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Cite as: 602 U. S. ____ (2024) 5 Syllabus and GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined, and in which THOMAS, J., joined as to all but Part III–C. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR and JACKSON, JJ., joined.

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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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