SCOTUS: No bias in redrawing of SC congressional district

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday preserved a Republican-held South Carolina congressional district, rejecting a lower-court ruling that said the district discriminated against Black voters.

The ruling was 6-3.

The justices said the Republican-controlled state legislature did nothing wrong during redistricting when it strengthened Rep. Nancy Mace‘s hold on the coastal district by moving 30,000 Democratic-leaning Black residents of Charleston out of the district.

The state argued that partisan politics, not race, and a population boom in coastal areas explain the congressional map.

A lower court had ordered South Carolina to redraw the district after it found that the state used race as a proxy for partisan affiliation in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. But that court had put its order on hold and had already allowed the state to use the challenged map in the 2024 elections.

When Mace first won election in 2020, she edged Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Cunningham by 1%, under 5,400 votes. In 2022, following redistricting driven by the 2020 census results, Mace won reelection by 14%.

The case differed from one in Alabama in which the court ruled last year that Republican lawmakers diluted Black voters’ political power under the landmark Voting Rights Act by drawing just one district with a majority Black population. The court’s decision led to a new map with a second district where Democratic-leaning Black voters comprise a substantial portion of the electorate.

In South Carolina, Black voters wouldn’t have been as numerous in a redrawn district. But combined with a substantial set of Democratic-leaning white voters, Democrats might have been competitive in the reconfigured district.

Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote the majority opinion, in which he was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissenting opinion. She was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The case is Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, No. 22–807.