What unfolds in Louisiana v. Callais will tell us whether the Voting Rights Act is still a living shield or just a hollow relic. Section 2 has been the last resort for communities of color to prove that their voting power was being intentionally diluted, even as politicians insisted they were merely “drawing lines.” If the Court raises the bar beyond reach or rewrites the test, mapmakers will be free to scatter Black, Latino, and Native voters into districts where they are forever outnumbered, while insisting nothing has changed.

The damage will appear as ordinary politics. School boards will quietly shift so certain neighborhoods never again hold a majority. Funding for hospitals, transit, and clean water will follow the new districts, not the people most in need. Coalitions that finally began to win local power will discover that their victories were temporary—undone not at the ballot box, but on a map they never got to see being drawn.