WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Republicans in South Carolina illegally failed to consider race when they drew a congressional district in a way that removed thousands of black voters, making it harder for civil rights plaintiffs to bring claims of racial gerrymandering.
The court, split 6-3 along ideological lines with conservatives in the majority, said the civil rights group did not do enough to show that lawmakers were focused on race when drawing the Charleston-area district currently represented by Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican.
As the Supreme Court considered the case, much more slowly than expected, the lower court that invalidated the map said it could be used in this year’s elections.
The justices’ decision will therefore have no immediate impact on South Carolina, but it sets the rules for future redistricting efforts, making it easier to draw maps that disadvantage black voters, as long as mapmakers can show they are focusing on politics, not about race.
In the South, black voters tend to be Democrats, so it can be difficult to separate race from politics.
The court sided with Republican state officials who said their only goal was to increase Republican leanings in the district.
As a result of the ruling, Mace’s district will not have to be redrawn, dealing a blow to Democrats hoping to secure a more favorable map. Litigation over a separate claim filed by the plaintiffs against the map could continue.
Writing for the majority, conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “no direct evidence” supports the lower court’s conclusion that race was a fundamental consideration when the map was drawn.
“The circumstantial evidence falls far short of showing that race, not partisan preferences, drove the districting process,” he added.
Alito added that state lawmakers should be given the benefit of the doubt when facing allegations that maps were drawn with discriminatory intent.
“We should not be so quick to launch such accusations against the political branches,” he wrote.
In dissent, liberal Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority had “stacked the cards” against their opponents saying the evidence about the impact on black voters could be easily ignored if the state can offer an alternative narrative that insists voters were divided based on partisan interests.
“What a message to send to state legislators and mapmakers about racial gerrymandering,” she added.
The message to politicians who “may want to directly suppress the electoral influence of minority voters” is: “Go ahead,” Kagan said.
The Supreme Court was reviewing a January 2023 lower court ruling that said race was a predominant concern when one of the state’s seven districts was drawn. Republicans led by South Carolina Senate President Thomas Alexander appealed the ruling.
Republicans redrawn the boundaries after the 2020 census to strengthen the GOP’s control over what has become a competitive district.
Democrat Joe Cunningham won the seat in 2018 and narrowly lost to Mace in 2020. Two years later, with a new map in place, Mace won by a wider margin.
The approximately 30,000 black voters who were removed from the district were placed in the district controlled by Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, who is black. It is the only one of the seven electoral districts controlled by Democrats.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other civil rights groups alleged not only that Republicans illegally considered race when they drew the maps, but that they also diluted the power of black voters in doing so.
The claims were brought under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires the law to apply equally to everyone. The case arose under a different legal theory than this year’s main ruling, in which civil rights advocates successfully challenged Republican-drawn maps in Alabama under the Voting Rights Act.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
