Supreme Court conservatives express doubt over racial gerrymandering in South Carolina congressional map
The Supreme Court’s conservative justices expressed skepticism during oral arguments on Wednesday that South Carolina GOP lawmakers engaged in racial gerrymandering when they redrew congressional lines to benefit Republicans. The case has the potential to impact which party controls the House after next year’s congressional elections.
The district in question was redrawn in 2020 to benefit the GOP and current incumbent, Representative Nancy Mace, who was one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last week. The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a Black voter named Taiwan Scott claim that race played a dominant role in the decision-making process, intentionally diluting the power of Black voters. A federal court previously agreed, referring to the revised map as “bleaching.”
During the arguments, several conservative justices suggested that the map drawers had taken politics, not race, into consideration. Chief Justice John Roberts stated that there was no “direct” evidence that race was the primary factor in the decision-making process. He also noted that there were no unusually shaped districts and that there was a “wealth of political data” that could justify the chosen boundaries.
Justice Samuel Alito echoed these sentiments, suggesting that the lower court had made a serious legal error by invalidating the map based on erroneous expert testimony. Alito emphasized that the individual responsible for drawing the map has years of experience and has worked for both Democrats and Republicans.
On the other hand, the liberal justices on the court argued that the Republican-controlled South Carolina Legislature adopted the maps while considering race as a predominant factor, which would violate the equal protection clause of the US Constitution. Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused Republicans of launching “pot shots” at the experts who claimed that the maps could only be explained by race. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted that the challengers were not required to produce a “smoking gun” to prove their point.
This case comes in the wake of the Supreme Court ordering Alabama to redraw its congressional map to account for the state’s Black voting population. The decision was seen as a positive outcome by liberals who had feared that the court was moving towards making it harder for minorities to challenge maps under the Voting Rights Act. The new map approved by a federal court last week significantly increases the Black population in a second district, potentially leading to the pickup of a Democratic seat in next year’s elections.
The South Carolina case raises questions about when a state crosses the line between permissible partisan goals and illegal racial discrimination. The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and Scott are challenging the state’s 1st Congressional District, claiming that it amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander by using race as the predominant factor in the district’s reapportionment plan.
The Republican-majority South Carolina Legislature sought to create a stronger GOP lean in the district, which had elected Republicans consistently until 2018 when a Democrat won in a political upset. Mace, a Republican candidate, regained the seat in 2020 in a close race. The lower court held that the district constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court by South Carolina Republicans, who argued that race was not the driving factor behind the redistricting decision.
The justices will now deliberate on whether the maps were impermissibly drawn based on race or whether politics was the primary consideration. The decision in this case could have significant implications for future gerrymandering-related lawsuits and could determine the control of the House after the 2022 congressional elections.