Christian Smith
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Republican-drawn congressional district in South Carolina, reversing a lower court that had declared its borders an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the judges approved a project that reinforces the Republican leaning of Representative Nancy Mace’s (RS.C.) district.
It helps Republicans keep their seat, even though their map was already being implemented for this year’s elections, regardless of the situation. the decision of the Supreme Court.
The high court’s conservative majority rejected arguments that the bill impermissibly moved about 30,000 black voters from the Charleston area to a different district.
A three-judge panel concluded that race was the predominant factor in the new design, deeming it a racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The decision sided with a black voter and the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP. Justice Samuel Alito, one of the high court’s top conservatives, said the lower panel had paid “only lip service” to the Supreme Court’s doctrines surrounding redistricting.
“This misguided approach infected the District Court’s findings of fact, which were clearly erroneous under the appropriate legal standard. Therefore, we partially reverse the trial court and remand the case for further proceedings,” he continued.
Republican state lawmakers insisted that the borders were changed because of politics, not race, and appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.
In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, joined by liberal colleagues Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the conservative majority is “reworking the law” to “prevent cases of racial gerrymandering.”
“The appropriate response to this case is not to create new obstacles that allow South Carolina to continue to divide citizens along racial lines,” Kagan wrote.
“It is to respect the plausible – no, the more than plausible – conclusions of the District Court that the State engaged in districting based on race. And tell the State that it must redraw District 1, this time without targeting African-American citizens,” he added.
Lawmakers had previously asked the high court to rule by January 1 to give enough time before this year’s elections.
After that deadline passed and the project was still in limbo, the three-judge panel agreed to reinstate the map, meaning it would go into effect in 2024, even if the Supreme Court had ruled otherwise.
The Supreme Court’s decision now preserves the map beyond 2024, although it returns the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that courts should stop adjudicating racial gerrymander claims brought under the 14th and 15th Amendments, saying that should be left to the political branches.
“It is up to us to abandon our misguided efforts and leave district distribution to the politicians,” Thomas wrote.
Updated at 10:45 am
