Supreme Court Sides With Republicans Over South Carolina Voting Map

The Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday for South Carolina to keep using a congressional map that a lower court had deemed an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that resulted in the “bleaching of African American voters” from a district.

The conservative majority, by a 6-to-3 vote, returned the case to the lower court, handing a victory to Republicans by allowing them to maintain boundaries that helped make the district in question a party stronghold.

The immediate effect of the ruling will be limited, as the court’s delay in ruling had already ensured that this year’s elections would take place under the contested map. But the majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., will have an impact beyond South Carolina in the years to come, said Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Justice Alito for a court majority has once again come up with a legal framework that makes it easier for Republican states to engage in redistricting to help white Republicans maximize their political power,” Professor Hasen said.

In essence, the court’s majority held that courts must generally credit lawmakers’ assertions that their goal in redistricting was partisan, which is permissible, rather than based on race, which is not. “We start with a presumption that the legislature acted in good faith,” Justice Alito wrote.

Quoting earlier decisions, he wrote that courts should avoid grave accusations against state lawmakers.