As big as Callais was, I think Allen v. Milligan may prove to be more significant. The Court smacked down the notion that the government "defies" court order when it takes actions designed to be tested before the Supreme Court. The Court also signaled that the presumption of good faith for purposes of Section 2 should apply to other Fourteenth Amendment contexts. (Indeed, I wonder why prosecutors should not get the same presumption of good faith under Batson; this is a topic I am developing.) But the very first sentence of Allen dropped a bomb that most people may have missed:
In Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U. S. ___ (2026), to resolvethe tension between vote-dilution claims under §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and our colorblind Constitution, we updated the standards for §2 liability established by Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986).
Did you see it? The Court referred to "our colorblind Constitution." Of course, Justice Alito was channelling Justice John Marshall Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). [Update: The majority opinion was styled as per curiam, but I am reasonably confident that Justice Alito was the primary author.]
