On May 5, 2026, Democracy Docket reported, in an exclusive later picked up by The New Republic and The Root, that Phillip “Bert” Callais, the lead plaintiff in Louisiana v. Callais, was at the “Stop the Steal” protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. On that day and the next, according to Democracy Docket, Callais posted multiple photos and a video from Washington showing himself on the Capitol grounds amid the crowds gathered to block certification of the 2020 election. “It wasn't total chaos as the news will lead you to believe,” he wrote on a video of protesters outside the Capitol building. No report says he entered the building. In the complaint, Callais is described only as a “non-African American voter” from Brusly, Louisiana; he said in 2024 that he was a member of his local board of supervisors.
The Supreme Court decided the case 6-3 on April 29, 2026, in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito. It held that Louisiana's map with a second majority-Black congressional district (SB8) was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, because the Voting Rights Act did not require that district. The Court also held that Section 2 of the Act, “properly interpreted,” “imposes liability only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.” The Court said it was updating the framework for Section 2 claims it had set 40 years earlier in Thornburg v. Gingles. (For the political aftermath, see Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry Suspends the State's U.S. House Primaries by Executive Order, Citing the Supreme Court's Decision Gutting the Voting Rights Act and Trump Tells Republican States to 'Vote Twice' If They Have To and Redraw Their Maps After Callais; Predicts Republicans Will Pick Up 'More Than 20 House Seats'.)
Democracy Docket's review of Callais's social media found a history of election-conspiracy posts. Reposting an Elon Musk post that promoted a widely debunked claim about noncitizen voting, he wrote, “This is f#€king insane, non citizens voting in our country.” He wrote that Tina Peters, the Colorado GOP county clerk convicted for her role in a 2021 voting-system data breach, was persecuted “for exposing the truth,” promoted hand-counted paper ballots as a “solution to our manipulated voting system,” and told a voter with a disability who objected to Trump's call to end mail-in ballots to “find someone to haul you to the polls.” Days after the ruling, election denier Seth Keshel posted a photo shaking hands with Callais, calling him a “hero.”
Democracy Docket itself noted that “There is no indication that Callais' personal views played a role in the Supreme Court's legal reasoning.” Callais is one of twelve plaintiffs, and Newsweek reported in October 2025 that the suit was organized by attorney Paul Loy Hurd and that at least one plaintiff did not realize he was involved. The significance of the reporting is narrower: the named face of a case that reshaped voting-rights law holds the election-conspiracy beliefs behind the Stop the Steal movement, and was at the Capitol protest on January 6.
Correction (September 30, 2026): this entry dated the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision to May 1, 2026. The opinion says it was decided April 29, 2026; the date has been corrected.
Correction (October 2, 2026): this entry credited the reporting to The New Republic; it originated with Democracy Docket. It said Callais attended Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally; Democracy Docket reports photos and video of him on the Capitol grounds at the Stop the Steal protest. It described Section 2 as a rule for “jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination”; Section 2 applies nationwide, and the entry now describes the Court's actual holding from the opinion. It said the case was “steered” by Callais and that he was “motivated” by election-denial theories; he is one of twelve plaintiffs in a lawyer-organized suit, and no source establishes his motive, so that language has been removed. Unsourced claims have also been removed: that within four days of the ruling Trump demanded states “vote twice” and predicted a gain of “more than 20 House Seats,” that Florida and Alabama took specific redistricting steps, that a Heritage Foundation database shows about 85 noncitizen-voting cases, and that this was the largest Voting Rights Act decision of the modern era. The title, which said the decision “gutted” the Act, now describes the holding as narrowing it.