Act, claims involving the ability to elect are only actionable upon a finding of unequal opportunity to participate in the political process. “That interpretation,” he writes, “has been neglected in subsequent claims of vote dilution under Section 2 – most recently, in Allen v. Michigan… and in this litigation.”
“Neglecting the impact of Chisom has put the ‘results’ analysis of amended Section 2 analytically at sea and runs the risk of developing a substantive, race-based benchmark,” Blumstein writes. “The doctrine of constitutional avoidance… counsels against an interpretation that could jeopardize the constitutionality of amended Section 2, especially when that risky interpretation runs afoul of the already-existing analysis of Chisom.”
Read James F. Blumstein’s Amicus Curiae Brief in Louisiana v. Callais, filed with the Supreme Court on September 24, 2025.
