Toward the end of his argument in Callais, Hashim Mooppan seemed to assert that neutering Section 2 would affect only about fifteen congressional districts. In his words, “there are only 15 majority-Black districts” nationwide, so the administration’s proposed poison-pill revision of the Gingles framework wouldn’t “lead to there being no Black representation in Congress or anything remotely approaching that.” This statistic, however, is highly misleading. In fact, the administration’s proposal would cause many more than fifteen districts to lose their protection under Section 2.

First off, while there are only 15 majority-Black congressional districts, there are ten more districts with a Black voting-age population above 45%. In the vicinity of most of these districts, a majority-Black district could have been drawn, meaning that the first Gingles precondition would be satisfied — and a Section 2 suit would likely succeed (under current law) — if the existing district was eliminated. Additionally, most of these ten districts easily exceed a 50% combined threshold for minority voters. So if these voters are mutually politically cohesive, and if the relevant circuit is one that (like most) recognizes coalition claims, these districts would mostly be protected coalition districts.

Second, Mooppan didn’t say anything about groups other than Black voters. But there are thirty-eight majority-Hispanic congressional districts (forty over 45% Hispanic VAP), as well as two majority-Asian-American districts (three over 45% Asian-American VAP). Most of these districts are also protected under the current interpretation of Section 2 — either because they’re already majority-minority districts, because a majority-minority district could be drawn in their vicinity, or because they’re coalition districts.

Put all this together and Mooppan was off in his estimate of congressional districts that could be affected by Callais by more than 300%. In reality, there are close to seventy congressional districts that are probably protected by Section 2, at present, and could be stripped of this protection depending on what the Court chooses to do.