Supreme Court rejects South Carolina racial gerrymandering challenge

The Supreme Court rules in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP on May 23, 2024, that challengers did not prove South Carolina lawmakers used race as the dominant reason for drawing a congressional district. Justice Samuel Alito writes the majority opinion, and Justice Elena Kagan dissents.\n\nThe dispute centered on whether the state moved Black voters out of a congressional district to protect a Republican seat or whether the map was mainly partisan. The Court says federal courts must presume good faith by state legislatures and cannot treat evidence of partisan goals as proof of racial gerrymandering without stronger evidence.\n\nThe ruling matters because race and party often overlap in Southern redistricting. It makes some racial gerrymandering challenges harder to prove when lawmakers can describe the map as partisan rather than racial.