Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In Alexander v. NAACP, decided on May 23, 2024, the Court reversed a trial court decision that found South Carolina’s reapportionment of two of its Congressional Districts had violated the Equal Protection Clause. The State’s reapportionment plan, now sustained by the Supreme Court, intended to divide the State’s First and Sixth Congressional Districts (surrounding the City of Charleston) into Democratic and Republican Party voting districts, despite the State’s recognition that most of the Democratic voters in the Districts were Black. The Court’s majority explained that the Equal Protection Clause prohibited the apportionment of voting districts on the basis of race only when the “predominant” factor in the apportionment process was, in fact, race. Here, the Court found, as a matter of fact, that the “predominant” factor in South Carolina’s reapportionment of its First and Sixth Congressional Districts was party politics, not race.
The Court did not reverse, but merely vacated the trial court’s alternative judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, holding that the State’s reapportionment plan illegally “diluted” the collective voting power of the Districts’ Black residents, leaving that issue open for further consideration on remand to the lower courts. Different laws, such as the 15th Amendment and the federal Voting Rights Act enacted pursuant to that Amendment, may apply to that alternative claim.
The vote on the Court in this case was six to three, with Justice Alito writing the majority Opinion, Justices Gorsuch, Kavenaugh, Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts concurring fully in that Opinion, and Justice Thomas specially concurring only in its result. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissented.
Dan Rhea
RECENT RULINGS 