Section 2 Liability After Louisiana v. Callais Requires a Strong Inference of Intentional Discrimination: Missouri Plan Challenge Rejected

Case: City of Hammond v. Lake County Board of Elections (7th Cir. July 2, 2026)

1. Introduction

City of Hammond v. Lake County Board of Elections addresses a novel application of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to a judicial-selection system rather than to districting or the “time, place, or manner” rules that typically dominate modern Section 2 litigation. Indiana ordinarily elects trial judges, but in three populous counties—Lake, Marion, and St. Joseph—it uses a “Missouri Plan” hybrid: (i) gubernatorial appointment from a merit-screened shortlist, followed by (ii) periodic, uncontested retention elections.

Plaintiffs—the City of Hammond and three Lake County voters (including Mayor Thomas McDermott and State Senator Lonnie Randolph)— sued election officials and agencies, alleging that Indiana’s use of this appointment-plus-retention system in Lake County violates Section 2 because minority voters have “less opportunity” than other voters to elect judges “of their choice.” Their theory relied heavily on comparative demographics: minorities comprise over 40% of the voting-age population in Lake County (and Marion), while the rest of Indiana—where contested elections are the norm—is under 20% nonwhite.

The case arrived with an internal circuit tension: Quinn v. Illinois suggested Section 2 does not require offices to be elective, while Bradley v. Work had stated Section 2 applies to Lake County retention elections. The Seventh Circuit ultimately held that it did not need to reconcile those authorities because the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Louisiana v. Callais changed the governing Section 2 standard: liability exists “only when the circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.”

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for defendants. Applying Louisiana v. Callais, the court held that plaintiffs’ Section 2 claim fails because the record cannot support a “strong inference” that Indiana adopted the Missouri Plan in Lake County with intentional racial discrimination.

The opinion emphasizes that Indiana’s 1973 shift to the Missouri Plan followed a 1972 court-administration study reporting “pervasive dissatisfaction” with Lake County trial courts and linking dysfunction to partisan judicial elections. That provenance, the court concluded, points to governance and court-performance goals, not race. The court also rejected reliance on an affidavit from a modern state official referencing Lake County as “highly diverse,” finding it temporally disconnected from 1973 legislative intent and substantively consistent with legitimate anti-partisanship objectives.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

  • Louisiana v. Callais, 146 S. Ct. 1131 (2026)

    This is the decisive authority. The Seventh Circuit treats Callais as a doctrinal reset for Section 2, holding that disparate impact and “equal openness” arguments do not suffice unless the “totality of circumstances” yields a strong inference of intentional discrimination. The panel applies that requirement directly to Indiana’s 1973 adoption of the Missouri Plan in Lake County and finds intent inference unavailable. Critically, the court uses Callais to avoid resolving the earlier Seventh Circuit tension between Quinn and Bradley.

  • Quinn v. Illinois, 887 F.3d 322 (7th Cir. 2018)

    Quinn held that “§ 2 governs the conduct of elections; it does not guarantee that any given public office be filled by election rather than appointment.” It arose from a challenge to Illinois’s decision to appoint (rather than elect) the Chicago school board while electing school boards elsewhere. In this case, the district court found Quinn controlling and entered summary judgment on that basis. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit acknowledges Quinn as central to the parties’ earlier dispute—particularly its comparator logic (“Black and Latino citizens do not vote… but neither does anyone else”)— but ultimately does not rely on Quinn to decide the case, because Callais supplies a more direct dispositive rule.

  • Bradley v. Work, 154 F.3d 704 (7th Cir. 1998)

    Bradley addressed a Section 2 challenge to Lake County’s Missouri Plan arrangement and stated that Section 2 applies to Lake County’s retention elections, analyzing the claim using vote-dilution precedent. The panel here highlights that Bradley is “perplexing” because the claim was moot due to intervening state-law changes, yet the opinion discussed merits at length—casting doubt on the binding precedential force of that analysis (suggesting dicta-like status). The court again avoids choosing between Bradley and Quinn by deciding on Callais grounds.

  • Brnovich v. Democratic Nat'l Comm., 594 U.S. 647 (2021)

    Plaintiffs argued that Brnovich undermined Quinn and provided a “totality of circumstances” framework to evaluate Section 2 claims. The Seventh Circuit uses Brnovich mainly to explain why existing Section 2 frameworks are context-dependent: Brnovich supplies factors tailored to time/place/manner rules, not to structural questions about whether an office is filled by election or appointment. This observation reinforces the court’s characterization of the case as a substance challenge to the Missouri Plan itself. Ultimately, Brnovich recedes because Callais supplies the controlling intent-inference requirement.

  • Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986)

    The court references Gingles as the classic vote-dilution framework designed for redistricting challenges. By contrasting Gingles with Brnovich, the panel underscores that Section 2 doctrine has historically been modular—different tests for different types of voting practices. Here, neither the Gingles preconditions nor the Brnovich factors fit neatly because the plaintiffs target a judicial selection system (appointment + retention), not districting or voting mechanics. The case thereby illustrates why Callais—framed as an overarching intent-inference requirement—becomes outcome-determinative.

  • Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1 (2023)

    Cited as a modern example of Section 2 redistricting litigation. Its role is contextual: it represents the mainstream Section 2 environment (maps and dilution), which differs from the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Missouri Plan’s structure. The citation highlights the novelty of plaintiffs’ theory in this case.

  • State v. Monfort, 723 N.E.2d 407 (Ind. 2000)

    Cited for the proposition that Indiana circuit and superior courts are trial courts of “general jurisdiction.” This matters to plaintiffs’ comparator theory (arguing statewide significance), but the Seventh Circuit treats it as part of background rather than as dispositive. The opinion recognizes the conceptual pull of statewide-judiciary arguments yet does not resolve the comparator issue because it affirms on Callais.

  • Louisiana v. Callais, 145 S. Ct. 434 (mem) (2024)

    The court notes the Supreme Court’s grant/notation of probable appellate jurisdiction as part of the case’s procedural timeline, emphasizing that the governing law changed after briefing and argument in this appeal.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. Reframing the claim: not “how elections are run,” but “what the system is”

A key move in the opinion is definitional. Plaintiffs attempted to cabin the claim to the “retention-election feature” of the Missouri Plan, but the court rejects that framing as unrealistic: appointment and retention function as an integrated selection method. Because plaintiffs sought an injunction replacing retention-only elections with open, contested elections, the court construed the suit as a wholesale attack on the Missouri Plan for Lake County.

B. The “doctrinal puzzle” and why traditional Section 2 tools did not fit

The panel emphasizes the mismatch between the claim and established Section 2 categories. Redistricting cases (illustrated by Allen v. Milligan) and time/place/manner cases (structured by Brnovich v. Democratic Nat'l Comm.) involve voting mechanics or district design. Here, the attack is on a state’s decision to fill a class of offices via merit appointment plus retention.

The court also flags a comparator problem embedded in Section 2(b)’s phrase “other members of the electorate.” If the relevant electorate is the Lake County electorate, then everyone in Lake County is equally constrained to retention ballots—echoing Quinn. If the relevant electorate is statewide (because judges are state judges of general jurisdiction, or because the legislature made the choice), then the plaintiffs’ demographic comparisons gain force. The opinion highlights these issues but declines to resolve them, because Callais makes them immaterial to the outcome.

C. The dispositive rule: Section 2 liability requires a strong inference of discriminatory intent

Applying Louisiana v. Callais, the court holds that Section 2 “cannot impose liability” absent circumstances supporting a strong inference of intentional discrimination. This standard effectively elevates intent from a possible consideration to a gatekeeping requirement. The panel treats plaintiffs’ evidence—largely disparate demographic impact— as insufficient under Callais.

D. Why intent could not be inferred on this record

The court anchors its no-intent conclusion in the contemporaneous historical rationale for the Missouri Plan’s adoption in Lake County: a 1972 Institute for Court Management study reported extraordinary dysfunction and dissatisfaction and linked those problems to the pressures and distractions of partisan judicial elections. The legislature’s 1973 adoption of a merit-selection scheme is presented as a governance response to court-administration failure, not as a racial sorting mechanism.

Plaintiffs attempted to build intent inference via an affidavit from Jerold Bonnet (Secretary of State’s office), asserting that a merit-based method is “essential in a highly populated and highly diverse jurisdiction like Lake County.” The court rejects this as evidence of 1973 discriminatory intent for two independent reasons:

  1. Temporal disconnect: Bonnet joined the office in 2005, decades after the legislative choice.
  2. Substantive ambiguity: describing Lake County as “diverse” and linking merit selection to reducing political influence is consistent with legitimate policy goals, not an admission of racial discrimination.

E. Methodological restraint: deciding narrowly on intervening Supreme Court law

The opinion exemplifies appellate minimalism: rather than wading into the internal circuit inconsistency between Quinn and Bradley, or attempting to shoehorn the case into Brnovich or Gingles, the panel treats Callais as a supervening doctrinal rule that moots the need for further elaboration.

3.3. Impact

A. Practical effect on Section 2 challenges to appointment and retention systems

The immediate consequence is that Section 2 challenges to merit appointment systems—especially those adopted for institutional-performance reasons—face a steep evidentiary burden after Callais. Disparate impact, demographic concentration, and unequal access to contested elections may be insufficient without proof supporting a strong inference of discriminatory intent behind the adoption or maintenance of the system.

B. Doctrinal effect: Section 2’s center of gravity shifts toward intent

The opinion operationalizes Callais in a way that may narrow the domain of Section 2 litigation. Historically, Section 2 (as amended in 1982 and developed in Gingles and later cases) is widely understood to reach certain results-based harms. By treating intent inference as a prerequisite, the decision suggests that many claims previously argued as “results” cases may now require evidence resembling constitutional intentional-discrimination claims—legislative history, sequence of events, departures from normal procedure, and other indicia traditionally associated with intent analysis.

C. Procedural and strategic implications for litigants

Future plaintiffs challenging election structures in Section 2 terms will likely need to:

  • Develop a record targeted at intent (not just impact), including contemporaneous legislative purpose and context.
  • Anticipate governmental justifications grounded in institutional design (e.g., depoliticizing courts), and show those justifications are pretextual.
  • Consider alternative causes of action where intent can be litigated more directly or with different burdens (e.g., constitutional claims), though this opinion itself does not address those routes.

D. Internal Seventh Circuit tension remains, but is now less central

Because the court decides the case on Callais, it leaves unresolved the older tension between Quinn v. Illinois and Bradley v. Work about whether and how Section 2 applies to retention elections and hybrid selection systems. Yet the practical importance of that tension may diminish: if intent inference is required, many structural challenges will fail regardless of comparator choices or whether retention elections count as “political processes leading to nomination or election.”

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

“Missouri Plan” (merit selection + retention elections)
A judicial-selection method where judges are initially appointed from a vetted list (merit screening), then periodically face a yes/no retention vote. Voters do not choose among competing candidates in retention elections.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (“standard, practice, or procedure”)
A federal statute prohibiting voting-related rules that deny or abridge voting rights “on account of race or color.” Section 2(b) speaks in terms of whether political processes are “equally open” and whether protected voters have “less opportunity” to participate and elect preferred candidates.
“Time, place, or manner” rules
Election-administration rules—such as voting hours, absentee-ballot procedures, or precinct rules—often assessed under the multi-factor approach described in Brnovich v. Democratic Nat'l Comm.
Vote dilution and Thornburg v. Gingles
A framework traditionally used in redistricting cases to assess whether district lines dilute minority voting strength. The Seventh Circuit notes that this framework is designed for maps and does not translate cleanly to a challenge to an appointment-and-retention system.
“Strong inference of intentional discrimination”
Under Louisiana v. Callais as applied here, plaintiffs must show circumstances strongly suggesting the government acted with discriminatory intent; showing disparate impact alone is not enough.
Mootness and dicta (as discussed regarding Bradley v. Work)
A case is moot when there is no longer a live dispute to resolve (often because the law changed). Statements about the merits in a moot case can have reduced precedential force, which is why this opinion questions how binding Bradley’s merits discussion is.

5. Conclusion

City of Hammond v. Lake County Board of Elections is a straightforward application of a newly announced Supreme Court constraint on Section 2 liability. Even though the plaintiffs framed a modern disparities-based challenge to Indiana’s distinctive judicial-selection structure in Lake County, the Seventh Circuit held the claim fails because—under Louisiana v. Callais—Section 2 applies only when the circumstances support a strong inference of intentional discrimination.

The court found the historical record points the other way: Indiana adopted the Missouri Plan for Lake County in response to severe administrative dysfunction and dissatisfaction with partisan judicial elections, not in response to (or because of) the county’s racial composition. The decision thus signals that, post-Callais, Section 2 challenges to structural governance choices—especially those justified as institutional reforms—will rise or fall on proof of discriminatory intent, not demographic impact alone.