Decision Alert: Supreme Court Weighs Evidence of Racial Gerrymandering

On May 23, 2024, the Supreme Court held 6-3 in Alexander v. S. Carolina State Conf. of the NAACP that the three-judge panel in the district court erred in finding that race predominated the design of a new proposed district in Charleston County. Justice Alito authored the majority opinion. Justice Thomas wrote a concurrence, with Justice Kagan authoring a dissent.

As summarized in Dykema’s November 2023 edition, South Carolina has seven congressional districts. A district map precleared by the Department of Justice in 2011 (and later upheld in court) divided several counties, including Charleston County, between Districts 1 and 6. The state had to redraw its map because Districts 1 and 6 had major population shifts. A Republican-controlled state legislature redrew those two districts in a way that enhanced the Republican advantage in District 1 while maintaining essentially the same percentage of black voters in the district. The NAACP sued, alleging unconstitutional racial gerrymandering and intentional vote dilution. A three-judge panel in the district court held that the methodology and targets used in the updated districting plan violated the Equal Protection Clause.

The Supreme Court disagreed. The Court held that the district court panel clearly erred in finding racial gerrymandering because the challengers relied on deeply flawed expert reports and did not offer an alternative redistricting map, effectively providing no direct evidence of racial gerrymandering. Additionally, the Court concluded that the district court had disregarded the presumption of legislative good faith by inferring that the state had acted based on racial consequences. The Court held that the independent vote dilution claim failed for similar reasons, noting that the challengers did not show that the state purposefully minimized or canceled out racial or ethnic minorities’ voting potential.

In his concurrence, Justice Thomas questioned whether the Court even had the power to decide redistricting claims, stating that drawing political districts is a task for politicians and not federal judges. Justice Kagan’s dissent, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, criticized the majority for failing to give the district court the significant deference required by the clear error standard. She also argued that the Court’s decision will enable state legislators to use race as a proxy to achieve partisan ends in redistricting.

Takeaway

• The burden for establishing racial gerrymandering or vote dilution is incredibly high, especially when race and partisanship are intertwined, and those challenging a redistricting plan should propose an alternative map showing how the redistricting actors’ partisan goals can be achieved while producing greater racial balance.

For more information, please contact Chantel Febus, James Azadian, Cory Webster, Christopher Sakauye, Monika Harris, Puja Valera, or A. Joseph Duffy, IV.