Reply Brief — Jose A. Trevino, et al., Petitioners v. Steven Hobbs, Secretary of State of Washington, et al.

Supreme Court briefJun 10, 2026

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No. 25-918

In the

Supreme Court of the United States

JOSE TREVINO AND ALEX YBARRA,

Petitioners,

STEVEN HOBBS, in his official capacity as Secretary of

State of Washington, et al.,

Respondents.

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United

States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

REPLY BRIEF OF PETITIONERS

Andrew R. Stokesbary

CHALMERS, ADAMS,

BACKER & WALLEN, LLC

701 Fifth Avenue

Suite 4200

Seattle, WA 98104

(206) 813-9322

Jason B. Torchinsky

Counsel of Record

Elizabeth Price Foley

HOLTZMAN VOGEL

BARAN TORCHINSKY &

JOSEFIAK PLLC

2300 N Street N.W.

Suite 643

Washington, DC 20037

(202) 737-8808

jtorchinsky@

holtzmanvogel.com

Counsel for Petitioners

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ................................

INTRODUCTION .................................................

ARGUMENT .........................................................

THE STATE’S GVR CONCESSION

WARRANTS GRANTING THE

PETITION ..................................................

RESPONDENTS’ STANDING

ARGUMENTS ARE MERITLESS ...........

A. Petitioners Suffered Concrete,

Traceable, and Redressable Injuries ..

B. Permissive Intervenors Have Article

III Standing to Appeal .........................

III. PETITIONERS’ EQUAL PROTECTION

CLAIM HAS NOT BEEN FORFEITED ..

IV. DILUTION CANNOT CURE

DILUTION .................................................

II.

CALLAIS WAS NOT SATISFIED

HERE ..........................................................

A. Strict Scrutiny Applies Because Race

Predominated .......................................

B. The Liability and Remedial Orders

Fail Strict Scrutiny Under Callais .....

VI. THIS CASE IS AN EXCELLENT

VEHICLE ...................................................

CONCLUSION......................................................

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Abbott v. Perez,

585 U.S. 579 (2018) ...................................

Allen v. Caster,

No. 25-243, 2026 WL 1282800

(U.S. May 11, 2026) ...................................

Bartlett v. Strickland,

556 U.S. 1 (2009)........................................ 9, 11

Bennett v. Spear,

520 U.S. 154 (1997) ...................................

Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections,

607 U.S. 71 (2026)......................................

3, 4

Cooper v. Harris,

581 U.S. 285 (2017) ................................... 9, 11

Davis v. FEC,

554 U.S. 724 (2008) ...................................

Dep’t of Com. v. New York,

588 U.S. 752 (2019) ...................................

Diamond v. Charles,

476 U.S. 54 (1986)......................................

6, 7

FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine,

602 U.S. 367 (2024) ...................................

Garza v. Cnty. of Los Angeles,

918 F.2d 763 (9th Cir. 1990) .....................

Gill v. Whitford,

585 U.S. 48 (2018)......................................

Hollingsworth v. Perry,

570 U.S. 693 (2013) ...................................

Louisiana v. Callais,

146 S. Ct. 1131 (2026) ..................... 1, 2, 7, 9-12

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

LULAC v. Perry,

548 U.S. 399 (2006) ...................................

Ne. Fla. Chapter of Associated Gen.

Contractors v. City of Jacksonville,

508 U.S. 656 (1993) ...................................

North Carolina v. Covington,

585 U.S. 969 (2018) ...................................

State Board of Election Commissioners v.

Mississippi State Conference of the

NAACP,

No. 25-234, 2026 WL 1377105

(U.S. May 18, 2026) ...................................

Thornburg v. Gingles,

478 U.S. 30 (1986)................................. 9, 11, 12

Town of Chester v. Laroe Estates, Inc.,

581 U.S. 433 (2017) ...................................

7-8

Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa

Indians v. Howe,

No. 25-253, 2026 WL 1377069

(U.S. May 18, 2026) ...................................

United Airlines, Inc. v. McDonald,

432 U.S. 385 (1977) ...................................

United States v. Hays,

515 U.S. 737 (1995) ...................................

Va. Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg,

501 U.S. 1083 (1991) .................................

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page(s)

Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous.

Dev. Corp.,

429 U.S. 252 (1977) ...................................

Wittman v. Personhuballah,

578 U.S. 539 (2016) ...................................

CONSTITUTION

U.S. Const. art. III......................................... 3, 5-7

INTRODUCTION

The State of Washington asks this Court to grant,

vacate, and reverse (“GVR”) because Louisiana v.

Callais, 146 S. Ct. 1131 (2026), “substantially

changed” Section 2 law. State Opp’n Br. 1. The Palmer

Respondents stand alone in their opposition.

But Callais warrants more than a GVR—it

exposes the Ninth Circuit’s errors on standing and

strict scrutiny, which independently require

correction. The district court applied a nowsuperseded Gingles framework to find a Section 2

violation, then imposed a “remedy” that further

diluted Hispanic voting power while reconfiguring

thirteen of forty-nine districts.1 That unprecedented

remedy injured Petitioners concretely. Trevino—a

Hispanic voter—was reassigned by the court-ordered

remedial map from LD-15 to a less-Hispanic LD-14;

Ybarra—a

Hispanic

incumbent—lost

30,000

constituents to remedial re-sorting and had to

campaign to a materially different, whiter and more

Democratic-leaning electorate. App. 17–18, 34, 78–79,

347–49, 385–89, 396–97.

The Ninth Circuit denied both Petitioners

standing to challenge these injuries, refused to apply

strict scrutiny to a map drawn with an expressly

racial objective, and permitted Section 2 to increase

the very dilution it is meant to cure. Each error is

independent of Callais, but Callais also underscores

that, because Section 2 is inherently race-conscious,

the map must satisfy strict scrutiny via the

Respondents prefer to use a 2019 estimate of 50.02%

Hispanic Citizen Voting Age Population (“HCVAP”). Palmer

Opp’n Br. 4 n.2. But the Ninth Circuit used the more recent 2021

figure of 52.6%. App. 17, 387.

“update[d]” Gingles factors, Callais, 146 S. Ct. at

1143, 1146, 1152, 1159, which the district court never

analyzed.

ARGUMENT

THE STATE’S GVR CONCESSION WARRANTS

GRANTING THE PETITION

The State’s GVR concession warrants granting

that relief, which this Court has already done in Allen

v. Caster, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians

v. Howe, and State Board of Election Commissioners

v. Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP. But the

standing and equal protection questions here are

independent of Callais and will not be resolved on

remand without this Court’s guidance.

II. RESPONDENTS’ STANDING ARGUMENTS ARE

MERITLESS

A. Petitioners Suffered Concrete, Traceable,

and Redressable Injuries

Trevino’s standing for his equal protection claim is

undisputed. App. 17–18. The facts establishing

standing on that basis are also sufficient to establish

standing for Petitioners’ Section 2 challenges. Under

controlling Ninth Circuit precedent, an injury-in-fact

exists where redistricting dilutes minority voting

strength and materially reconfigures the electorate.

Garza v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 918 F.2d 763, 775–76

(9th Cir. 1990). That is what happened here: The court

lowered LD-15’s HCVAP, reshuffled Trevino from LD15 into LD-14, see App. 17–18, 34, 78–79, and removed

30,000 of Ybarra’s constituents while adding whiter,

more Democratic-leaning voters. See App. 347–49.

Those are classic Garza injuries—district-specific

changes to who votes with Petitioners and diminished

electoral opportunities for the affected minority.

Article III does not cabin injury to any particular

legal theory; it recognizes harm from the

reconfiguration itself. See United States v. Hays, 515

U.S. 737, 744–45 (1995); Gill v. Whitford, 585 U.S. 48,

68–69 (2018). Trevino’s physical re-sorting and

changed electorate thus establish injury for Section 2

purposes, just as they do for equal protection. And

Ybarra offered precisely the individualized proof

Wittman v. Personhuballah, 578 U.S. 539, 543–45

(2016), requires—evidence of weakened incumbency

and additional campaign costs to reach 30,000 new

constituents on a compressed timeline. App. 348–49.

Respondents’ “unopposed race” point confuses

outcome with injury. See Palmer Opp’n Br. 23. That

Ybarra ran unopposed does not erase the injury from

remedial reconfiguration; the map continues to govern

his representation and future campaigns. North

Carolina v. Covington, 585 U.S. 969, 976 (2018).

Respondents note only a 0.64% decrease in

Republican lean, but the relevant injury is the

wholesale removal of 30,000 constituents, the forced

expenditures to reach new voters, and the deprivation

of fair process caused by a remedial map that departed

from statutory and constitutional law. Cf. Ne. Fla.

Chapter of Associated Gen. Contractors v. City of

Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 666 (1993); Dep’t of Com.

v. New York, 588 U.S. 752, 767–68 (2019). Under Bost

v. Illinois State Board of Elections, 607 U.S. 71, 79–80

(2026), candidates suffer concrete injury when the

government changes the rules governing which

ballots a candidate must win and which voters he

must persuade. A court-ordered redistricting map

does exactly that.

Respondents’ argument that this construction of

Bost would let “any litigant who might lose” establish

harm, Palmer Opp’n Br. 25 (emphasis in original), is

a straw man. Ybarra’s pocketbook and process

injuries stem not from the liability determination

alone but from the remedial map that followed. If a

remedial map causes such concrete, particularized

harms to candidates, they have standing. Most

disappointed Section 2 litigants will not come close.

The Palmer Respondents also assert Ybarra “does

not reside in or represent the challenged district” and

thus suffered “non-existent harms.” Palmer Opp’n Br.

20. But Ybarra’s injury is district-specific: The

remedial map removed 30,000 of his constituents,

added whiter and more Democratic-leaning voters,

and forced additional expenditures on a compressed

timeline. App. 347–49. Expert analysis identified him

as an incumbent whom the new map “weaken[ed].”

App. 348. His preference for including certain

neighborhoods (see Palmer Opp’n Br. 24) was not a

concession

that

the

wholesale,

race-based

reconfiguration improved his candidacy, and both his

2022 and 2024 races were uncontested—making

“win/loss” an inapt metric.

Respondents insist the liability decision “d[id] not

itself classify any individual on the basis of race” and

that the remedy was drawn “without any

consideration of race.” Palmer Opp’n Br. 19. The

record is otherwise. The court framed its remedial

task in expressly ethnic terms—declaring a

“fundamental goal” to “unite the Latino community of

interest” in the region (App. 27, 37 n.7, 41)—and

rejected maps for failing to pack Hispanic voters into

one district. App. 34, 37 n.7. The court’s expert

admitted he was instructed to “unif[y] the population

centers” associated with that Latino community. App.

342; see also App. 34 (defining the “Latino community

of interest”). And the court approved the new LD-14,

which reduced HCVAP from 52.6% to 50.2% and made

LD-14 “substantially more Democratic,” justifying the

change because Section 2 “require[d] [the court to]

creat[e] a Latino opportunity district.” App. 41. Those

race-based premises confirm Petitioners’ injuries are

fairly traceable to both the liability finding and the

remedy’s race-based design.

FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S.

367, 382–87 (2024), is inapposite. Alliance turned on

attenuated causation through third-party choices;

here, the remedial order operates directly on

Petitioners—Trevino cannot opt out of voting in LD14, and Ybarra cannot opt out of representing a

reconfigured LD-13. The Ninth Circuit’s recognition of

Trevino’s equal-protection standing (App. 17–18)

necessarily concedes the map’s direct operation; the

same injury satisfies Article III for his Section 2

challenge.

Nor did Petitioners “doom[]” their appeal by

moving to hold it in abeyance. Palmer Opp’n Br. 17.

Courts routinely manage dockets to avoid piecemeal

review. The stay preserved judicial economy; it did not

waive standing. When the stay expired, Petitioners

promptly sought review of both the liability ruling and

the remedial map.

Petitioners have standing to challenge both

determinations. Their injuries exist because the court

first found a violation and then imposed a court-

drawn map. App. 33–34, 78–79. Redressability is

satisfied where vacatur of the liability determination

would eliminate the remedial map and restore the

Commission’s plan. Cf. Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154,

168–69 (1997). Abbott v. Perez, 585 U.S. 579, 587

(2018), confirms: A Section 2 liability determination is

the legal trigger that can justify race-conscious

redistricting, so injuries from a race-based remedial

map are fairly traceable to the antecedent ruling. If

courts

could

insulate

erroneous

liability

determinations simply by issuing them in separate

orders, sweeping single-judge remedies can replace a

bipartisan commission’s plan with no adversarial

check whenever the State declines to appeal.

Respondents’ “political aims” argument confuses

motive with injury. Palmer Opp’n Br. 28–30. The

Article III inquiry asks whether a litigant has suffered

concrete, personal harm—not why he chose to fight

about it. See Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous.

Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 260–66 (1977) ("The parties'

motivations are not relevant to standing analysis.").

Every litigant in every redistricting case has political

preferences. In Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. 693,

706–08 (2013), and Diamond v. Charles, 476 U.S. 54,

62–64 (1986), the intervenors lacked any concrete

personal injury. Here, Petitioners have recordsupported

injuries

independent

partisan

preference: Trevino was reassigned from his district,

and Ybarra lost 30,000 constituents, gained a

materially different electorate, and was forced to

spend money on a compressed timeline—harms the

Ninth Circuit itself credited for equal-protection

purposes. App. 17–18, 347–49. That counsel or donors

care about Republican electoral fortunes no more

defeats standing than a civil-rights organization’s

policy agenda defeats a discrimination plaintiff’s

standing. If it did, partisan advocacy-funded parties

in every voting-rights case would be barred—a rule

this Court has never endorsed and that Callais

necessarily rejects.

Petitioners’ positions have been consistent: The

Commission’s LD-15 did not violate Section 2, and if

the court concluded otherwise, the defect would be

equal protection, not “dilution,” because race

predominated. The through-line is that no Section 2

dilution existed to begin with, and neither a liability

determination nor remedy may rest on racial linedrawing that fails strict scrutiny. That is textbook

alternative pleading, not a change of position, as

Respondents claim. See Palmer Opp’n Br. 14.

B. Permissive Intervenors Have Article III

Standing to Appeal

Respondents’ argument against permissiveintervenor standing collapses because the relevant

question is whether the intervenor satisfies Article III,

not how it entered the case. See Diamond, 476 U.S. at

68. Petitioners assert classic personal harms: Trevino

resides and votes in the court-drawn district (App. 17–

18); Ybarra lost 30,000 constituents, incurred new

campaign costs, and faces a materially altered

electorate (App. 347–49). Once the district court

adopted a remedy that harmed Petitioners concretely,

they had standing to challenge both the remedy and

the liability determination that caused it. See Davis v.

FEC, 554 U.S. 724, 733–34 (2008). Even if Petitioners

lacked a concrete injury when they intervened, they

had it when the remedy was ordered. That is all

Article III requires. See Town of Chester v. Laroe

Estates, Inc., 581 U.S. 433, 439–41 (2017); United

Airlines, Inc. v. McDonald, 432 U.S. 385, 394 (1977).

For these reasons, this Court should reverse, and

hold that Petitioners have standing to challenge the

Section 2 liability and remedy; otherwise, these issues

will evade review.

III. PETITIONERS’ EQUAL PROTECTION CLAIM HAS

NOT BEEN FORFEITED

The Palmer Respondents argue that this Court

“should not reach” Petitioners’ equal protection claim

because Petitioners forfeited it by “sandbagging.”

Palmer Opp’n Br. 30. But the Ninth Circuit exercised

its discretion to reach the merits, and having done so,

there is no procedural bar to this Court’s review,

especially since this Court’s equal protection

jurisprudence is “in a state of evolving definition and

uncertainty.” Va. Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg, 501

U.S. 1083, 1099 n.8 (1991) (quotation omitted).

IV. DILUTION CANNOT CURE DILUTION

The district court “remedied” alleged dilution by

reducing HCVAP—from 52.6% in LD-15 to 50.2% in

the court-drawn LD-14—while reconfiguring thirteen

districts—expressly because the new district would be

“substantially more Democratic.” App. 316–17, 331–

32, 385–86, 389. Respondents have not identified a

single instance where a court “remedied” a Section 2

violation by diluting the relevant minority group’s

CVAP. See App. 385–86. Every proposal submitted by

Respondents lowered HCVAP (46.9%–51.7%), and the

court renumbered the district to place Senate

elections in presidential years “when Latino voter

turnout is generally higher.” App. 34, 315–17. That

logic presupposes non-Hispanic crossover voting.2 But

Section 2’s threshold (Gingles I) requires that the

minority be “sufficiently large and geographically

compact to constitute a majority” in a single-member

district; it does not compel crossover or coalition

districts. Bartlett v. Strickland, 556 U.S. 1, 12, 18–21

(2009) (quoting Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 50

(1986)); Cooper v. Harris, 581 U.S. 285, 305 (2017). If

Hispanics must rely on non-Hispanic crossover

support for the district to “perform,” Gingles I was

never met—so the liability finding collapses, and the

remedy is ultra vires.

Allowing “dilution-as-remedy” untethers Section 2

from its purpose and invites the partisan

manipulation Callais warns against. 146 S. Ct. at

1158, 1163. A lawful Section 2 remedy must increase

minority effective voting strength, not decrease it.

Because the court’s remedy reduces HCVAP and

depends on crossover voting by design, it

independently requires reversal.

V. CALLAIS WAS NOT SATISFIED HERE

A. Strict Scrutiny Applies Because Race

Predominated

Race predominated—and strict scrutiny applies.

The district court declared “unit[ing] the Latino

community” its “fundamental goal” and rejected maps

that did not “segregate[] the Hispanic voters” in the

Yakima-Pasco corridor into one district. App. 33–35,

316, 392–93. It defined the “community of interest” in

2 If 50.2% HCVAP were sufficient to elect Hispanic-preferred

candidates, election timing would be irrelevant. This engineering

concedes that this bare majority does not yield a majority of

actual voters, so non-Hispanic support is required to “perform.”

expressly ethnic terms—language, religious and

cultural

practices—traits

“ubiquitous”

across

Hispanic communities. App. 55–57, 365. And the

district’s odd shape—“two ungainly, reaching

appendages,” one up into the City of Yakima and one

down into Pasco, over 80 miles away—was the “direct

result of trying to stitch together” far-flung Latino

populations. App. 363–64. The court’s additional

decision to renumber LD-15 to LD-14 to

“ensure[] . . . elections will fall on a presidential year

when Latino voter turnout is generally higher”

confirms the race-based design. App. 34.

That is race-based decision-making, triggering

strict scrutiny. Callais strengthens this by insisting

courts control for party affiliation when assessing

racial polarization and cautioning against “dressing []

political-gerrymandering claims in racial garb.” 146 S.

Ct. at 1158. The district court did neither.

Respondents’ effort to rebrand the court’s objective

as keeping the Yakama Nation together is belied by

the record. The remedial order never identifies “tribal

governmental integrity” as an independent goal. The

court spoke in expressly ethnic terms—“Latino

community of interest,” “Latino voter[s]”—not tribal

cohesion. App. 34–35, 392–93. A genuine effort to

preserve tribal cohesion would have focused on the

reservation; instead, the court reached over 80 miles

to capture Latino neighborhoods in Pasco—an urban

area with no nexus to the Yakama Nation—producing

the “farflung” district shape that LULAC v. Perry, 548

U.S. 399, 433–35 (2006), condemns. App. 364. The

court’s

findings—shared

language,

religion,

immigrant experience, agricultural work—are

generalized ethnic traits, not “intensely local”

evidence of a singular community of interest. App. 55–

57, 365–67.

Even if Section 2 compliance could justify some

consideration of race, the remedy flunks narrow

tailoring: it lowered HCVAP from 52.6% to 50.2% and

depends on non-Hispanic crossover support—

precisely what Section 2 does not require. Bartlett,

556 U.S. at 14–15, 21–24; Cooper, 581 U.S. at 305. A

court cannot invoke Section 2 to justify a map where

race predominates when the “remedy” reduces the

minority’s effective voting strength and is justified by

generalized ethnic stereotypes rather than districtspecific proof.

B. The Liability and Remedial Orders Fail

Strict Scrutiny Under Callais

The remedial map is inconsistent with Callais.

First, Gingles I: Callais forbids using race as a

districting criterion in illustrative maps and requires

that plaintiffs meet all legitimate State districting

objectives. 146 S. Ct. at 1159. The district court

declared its “fundamental goal” was preserving the

“Latino community of interest.” App. 27, 37 n.7. It also

admitted the remedial map produced a “substantially

more Democratic” district than the original LD-15,

which represented a “bipartisan consensus” that

“promoted competitiveness.” App. 41, 47–48 n.4. The

remedial map thus failed to meet the “State’s specified

political goals.” Callais, 146 S. Ct. at 1159.

Second, Gingles II/III: Callais requires controlling

for party affiliation. Id. The district court accepted

polarization evidence lacking partisan controls and

credited aggregate returns and expert assertions of an

ethnic effect, App. 56–57 & n.8, but it never employed

any method holding constant partisanship to isolate

race. App. 369–74. The court acknowledged that “the

Democratic platform is apparently better aligned with

the economic and social preferences of Latinos in the

Yakima Valley region,” yet drew no legal consequence

from that admission. App. 76. The court even opined

that correlation between race and partisanship “does

not inform the political cohesiveness or bloc voting

analyses.” App. 58–59. Under Callais, that is

dispositive: If Latino cohesion and Anglo bloc voting

are explained by policy-driven partisan preference,

not race, Gingles II/III are not satisfied.

Real-world data underscores the error. In the only

contested election that took place under the original

LD-15, Senator Torres—a Latina Republican—won by

over 35 points, despite the district having only a 1.9point average Republican lean. See App. 68, 315, 324,

326, 330. Respondents dismiss Torres as “not the

Latino candidate of choice,” Palmer Opp’n Br. 27 n.13,

but Torres’s landslide is powerful counter-evidence

that LD-15’s pre-remedy configuration did not “dilute”

Hispanic votes. The court failed to disentangle race

and politics, as Callais demands. 146 S. Ct. at 1159.

VI. THIS CASE IS AN EXCELLENT VEHICLE

No circuit split is required to GVR, and Callais

creates the need for guidance because the framework

it established does not resolve the standing, dilutionas-remedy, and equal protection questions presented

here—issues that will recur in every future Section 2

case proceeding to a judicial remedy. This case is an

ideal vehicle because it presents these issues on a

fully-developed record. A GVR alone would merely

remand without guidance on these important

questions.

CONCLUSION

The petition for a writ of certiorari should be

granted.

Respectfully submitted,