Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens (Abbott v. LULAC): Elevating the Presumption of Legislative Good Faith and the Alternative‑Map Requirement in Racial Gerrymandering Cases

I. Introduction

In Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, 607 U.S. ___ (2025), the Supreme Court, on its emergency (or “shadow”) docket, stayed a three‑judge district court’s injunction against Texas’s 2025 congressional redistricting plan. The stay permits Texas to use its new House map in the 2026 midterm elections while an appeal proceeds.

Although formally framed as an interim order on an application for a stay, the Court’s reasoning—combined with Justice Alito’s concurrence and Justice Kagan’s detailed dissent—effectively advances several important doctrinal themes:

• It strengthens the presumption of legislative good faith in redistricting.
• It elevates the requirement that racial-gerrymandering plaintiffs produce a partisan‑comparable alternative map, treating the failure to do so as warranting a “dispositive or near‑dispositive” adverse inference.
• It deploys and extends the Purcell principle, warning against late judicial changes to election rules, even when the election is still months away.

The case arises against a politically charged backdrop: an overtly partisan, mid‑decade redistricting campaign encouraged by the Trump Administration; a controversial Department of Justice (DOJ) letter pressuring Texas to dismantle “coalition districts” on asserted legal grounds; and a district court’s extensive factual finding that Texas relied predominantly on race, in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, while pursuing its partisan goals.

II. Summary of the Opinion

A. Procedural Posture

• After Texas enacted a new congressional map in August 2025, respondents (LULAC and others) challenged it as a racial gerrymander violating the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
• A three‑judge district court, after a nine‑day hearing, 23 witnesses, thousands of exhibits, and a 160‑page opinion, enjoined use of the 2025 map, ordering a return to the 2021 map for the 2026 cycle.
• Texas applied to the Supreme Court for a stay. The application was presented to Justice Alito and referred to the full Court.

B. The Court’s Order

The Court, in a short order, granted the stay. Citing Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler LLC, 556 U.S. 960 (2009) (per curiam), it concluded that Texas had satisfied the traditional criteria for interim relief:

1. Likelihood of success on the merits: Texas is likely to show that the district court committed at least two “serious errors”:
   • It “failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith” by construing “ambiguous” evidence against the legislature, contrary to Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, 602 U.S. 1 (2024).
   • It failed to draw a “dispositive or near‑dispositive” adverse inference against plaintiffs for not producing a viable alternative map achieving Texas’s partisan goals without the challenged racial features, again contrary to Alexander.
2. Irreparable harm and equities: The Court stressed its repeated admonition that lower courts should not “alter the election rules on the eve of an election,” invoking Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee, 589 U.S. 423 (2020) (per curiam), and applying the Purcell principle to conclude the district court’s injunction improperly disrupted an ongoing primary campaign.

The stay remains in effect pending appeal. If Texas timely files a notice of appeal and jurisdictional statement, the order continues until the Court resolves the case or dismisses the appeal.

C. Separate Writings

• Justice Alito’s concurrence (joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch):
  • He underscores two “decisive” points:
    1. The impetus for the Texas map was “partisan advantage pure and simple.”
    2. The clear-error standard does not apply because the district court’s findings rested on a mistaken understanding of the governing legal principles (particularly Alexander’s burdens and the alternative-map requirement).
• Justice Kagan’s dissent (joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson):
  • She vigorously defends the district court’s factfinding under clear‑error review, recounts in detail the record evidence of predominant racial line‑drawing, and accuses the majority of “playacting” as a trial court.
  • She argues that the district court correctly applied the presumption of legislative good faith and Alexander’s adverse‑inference framework, and that Purcell does not bar relief when Election Day is 11 months away.

III. Detailed Analysis

A. Factual and Procedural Background

Justice Kagan’s dissent supplies the factual picture largely missing from the majority’s terse order:

• Texas had already redrawn its congressional map after the 2020 Census (the 2021 map) and did not plan a mid‑decade redistricting. Mid-decade, overtly partisan redistricting was “nearly unheard of” absent legal necessity.
• The Trump Administration and political allies pressed Texas to redraw its map to increase Republican seats but initially met resistance.
• On July 7, 2025, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to Texas officials expressing “serious concerns” about four “coalition districts” where minority groups together formed electoral majorities. The letter incorrectly asserted that “coalition districts” violate the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment and “must now be corrected.” It warned that failure to change the districts could prompt federal litigation.
• Within two days, Governor Abbott added redistricting to the special session agenda, expressly to address the DOJ’s “constitutional concerns” about the racial composition of certain districts.
• In late August, Texas enacted a new map:
  • It secured five additional Republican‑leaning seats.
  • It “achieved all but one” of the racial objectives DOJ had demanded, dismantling the identified coalition districts and several similar ones.
  • Key formerly coalition districts were converted into bare majority-Hispanic or majority-Black districts, with citizen voting-age populations (CVAP) of 50.2–50.5% for a single minority group, suggesting precise racial targeting.

LULAC and other plaintiffs sued, alleging a racial gerrymander: Texas, they argued, achieved its partisan goals by sorting voters predominantly on the basis of race, in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Texas defended on the ground that it acted only for partisan advantage, claiming racial data played no role in line-drawing despite being readily available in the mapping software.

The three‑judge district court:

• Held a nine‑day evidentiary hearing.
• Heard from 23 witnesses, reviewed thousands of exhibits and many hours of video of legislators and the Governor discussing the plan.
• Issued a 160‑page opinion finding that “substantial evidence” showed race predominated in drawing the 2025 map, even though the end goal was partisan.
• Enjoined the 2025 map and reinstated the 2021 map for the 2026 elections.

B. Precedents and Authorities Cited

1. Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler LLC (2009)

The Court invokes Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler LLC, 556 U.S. 960 (2009) (per curiam), as its source for the “traditional criteria” for a stay:

• Reasonable probability of success on the merits.
• Irreparable injury absent a stay.
• No substantial injury to other parties.
• The public interest favors a stay.

This framework justifies the Court’s willingness to engage in substantial merits analysis at the stay stage, something Justice Kagan criticizes as effectively deciding deep factual disputes on an emergency basis.

2. Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP (2024)

Alexander is the central substantive precedent. There, the Court (in an opinion by Justice Alito) reversed a trial court’s finding of racial gerrymandering, holding that challengers had not met their burden to show race predominated when politics was the asserted motive.

Key principles from Alexander that the Abbott majority and concurrence rely on:

• Presumption of legislative good faith: Courts must presume legislatures act in good faith and must interpret “ambiguous” evidence in the legislature’s favor. Only clear proof of racial predominance can overcome this.
• Burden to “disentangle race and politics”: Because race and partisanship often correlate, plaintiffs bear the burden of proving that race—not politics—predominated. They must “disentangle” the two.
• Alternative-map requirement and adverse inference:
  • When the State’s stated motive is partisan, challengers are expected to produce an alternative map achieving the same partisan goals without the challenged racial effects.
  • The failure to offer such a map permits an adverse inference that the State’s map could not have been drawn without using race—and, paradoxically, that the State’s explanation (partisan advantage) is credible.
  • In Alexander, the Court described that adverse inference as potentially “dispositive in many, if not most, cases where the plaintiff lacks direct evidence” of a racial gerrymander.
• Standard of review: Alexander reaffirmed clear‑error review for factual findings, but also held that when a trial court applies the wrong legal standard, deference drops out and the appellate court reviews under the correct legal framework.

In Abbott, the majority contends the district court:

• Failed to construe “ambiguous” evidence in Texas’s favor, undermining the presumption of good faith.
• Failed to draw a sufficiently strong adverse inference from plaintiffs’ failure to produce an alternative map, contrary to Alexander’s teaching.

Justice Kagan responds that the district court in fact tracked Alexander’s instructions, both on the presumption and the adverse inference, and that what the majority is really doing is re‑weighing facts.

3. Other Racial Gerrymandering and Redistricting Precedents

• Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900 (1995):
  • Established that the State is entitled to a presumption of good faith and that racial gerrymandering claims must show the State “separated its citizens into different voting districts on the basis of race.”
• Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 580 U.S. 178 (2017):
  • Restated that the Constitution forbids States from assigning voters to districts predominantly on the basis of race, absent a compelling interest and narrow tailoring.
• Cooper v. Harris, 581 U.S. 285 (2017):
  • Clarified the “predominant factor” test: plaintiffs must show that race was the dominant motive in placing voters within or without districts.
  • Notably recognized that legislators may “use race as their predominant districting criterion with the end goal of advancing their partisan interests,” and that such conduct is unconstitutional absent a compelling justification.
  • Justice Alito’s separate opinion (cited in his concurrence here) warned that the correlation between race and party makes it easy to weaponize racial-gerrymandering claims to attack partisan gerrymanders.
• Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234 (2001):
  • Held that when race and political affiliation are closely correlated, challengers must show that the legislature could have achieved its legitimate political objectives in alternative ways without race; thus, alternative maps are powerful evidence.
• Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 684 (2019):
  • Declared federal partisan‑gerrymandering claims nonjusticiable political questions.
  • This decision indirectly drives plaintiffs to reframe grievances against partisan maps as racial gerrymandering claims, a dynamic Justice Alito highlights and Justice Kagan acknowledges.

4. Standards of Appellate Review

• Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564 (1985):
  • Articulated the clear-error standard: an appellate court cannot reverse just because it would have decided differently; where the trial court’s view of the evidence is “plausible in light of the record,” it must stand.
• Alexander (again):
  • Emphasized that clear-error review is “demanding” and that deference covers factual determinations and credibility assessments.
  • However, when a trial court proceeds from a “mistaken impression of applicable legal principles,” deference ceases.

5. Election Law and the Purcell Principle

• Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1 (2006) (per curiam):
  • Warned against federal courts changing election rules too close to an election because such changes risk voter confusion and administrative disruption.
• Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee, 589 U.S. 423 (2020) (per curiam):
  • Applied Purcell to reverse a federal court’s injunction issued five days before an election, reiterating that courts should not alter election rules “on the eve of an election.”

In Abbott, the majority extends these principles to a setting where the general election is 11 months away and the primary months away, emphasizing that the “2026 campaign” is already underway.

C. The Court’s Legal Reasoning

1. Likelihood of Success on the Merits

a. Presumption of Legislative Good Faith

The Court faults the district court for failing to “honor the presumption of legislative good faith” by construing “ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature,” contrary to Alexander.

In essence, the majority suggests:

• Whenever evidence can plausibly be read as either:
  • reflecting legitimate or non‑racial motives (e.g., partisanship), or
  • reflecting impermissible racial motives,
• the trial court must, under the presumption of good faith, choose the former unless plaintiffs have produced sufficiently strong evidence to overcome that presumption.

The Court believes the district court instead tended to read ambiguous evidence as confirming racial predominance, thereby flipping the presumption.

Justice Kagan contests that characterization. She notes the district court explicitly quoted and applied Alexander’s instruction to resolve ambiguities in the legislature’s favor, and even declined to treat some legislative statements as sufficient to overcome good faith. For her, once the court added up the DOJ letter, the Governor’s race‑conscious justifications, legislators’ explicit statements about racial targeting, the bare 50% CVAP thresholds, the discredited testimony of the mapmaker, and simulation evidence, the presumption was legitimately overcome.

b. Alternative-Map Requirement and Adverse Inference

The second “serious error” identified by the Court is the district court’s failure to draw a “dispositive or near‑dispositive” adverse inference from plaintiffs’ failure to produce an alternative map.

Building on Alexander and Easley v. Cromartie, Justice Alito’s concurrence elaborates the logic:

• When the State’s stated reason is political (e.g., maximizing Republican seats), and
• Race and partisanship are highly correlated,
• Challengers can easily claim racial gerrymandering for partisan ends.

To curb such strategic litigation, the Court places the burden on plaintiffs to:

• “Disentangle race and politics” by showing that the same partisan outcomes were achievable without racial sorting.
• Provide an alternative map that:
  • Meets the State’s “avowedly partisan goals,” and
  • Does so without the alleged racial manipulations.

In Abbott, the Court emphasizes:

• Respondents’ experts could “easily” have produced such a map if it were possible.
• Their failure to do so “gives rise to a strong inference” that the State’s map was based on partisanship, not race.

The per curiam order thus hardens Alexander’s guidance: the absence of an alternative map is not merely a factor; it must be treated as a “dispositive or near‑dispositive” adverse inference unless offset by exceptional direct evidence.

Justice Kagan acknowledges that Alexander permits an adverse inference, and the district court in fact drew one. However:

• She underscores that Alexander made that inference dispositive only “in many, if not most, cases where the plaintiff lacks direct evidence.”
• Here, she argues, there was “substantial direct evidence” of race-based line‑drawing:
  • The DOJ letter’s racial demands.
  • The Governor’s and legislators’ repeated race‑based justifications.
  • The precise 50+% minority CVAP thresholds.
• Thus, under Alexander’s own terms, the adverse inference should not be dispositive.

She criticizes the majority’s new gloss—calling for a “near-dispositive” inference—as inventing a standard not found in any precedent, nor one the district court could reasonably have anticipated.

c. Clear-Error Review vs. Legal Error

Justice Alito states that the “clear-error standard of review does not apply here because the trial court based its findings upon a mistaken impression of applicable legal principles,” citing Alexander. In other words:

• Once the Supreme Court concludes that the district court misapplied the presumption-of-good-faith and alternative-map doctrines, it is free to disregard deference and effectively re‑assess the evidence.

Justice Kagan responds that:

• The district court carefully applied the legal standards precisely as Alexander had framed them, including:
  • Reciting the presumption of legislative good faith and resolving some ambiguities in Texas’s favor; and
  • Drawing an adverse inference from the absence of an alternative map, but deeming it not dispositive given abundant direct evidence.
• At that point, whether race or politics predominated is a quintessential factual finding, subject only to clear-error review.
• Under Anderson and Cooper, the district court’s conclusion that race predominated was at least “plausible in light of the entire record,” which should have ended the appellate inquiry.

Thus, the clash here is not just about outcomes, but about whether clear-error review meaningfully constrains the Court in racially charged redistricting cases.

2. Irreparable Harm, Equities, and the Purcell Principle

The Court’s second justification for the stay focuses on timing and disruption:

• It stresses that courts “should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.”
• It accuses the district court of improperly inserting itself into “an active primary campaign,” generating confusion and disturbing the federal-state balance in election administration.

Justice Kagan strongly disputes both the characterisation and the application of Purcell:

• Not truly “eve of an election”:
  • Election Day is 11 months away.
  • The primary is months in the future and could itself be rescheduled.
• The “status quo” map:
  • The 2021 map had already governed two election cycles.
  • The reinstated 2021 map is still being used in a special runoff election in early 2026.
• Who caused the timing problem?
  • Texas chose to enact a mid‑decade redistricting plan just months before the 2026 cycle.
  • Plaintiffs challenged immediately, even before the new law was signed, and waived discovery to speed proceedings.
  • The district court issued its lengthy opinion barely a month after post‑hearing briefing.

Kagan warns that if Purcell is read to bar relief whenever a legislature times a redistricting late in the cycle, States will have “a free pass” to implement even “blatantly unconstitutional maps” simply by enacting them close enough to the elections they will govern.

D. The Concurring Opinion (Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch)

Justice Alito’s concurrence, though brief, reveals much about the controlling bloc’s understanding of the case and the direction of the law.

1. Partisan motive as the “indisputable” impetus:
   • Alito notes that the dissent does not “dispute—because it is indisputable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.”
   • This admission is doctrinally important: subsequent to Rucho, partisan advantage is nonjusticiable as such; thus, if the map can be understood as partisan rather than racial, it survives federal challenge.
2. Alternative maps as crucial to disentangling race and politics:
   • Invoking Cooper, Alexander, and Easley, Alito reiterates that when race and politics correlate, plaintiffs can easily “use claims of racial gerrymandering for partisan ends.”
   • To prevent this, burdens must be “critical”: when the State’s asserted reason is political, challengers must produce an alternative map that achieves those partisan aims “just as well” without the alleged racial sorting.
   • Because respondents’ experts “could have easily” produced such a map if possible but did not, there is a “strong inference” that the State’s map is indeed based on partisanship and not race.

Implicitly, Alito’s concurrence signals a readiness to further strengthen the alternative‑map requirement and to treat its absence as nearly outcome‑determinative in many future racial-gerrymandering cases.

E. The Dissenting Opinion (Kagan, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson)

1. Defense of the District Court’s Factfinding

Kagan’s dissent is a comprehensive defense of the district court’s record‑based resolution of the central factual question: whether race predominated, even though the ultimate goal was partisan.

She emphasizes:

• The district court’s intensive process: nine days of hearings, nearly two dozen witnesses, thousands of exhibits, a 3,000‑page record, and a 160‑page opinion.
• The court’s comparative institutional advantages in judging witness credibility and weighing conflicting in‑court testimony and documentary evidence.
• The clear-error standard requires the Supreme Court to uphold any “plausible” view of the evidence, even if the Justices would personally decide differently.

For Kagan, the district court’s conclusion—that race was “all over” the map, used as the chief means to implement partisan goals—is not just plausible but correct. Regardless, she insists it cannot be overturned under clear-error review.

2. Direct and Circumstantial Evidence of Racial Predominance

Kagan catalogues three main categories of direct evidence:

1. The DOJ letter as a racial trigger:
   • The letter transformed a stalled political project into a legal imperative framed in explicitly racial terms, mischaracterizing the law to claim coalition districts were unconstitutional.
   • Given that the only ostensible defect was the absence of a 50% majority of a single racial group, the only way to “rectify” it was to create such a majority—thereby “impos[ing] a 50% racial target.”
2. The Governor’s race-based justifications:
   • Governor Abbott rapidly changed course after receiving the DOJ letter, adding redistricting to the agenda to address the letter’s “constitutional concerns.”
   • In public statements, he described the new map in racial terms: dismantling coalition districts and creating more majority-Hispanic or majority-Black districts, downplaying overt partisan motives.
3. Legislators’ own statements:
   • Sponsors and supporters repeatedly touted that new districts were drawn to be majority-Hispanic or majority-Black, sometimes pointing to deliberate alterations to achieve just over 50% CVAP thresholds.
   • The district court found these statements strongly indicative of intentional racial manipulation.

She then highlights circumstantial evidence corroborating racial predominance:

• The near‑perfect correspondence between DOJ’s racial demands and the enacted map, which went even further in dismantling coalition districts.
• The uncanny clustering of minority CVAP just above 50% in multiple districts, making a purely race‑neutral, partisan explanation statistically implausible.
• Expert simulations generating tens of thousands of race‑neutral, Republican‑favoring maps, none of which produced racial demographics resembling the 2025 map.
• The district court’s credibility determination that the mapmaker’s denial of using racial data was not believable, given the evidence that he had been shown DOJ’s letter in advance and had ready access to racial data in his mapping software.

3. Disagreement on Presumption and Alternative Maps

On the presumption of good faith, Kagan contends:

• The district court recognized and applied the presumption, resolving ambiguous evidence for Texas where appropriate.
• However, the accumulation of direct and circumstantial evidence eventually overcame the presumption, as it must in any successful racial-gerrymandering case.

On alternative maps, she argues:

• The district court drew the adverse inference required by Alexander, noting plaintiffs had not produced a substitute map.
• But because plaintiffs presented copious direct evidence of race‑based line‑drawing, Alexander did not compel treating that inference as dispositive.
• The majority’s “near-dispositive” standard is entirely novel and unsupported by any prior case law.

4. Disagreement on Purcell and Timing

Kagan stresses that:

• The injunction issued 11 months before the general election, not days or weeks before, as in RNC v. DNC or Purcell.
• Returning to the 2021 map actually restores, rather than disrupts, the status quo.
• All delay is attributable to Texas’s late decision to redistrict, not to dilatory plaintiffs or a slow court.

She warns that the majority’s reading of Purcell invites legislatures to enact legally dubious maps close enough to an election to effectively insulate them from judicial scrutiny for at least one cycle.

F. Doctrinal Tensions and Emerging Themes

Abbott v. LULAC highlights several unresolved or sharpening tensions in redistricting doctrine:

• The real bite of clear-error review. The majority’s willingness to treat alleged legal missteps as justifying essentially de novo review casts doubt on how much protection clear-error actually offers trial courts in racially sensitive cases.
• The scope of the alternative-map requirement. Alexander made alternative maps important; Abbott moves toward making their absence “dispositive or near-dispositive,” even in the face of substantial direct evidence—at least in the majority’s view.
• Purcell’s elasticity. What counts as “the eve of an election” is expanding. If 11 months before Election Day still triggers Purcell concerns, future plaintiffs will face increasing difficulty obtaining meaningful injunctive relief.
• Racial vs. partisan motives post‑Rucho. The Court is visibly concerned that plaintiffs are repackaging partisan complaints as racial claims. It is responding by:
  • Reinforcing the presumption of good faith.
  • Demanding stringent proof to separate race from politics.
  • Insisting on alternative maps as a practical prerequisite for success.

IV. Impact and Implications

A. For Racial Gerrymandering Litigation

In practical terms, Abbott (when read with Alexander) reshapes the terrain for racial-gerrymandering claims:

• Alternative maps are now close to mandatory. Plaintiffs who do not submit a carefully constructed alternative plan that:
  • Implements the State’s stated political objectives, and
  • Lacks the alleged racial distortions,
  will likely face a “dispositive or near-dispositive” adverse inference.
• Direct evidence must be overwhelming. Even substantial direct evidence—official letters, gubernatorial and legislative statements, and statistical anomalies—may not suffice to overcome:
  • the presumption of good faith, and
  • the absence of an alternative map,
  particularly on an emergency posture.
• Partisan explanations are more insulated. When States plausibly attribute line‑drawing to partisan goals, courts will be highly reluctant to reclassify those decisions as racially driven without exceptionally strong proof.

B. For Election Law and Timing of Challenges

The Court’s reliance on Purcell and RNC v. DNC suggests:

• Even substantial lead‑time (many months before an election) may not guarantee that a remedial order is considered timely.
• States can, if they choose, tighten the litigation window by enacting mid‑decade maps relatively late in the electoral cycle.
• District courts, anticipating potential stays, may become more cautious about issuing injunctions near elections even when they are confident in their factual findings.

C. For Federal–State Relations and DOJ’s Role

The narrative in Kagan’s dissent also raises institutional questions:

• DOJ’s influence on state redistricting. The case features a DOJ letter pressuring Texas to dismantle coalition districts on legally dubious grounds, a move the district court saw as directing Texas to engage in racial gerrymandering.
• Federal leverage via threatened enforcement. The opinion hints at how federal pressures, couched as legal demands, can facilitate partisan objectives if adopted by receptive state officials.

Although the Court’s majority does not directly pass on DOJ’s conduct, future litigation may invoke this episode as a cautionary tale about federal involvement in state map‑drawing.

D. For the Supreme Court’s Emergency Docket

Finally, Abbott contributes to ongoing debates about the Court’s use of its emergency docket:

• The Court made a decisive, nationwide-impact choice—what map will govern Texas’s 2026 House elections—via a short, unsigned order.
• It did so after a minimal interval (“over a holiday weekend”), in contrast to the district court’s months‑long evidentiary process.
• Justice Kagan’s dissent underscores concerns that the Court is effectively deciding the merits of complex, fact-intensive disputes without full briefing and argument, under the guise of stay decisions.

V. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Racial gerrymandering: Drawing district lines so that voters are grouped (or split) predominantly because of their race. It is unconstitutional unless narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest, such as complying with the Voting Rights Act.
• Predominant factor test: In redistricting, many criteria (partisanship, incumbency, communities of interest, race, etc.) may be considered. A racial gerrymander occurs when race is the dominant reason for where the lines go, not just one factor among many.
• Coalition district: A district where no single minority group is a majority, but two or more minority groups together form a majority and can elect candidates of their choice. Their legal status under the Voting Rights Act is complex and contested; they are not categorically unlawful.
• CVAP (Citizen Voting-Age Population): The number (or percentage) of citizens 18 or older in a district. Courts often look at CVAP by race to determine who can realistically vote, as opposed to total population.
• Presumption of legislative good faith: Courts start from the assumption that legislatures act lawfully. Challengers must bring strong evidence to show that the legislature actually acted with an unconstitutional motive, such as racial discrimination.
• Clear-error standard: A highly deferential appellate standard. An appellate court can overturn a trial court’s factual finding only if, after reviewing the entire record, it is firmly convinced a mistake was made. If the trial court’s view is “plausible,” it must be upheld.
• Purcell principle: A caution that federal courts should be wary of changing election rules close to an election because doing so can confuse voters and administrators and undermine confidence in the process.
• Alternative map requirement: In racial-gerrymandering cases, especially where the State claims it acted for partisan reasons, plaintiffs are expected to show a different map that:
  • Achieves the same political objectives, but
  • Does not have the alleged racial skew.
  Failing to provide such a map can lead courts to infer that the State could not have achieved its goals without using race.
• Adverse inference: A legal presumption against a party who fails to produce evidence that one would normally expect them to have, suggesting that the missing evidence would not support their position.
• Disentangling race and politics: Because voting behavior often correlates with race, courts require plaintiffs to show that the legislature was acting because of race, not merely because of party preferences that happen to align with race.

VI. Conclusion

Abbott v. LULAC is formally a stay decision, but it functions as a significant waypoint in the Court’s evolving racial-gerrymandering jurisprudence. It:

• Strengthens the presumption of legislative good faith in redistricting.
• Elevates the alternative-map requirement, turning the absence of such a map into a “dispositive or near-dispositive” adverse inference in many cases where politics is the asserted motive.
• Applies the Purcell principle in a way that will make trial courts more hesitant to grant redistricting relief as elections approach, even when months remain.

Justice Kagan’s dissent highlights what is sacrificed in this recalibration: robust deference to trial courts’ factfinding, practical avenues for remedying racial discrimination in districting, and the assurance that unconstitutional maps cannot be insulated by strategic timing. The majority, by contrast, prioritizes guarding against the perceived misuse of racial-gerrymandering claims to contest partisan maps and minimizing judicial disruption of elections.

As the appeal proceeds and future cases follow, Abbott will likely be read—especially in concert with Alexander—as raising the evidentiary and procedural bar for successful racial-gerrymandering challenges, particularly in environments where partisan and racial patterns are tightly intertwined. Whatever its formal precedential weight, the decision will exert substantial practical influence over how litigants frame, prove, and defend redistricting plans in the years ahead.