Yesterday, the Supreme Court dropped Villarreal v. Texas, 607 U.S. ___ (2026), a Sixth Amendment right-to-counsel case. The decision itself is not why you should care. What matters is who wrote it: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. That single data point just told us, with near certainty, that Justice Samuel Alito is about to author the opinion in Louisiana v. Callais — a redistricting case with the potential to swing up to 19 House seats from Democrats to Republicans before this November’s midterms. And House control, as I’ve been hammering for years, is one of the most important levers for protecting the Second Amendment.
How SCOTUS Opinion Assignment Works — and Why It Matters Here
The mechanics here are worth understanding. Chief Justice John Roberts, as a general practice, distributes opinion-writing assignments so that each Justice authors roughly one opinion per monthly argument session. The October 2025 sitting saw ten cases argued. As of yesterday, eight of those ten have been decided. Justice Jackson, by writing Villarreal, has now authored two opinions from that sitting — meaning she has fulfilled and exceeded her quota.
The only two October-sitting opinions still outstanding are Chiles v. Salazar (No. 24-539), the Colorado conversion therapy speech case, and Louisiana v. Callais (No. 24-109), the Voting Rights Act redistricting case. That leaves exactly two unassigned authors: Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Samuel Alito.
My read is straightforward: Alito writes Callais. He holds seniority over Gorsuch, and Callais is the bigger, more consequential case. Alito is also the author of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022) — the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). He has demonstrated he is willing and able to issue landmark constitutional rulings. Gorsuch most likely takes Chiles v. Salazar.
What Callais Is Actually About
Louisiana v. Callais, No. 24-109, asks whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 52 U.S.C. § 10301, can compel states to draw congressional districts based on race in a way that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause prohibits the government from discriminating on the basis of race. That principle is not ambiguous — the Supreme Court reaffirmed it just three years ago in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), which held that race-based admissions at Harvard and UNC violated both the Equal Protection Clause and civil rights statutes.
The tension in Callais is the same: Section 2 of the VRA has been interpreted by courts to require red-state legislatures to carve out majority-Black and majority-Hispanic congressional districts, effectively guaranteeing those seats go to minority-favored candidates — who have, in practice, been Democrats. Meanwhile, blue states — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, California — face no comparable constraint and gerrymander freely. The result is a structural double standard baked into the congressional map: red states forced to create Democratic pockets, blue states free to eliminate Republican ones.
That structural imbalance is a serious constitutional problem. When a legislature must take race into account to guarantee outcomes for a particular racial group, it is discriminating on the basis of race — the very thing the Fourteenth Amendment forbids. A congressional statute like the Voting Rights Act cannot override the Constitution when the two conflict. The Constitution wins.
The Second Amendment Stakes
I know some of you are asking: this is a redistricting case, so why is it on the Four Boxes Diner? Here is the direct answer.
If Democrats retake the House in November, the Trump legislative agenda stalls — and with it, any prospect of pro-Second Amendment federal legislation. We saw what happens the moment Democrats get unified state power: look at Virginia in the first weeks after Governor Abigail Spanberger took office. Gun bans, restrictions, one-size-fits-all control schemes. That pattern repeats in Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, California, New York, and New Jersey. It is not a theory. It is what they do.
Right now, somewhere between 12 and 19 House seats held by Democrats exist only because VRA Section 2 required the creation of those racial districts. If Callais goes the right way — and with Alito writing it, I believe it will — states like Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas gain the constitutional authority to redraw those maps without the racial thumb on the scale. Several of those seats flip Republican. Republican control of the House is secured, or substantially strengthened, heading into the next Congress.
That matters for the Second Amendment as much as any circuit court ruling.
What Comes Next
Once Callais comes down, the redistricting clock starts. Red-state legislatures that have been forced for decades to draw racially constructed maps will have a Supreme Court decision — authored by the writer of Dobbs, laid out with the thoroughness Alito is known for — telling them they can redraw those lines consistent with equal protection. Some of those redrawn maps will be in place for the November 2026 midterms.
I’ve been a member of the Supreme Court bar for years. I know how these things play out. Villarreal was a quiet case, and most people missed what it revealed. But the opinion-assignment logic is essentially mechanical at this point: Alito is writing Callais. When that decision drops, pay close attention — because it is going to reshape the map of the House of Representatives in ways that directly protect every constitutional right we care about, including the Second Amendment.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.