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Cite as: 602 U. S. ____ (2024) 29 KAGAN, J., dissenting got nowhere in Cooper applies once again. The relevant district in Cooper was super-thin, so that the lion’s share of precincts within it were close enough to a boundary line to be easily moved. See id., at 326. And so too here. Recall that the only issue under review is whether the State improperly moved Black voters from District 1 to District 6— because that is the only gerrymander the District Court found. Now turn to the map of South Carolina’s old districts in this opinion’s Appendix. District 1 was a narrow strip on the Atlantic coast; District 6 ran along its whole length. Nearly everyone within District 1 lived close to the border line; so nearly everyone could have been sent to District 6, consistent with contiguity and compactness. That is true even of people who lived on the beach. Under the State’s districting guidelines, “[c]ontiguity by water is sufficient,” so the mapmakers could—and in fact did—split the new District 1’s land area by pulling District 6 all the way to the water. J. S. A. 541a; see Appendix, infra, at 35, Figure 2 (Inset to 2022 Congressional Map). The upshot is that precinct location did not meaningfully constrain the State’s choice of which voters to move from District 1 to District 6. And so the Challengers’ experts were not required to pretend that it did. 8 That is why the majority, to support its contiguity theory, must use a “simple example” of zero relevance to this case. —————— 8 None of that is to say, as the majority seems to think I say, that all or nearly all District 1 precincts touch the District 1-District 6 line. See ante, at 24–25, n. 8. Some of the district’s precincts are indeed several precincts away from the border. But that fact in no way revives the majority’s objection to the expert reports. Because of District 1’s thinness, almost all of its 300 precincts could (contra the majority) “[ ]realistic[ally]” have been moved, either alone or with a few others, to District 6. Ante, at 23. (And so what if with a few others?: The State generally moved precincts around in clumps.) In other words, the State’s preference for contiguity and compactness left almost all precincts on the table as candidates for removal. The choice of which of those precincts to move must therefore have been explained by other variables, as the Challengers’ experts concluded.

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Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether the South Carolina legislature “subordinated” race-neutral districting criteria to draw a Congressional district map in the state and overtly relied on racial considerations.

Alleged Acts: The plaintiffs alleged that the defendant violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by unconstitutionally using race as a factor in drawing a new Congressional map after the completion of the 2020 census.

Procedural history: The plaintiffs first filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, which held that the defendant predominantly relied on race when it drew the map. The Court ordered the defendant to re-draw a new map within 30 days of the Court’s decision. The defendant then appealed the case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Summary: The case concerns South Carolina’s Congressional District 1, which is historically Republican leaning. After completing the 2020 census, the state legislature drew a new Congressional district map that moved many Black voters from District 1 to District 6 – a historically Democrat-leaning district – establishing District 1 as a Republican-heavy location and District 6 as a Democrat-heavy location. After the new map was enacted, the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, along with the South Carolina chapter of the ACLU and multiple other plaintiffs, sued the state in court and alleged that the map violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because the state legislature relied on partisan or racial motives when approving the map. The plaintiffs chiefly alleged that the defendants intended to dilute the voting power of black voters within the state by moving them out of District 1, thereby removing its competitiveness as a possible swing district. The plaintiffs relied on testimony from expert witnesses about the likely partisan swing that would result from drastically shifting the boundaries of the district and argued that the influence black voters wielded in South Carolina would vastly diminish once most black voters were packed into District 6. The case concerns South Carolina’s Congressional District 1, which is historically Republican leaning. After completing the 2020 census, the state legislature drew a new Congressional district map that moved many Black voters from District 1 to District 6 – a historically Democrat-leaning district – establishing District 1 as a Republican-heavy location and District 6 as a Democrat-heavy location. After the new map was enacted, the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, along with the South Carolina chapter of the ACLU and multiple other plaintiffs, sued the state in court and alleged that the map violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because the state legislature relied on partisan or racial motives when approving the map. The plaintiffs chiefly alleged that the defendants intended to dilute the voting power of black voters within the state by moving them out of District 1, thereby removing its competitiveness as a possible swing district. The plaintiffs relied on testimony from expert witnesses about the likely partisan swing that would result from drastically shifting the boundaries of the district and argued that the influence black voters wielded in South Carolina would vastly diminish once most black voters were packed into District 6. An important factor in the Court’s evaluation of this claim is intent to rely on racial considerations when drawing the map. If the government intentionally uses racial considerations in policymaking, then such actions are immediately subjected to strict scrutiny by the court. This means that the government must show there was a compelling government interest to consider race, and the use of race is narrowly tailored to the issue. However, this test is only applied if there was an intent to use race; thus, it cannot merely seem like the legislature relied on racial considerations. As the Court held, the question was not “whether the State used the best available data but whether it is reasonable to infer that the mapmakers’ political data was so obviously flawed that they must have surreptitiously used racial data.” The Court argued, for example, that polling data and political science imply some pattern of similar political beliefs among racial groups. As such, it is possible for a map that is constitutionally gerrymandered by political bias to look very similar to a map unconstitutionally gerrymandered by racial bias. Referencing the case Hunt v. Cromartie, the Court held that “a jurisdiction may engage in constitutional political gerrymandering, even if it so happens that the most loyal Democrats happen to be black Democrats and even if the State were conscious of that fact” (although, it also held that a map is unconstitutional if it was “unexplainable on grounds other than race.”).

Conclusion: The Court held that the South Carolina map did not violate the Constitution because there was not a clear intent by the legislature to rely on race in redrawing District 1. Thus, the map was not subjected to strict scrutiny and was deemed constitutional. The Court ultimately found that the plaintiffs could not satisfactorily prove that race was the defining consideration in drawing the map. As the Court held in Hunt, it argued that a map drawn on purely partisan considerations could look nearly identical to a map drawn on purely racial considerations, and that the possibility of racial bias in a map did not definitively prove it existed or influenced the map’s outcome. The Court rejected the plaintiffs’ complaint that the map had intentionally diluted black voters’ influence in the state and held that the change in percentage of black voters in District 1 before and after its redrawing did not appear malicious or driven by racial intent. Instead, the Court held that the map could just as easily be explained as an attempt to re-draw the district based on partisan considerations and that the Court had no jurisdiction over political matters. Thus, the South Carolina congressional map was upheld.

Legal Issue(s)

Electoral Maps and Districting

Applicable Law(s): U.S. Constitution, Amend. XIV

Region: Americas

Country: United States of America

Language of Decision

English

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: Parliamentary

Date of decision: May 23, 2024

Geolocation

Latitude: 38.858246166413835

Longitude: -77.00683638453484

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP CASE.pdf
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Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP

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