Nairne v. Landry: Fifth Circuit Confirms Single-Judge Jurisdiction & Broad Organizational Standing in Section 2 Voting-Rights Litigation

Introduction

The Fifth Circuit’s decision in Nairne v. Landry (No. 24-30115, 14 Aug 2025) is a sweeping affirmation of tools long used by Voting Rights Act (VRA) plaintiffs and district courts. The panel—Judges Dennis, Haynes and Ramirez—upheld a district court ruling that Louisiana’s 2022 state-legislative maps (S.B. 1 and H.B. 14) unlawfully diluted Black voting power. In doing so, the court settled (at least within the Fifth Circuit) three recurrent procedural flash-points:

Whether a three-judge district court is mandatory for purely statutory Section 2 claims (Answer: No);
Whether organizations as well as individuals possess Article III standing to press vote-dilution suits (Yes); and
Whether Section 2 continues to supply a private cause of action and to pass constitutional muster (Yes on both counts).

Substantively, the opinion clarifies what evidence satisfies the Gingles pre-conditions, repudiates novel “race-blind” compactness metrics, and reiterates that Section 2 is an effects-oriented statute whose remedies may, when necessary, be race conscious. The decision thus becomes a foundation case for post-Milligan vote-dilution litigation in the Deep South.

Summary of the Judgment

• Holding. The Fifth Circuit affirmed in full the district court’s injunction against Louisiana’s Senate and House maps, finding them violative of Section 2 because they “packed” and “cracked” Black voters, denying them equal opportunity to elect preferred candidates.
• Key procedural rulings.

Single-judge court proper: 28 U.S.C. § 2284 requires a three-judge panel only for constitutional apportionment challenges; statutory Section 2 suits may proceed before one judge.
Standing: Individual Black voters, the NAACP and Black Voters Matter (BVM) all had standing. For the organizations, diversion of resources to combat voter disillusionment qualified as injury-in-fact.
Expedited trial: The district court’s November 2023 schedule—after a stay pending Milligan—was within its broad docket-control discretion.

• Merits. Applying the three Thornburg v. Gingles pre-conditions and the nine “Senate factors,” the panel upheld factual findings that:

Black Louisianians are numerous and geographically compact enough to form additional majority-Black districts;
Voting is intensely racially polarized (Black cohesion + white bloc voting); and
The totality of circumstances—including persistent socioeconomic disparities and racialized campaign appeals—confirms vote dilution.

• Constitutional & statutory defenses rejected. Section 2 still affords a private right of action; it remains a valid exercise of Congress’s Fifteenth-Amendment enforcement power; and 2023 amendments to Fed. R. Evid. 702 justified exclusion of defendants’ rebuttal expert who lacked methodological rigor.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Influence

Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986). Framework for numerosity/compactness, minority cohesion, and white bloc-voting. The panel reiterated that “awareness of race” is not “predominance,” preserving Gingles after Milligan.
Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1 (2023). Supreme Court’s revival of a Section 2 claim against Alabama was the backdrop; Nairne extends Milligan by rejecting “race-neutral benchmark” arguments and reaffirming statistical tools (Reock, Polsby-Popper).
Robinson v. Ardoin (Robinson II), 86 F.4th 574 (5th Cir. 2023). Sister case on Louisiana’s congressional map; the court borrowed Robinson’s reasoning on compactness and organizational standing.
Thomas v. Reeves, 961 F.3d 800 (5th Cir. 2020) (Costa, J., concurring). Provided the textual basis for limiting § 2284 to constitutional challenges.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013). Cited to distinguish the “permanent” nationwide results test in Section 2 from the temporary pre-clearance formula struck down in Shelby.
Other authorities: Cooper v. Harris, LULAC v. Perry, Bartlett v. Strickland, Page v. Bartels, and numerous district-court redistricting cases.

Legal Reasoning

“The contention that mapmakers must be entirely ‘blind’ to race has no footing in our § 2 case law.” — Fifth Circuit, quoting Milligan

1. Jurisdiction & Standing. Relying on plain text and consistent practice, the court held that § 2284’s three-judge requirement is triggered only when constitutional claims are pleaded. Because the plaintiffs’ sole claim was statutory (Section 2), a single judge had subject-matter jurisdiction. For standing, the panel embraced the Havens Realty/Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine dichotomy: organizations can sue when the challenged law “perceptibly impairs” core missions by forcing resource diversion. BVM & NAACP met that test; individual plaintiffs were registered voters in cracked or packed districts.

2. Evidentiary Gate-Keeping. Post-2023 amendments to Rule 702 place a “more-likely-than-not” burden on the proponent. The district court excluded defendants’ statistician (Dr. Solanky) for basing ecological-inference conclusions on only two elections with enormous confidence intervals. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, signaling heightened scrutiny of expert methodology in election cases.

3. Compactness & Racial Predominance. The panel approved the district court’s traditional-criteria-first approach (contiguity, communities of interest, Reock/Polsby-Popper scores) and discounted defendants’ “moment-of-inertia” algorithm as untested and blind to equal-population rules. Race awareness is permissible so long as it is not the sole or dominant factor—an evidentiary, not a mathematical, inquiry.

4. Totality of Circumstances. Every applicable Senate factor favored the plaintiffs, and proportionality was not used as a safe harbor. Particularly persuasive were:

a well-documented history of disfranchisement (Factor 1);
current racial polarization in both partisan and intra-party races (Factor 2);
majority-vote/runoff system & frequent elections that depress turnout (Factor 3);
significant socioeconomic gaps limiting Black political participation (Factor 5);
continued under-representation of Black officials (Factor 7); and
racialized campaign appeals, including the “call a crackhead” ad (Factor 6).

5. Constitutional Defense. Louisiana argued that Congress’s Fifteenth-Amendment power had “expired.” The court deemed the theory incompatible with Milligan, Shelby County, and decades of circuit consensus, emphasizing that Section 2 is a permanent, nationwide remedy.

Impact on Future Litigation and Law

Three-Judge Panels Narrowed. Litigants can no longer insist on § 2284 panels in pure Section 2 cases within the Fifth Circuit, expediting future litigation and curbing forum-shopping.
Resource-Diversion Standing Cemented. Voting-rights organizations need not identify actual members in cracked districts; demonstrable diversion of staff/time suffices.
Expert-Methodology Standards Raised. Rule 702’s 2023 amendments will make district courts more willing to exclude “untested” redistricting metrics.
Race-Neutral Benchmarks Rejected. Defendants’ strategy of offering algorithmically generated “color-blind” maps will carry little weight unless traditional criteria and equal population are preserved.
Constitutional Challenge to Section 2 Foreclosed (Again). The Fifth Circuit’s robust defense of Congress’s enforcement power adds an additional buffer should the Supreme Court be asked to revisit Section 2’s validity.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: Prohibits voting practices that result—even without discriminatory intent—in minorities having “less opportunity” to participate and elect candidates of choice.
“Cracking” & “Packing”: “Cracking” splits a concentrated minority across several districts to dilute influence; “packing” stuffs them into a few districts so their excess votes are wasted.
The Gingles Preconditions: (1) Minority population is large & compact enough to form a majority district; (2) minority voters are politically cohesive; (3) the majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to usually beat the minority’s choice.
Statistical Compactness Tests: Reock: area of district ÷ area of minimum‐bounding circle. Polsby-Popper: 4π × area ÷ perimeter². Scores near 1.0 are perfect circles; 0.2–0.4 is typical for “reasonably configured” districts.
Resource-Diversion Injury: An organization shows standing by proving it had to divert personnel, money or programs to counteract the challenged law, impairing its core mission.
Senate Factors: Nine non-exclusive historical & social factors Congress listed in 1982 as guides for “totality of circumstances” analysis.

Conclusion

Nairne v. Landry is more than a routine affirmance; it is a precedential roadmap for Section 2 litigation after Milligan. By:

confirming that single-judge courts may adjudicate statutory redistricting suits,
embracing organizational standing premised on resource diversion,
endorsing traditional compactness metrics over race-blind simulations, and
rebuffing renewed constitutional attacks on the VRA,

the Fifth Circuit has fortified the procedural and substantive architecture of vote-dilution enforcement. Legislatures in the Fifth Circuit must now reckon with an unequivocal command: compliance with Section 2 is measured by real-world electoral opportunity, not by minimalist mathematical gamesmanship. Equally, civil-rights advocates gain clarified tools—and a shortened pathway—to challenge discriminatory maps. In the broader constitutional dialogue, Nairne affirms that the Fifteenth Amendment’s shield against racial disenfranchisement remains very much alive, and that Congress’s chosen instrument, Section 2, continues to wield full remedial force.