The Supreme Court signaled skepticism Wednesday of claims that South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, currently represented by Republican Nancy Mace, was racially gerrymandered.
The justices heard oral arguments for Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, where a three-judge panel found in January that the state’s map had been racially gerrymandered in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. At issue is the GOP-majority legislature’s redrawing of the district map following the 2020 census, when it moved nearly 30,000 black voters in Charleston County out of the 1st Congressional District and into the 6th Congressional District.
State lawmakers argued this was done with political, not racial motives. Moreover, while they had access to race data, attorney John Gore maintained that they used 2020 election data to determine the boundaries.
“The general assembly had no reason to and did not use a racial target,” Gore said. “It used political data to pursue its political goals.”
“Partisan gerrymandering claims can always be repackaged as racial gerrymandering claims if all plaintiffs in lower courts have to do is ignore direct evidence of intent, infer a racial target from the correlation between race and politics, and point to malleable expert analysis.”
Chief Justice John Roberts said that the Court has not heard a similar case where a racial gerrymandering claim is made purely on “circumstantial evidence.”
“We have said that the burden that you’re assuming of disentangling race and politics is very, very difficult,” Roberts told deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Leah Aden. “You’re trying to carry it without any direct evidence, no alternative map, no odd-shaped districts which we often get in gerrymandering cases, and with a wealth of political data that you’re suggesting your friends on the other side would ignore in favor of racial data.” (RELATED: Supreme Court Redistricting Decision Could Cost Republicans Even More House Seats)
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 2: A view of the U.S. Supreme Court October 2, 2023 in Washington, DC. The U.S. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Justices pressed on the reliability of the expert testimony used in the lower court, questioning why the plaintiffs relied on it rather than coming up with an alternative map demonstrating the same political ends could be met without racially gerrymandering.
“Here, there is no evidence that the legislature could have achieved its partisan tilt, which everyone says is permissible, in any other way,” Justice Neil Gorsuch said. “What do we do with that?”
Justice Elena Kagan questioned why legislatures would rely on racial gerrymandering after the Supreme Court held in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering claims are political questions beyond the reach of federal courts.
“Why do people keep using race when they can just do it directly?” she asked. “Doesn’t the fact that they can do it directly suggest that they’re not? Why do you need race as a proxy?”
The Supreme Court’s ruling could impact the 2024 race in Mace’s district, where her democratic challengers have voiced support for the lower court’s ruling.
Candidate Mac Deford told Live 5 WCSC in September that the map is “something that Nancy Mace has benefited from” and said it was “disturbing” she would not denounce it.
Mace won the district by nearly 14 points in 2022, after the map had been redrawn. In 2020, she won it by just one point.
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