Filed Date: Oct. 12, 2021
Case Ongoing
Clearinghouse coding complete
This case is about citizens of South Carolina challenging the constitutionality of election district apportionment, redistricting, and gerrymandering in their state. On October 12, 2021, the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a private plaintiff, represented by the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. The defendants in the case were South Carolina's Governor, state legislators, and the members of the South Carolina State Election Commission. The complaint alleged that the state's then-current congressional and legislative redistricting maps and the state's handling of their redistricting process violated the Constitution. First, the plaintiffs alleged that population shifts had caused the state's congressional and legislative redistricting plans to become malapportioned in violation of the one person, one vote constitutional principle under Article I, Section 2 and the 14th Amendment, which would infringe on the plaintiffs' 1st and 14th Amendment rights to participate equally in the political process. Second, the plaintiffs asserted that the legislature’s decision to delay the commencement of their redistricting process until early 2022 was violating the plaintiffs' Freedom of Association because the uncertainty over new district boundaries would hurt candidates' ability to effectively run for office and restrict voters’ ability to choose candidates. They also asserted the state's shortened time period for redistricting effectively would preclude sufficient time for public input or judicial review sufficiently in advance of the elections. The plaintiffs sought a declaration that South Carolina's current congressional and legislative plans were unconstitutional; an injunction preventing the defendants from using the old plans in any future elections; an order establishing a schedule by which the State—or the court if they fail—must enact new, lawful congressional and legislative redistricting plans; and an order staying the primary candidate filing and qualification deadlines pending the implementation of lawful new districts.
The case was assigned to District Judge J. Michelle Childs, but the plaintiffs requested a three-judge panel under 28 U.S.C. §2284 on October 15, 2021, which the court granted on December 9. The court noted that numerous three-judge courts have adjudicated challenges to district lines and been affirmed by the Supreme Court. 2021 WL 5853172. On December 16, the Chief Judge for the Fourth Circuit appointed Circuit Judge Toby J. Heytens and District Judge Richard M. Gergel to preside with Judge Childs. The defendants moved to disqualify Judge Gergel on January 6, and he declined to recuse himself on January 10. 2022 WL 2374229. The defendants moved for reconsideration of his recusal on January 18, which he denied on January 19. 2022 WL 2374225. On April 5, 2022, Judge Childs withdrew from the case after being nominated for the D.C. Circuit. District Judge Margaret B. Seymour was assigned to replace Judge Childs on the three-judge panel, but she announced her retirement from the bench a short while later. On July 21, 2022, District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis was assigned to the case.
On November 4, 2021, the House defendants moved the court to stay the case because they argued it was not ripe because new lines had yet to be drawn but would be drawn before the preliminary filing deadlines for the 2022 election cycle. They urged the court to stay the case against them until the legislature actually fails to reapportion in a timely manner. The Senate defendants filed a motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, to stay the case on November 9, 2021. Their arguments were similar to the House defendants’, but they requested a dismissal due to lack of ripeness rather than merely a stay. Also on November 9, the Governor moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the plaintiffs’ freedom of association claims did not survive the Supreme Court’s decision in Rucho v. Common Cause.
The court granted the motion to stay and denied the Senate defendants’ motion to dismiss on November 12, 2021, but it declined to rule on the Governor’s motion, noting in a footnote that the motion went to the merits of the claim rather than jurisdiction. Supporting its decision to stay the case, the court noted that the threat that the Legislature won’t complete redistricting before January was too speculative. It also noted that, if redistricting still had not been completed before the Legislature’s Regular Session (beginning January 11), the threat of vote dilution would be more imminent. In that light, the proceedings were stayed until January 18, 2021. 572 F.Supp.3d 215.
On December 10, 2021, the Governor signed a new state legislature district map into law.
On December 23, 2021, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to add two claims challenging the redistricted maps as unconstitutional. Their first new claim argued the map was a racial gerrymander in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Second, they contended the new districts were drawn with a racially discriminatory intent against Black voters in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments. The plaintiffs added a new request for relief, asking that the court declare the new districts unconstitutional, impose a temporary and permanent injunction barring the defendants from using the plan in any future elections, and order new redistricting plans in the event the defendants failed to adopt new plans by February 15, 2022.
The House defendants and the Governor filed separate motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim on January 6, 2022, with the Governor filing a motion for summary judgment on February 1, arguing that he had legislative immunity from suit for signing a bill into law, and that the general authority of a state’s chief executive is insufficient to make a governor a defendant in a case challenging the constitutionality of a law.
The plaintiffs moved to compel the House Defendants to disclose documents and testimony on February 2, 2022, after the defendants issued a blanket objection to the plaintiffs’ discovery requests by asserting “legislative privilege.” The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part on February 10, 2022, holding that legislative privilege is qualified and depends on the balance of interests. Given the importance of drawing fair election districts, which will exist for a decade, the court granted a large quantity of discovery to the plaintiffs, including depositions of all legislators, staff, and consultants involved in the creation of the maps, and numerous categories of documents related to their creation. 584 F.Supp.3d 152. Many of the motions over the rest of the following year of litigation concern the defendants claiming privilege and moving to quash discovery requests with the plaintiffs in turn filing motions to compel discovery, with the court balancing the respective interests in its rulings.
Also on February 10, the court gave leave to the plaintiffs to file a second amended complaint, 2022 WL 408427, which they filed that same day. At that point, the plaintiffs removed the Governor as a defendant, mooting his previous motions. Prior to February 10, the South Carolina Legislature passed redistricted maps for the state’s U.S. Congressional districts, and the second amended complaint adds two counts challenging those maps as racial gerrymanders and alleging they were drawn with discriminatory intent.
The House defendants filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction on February 14, 2022, arguing that, because the individual plaintiff was not challenging the house district map and the NAACP didn’t identify any members who lived in the challenged districts, the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their complaint against the House defendants. They also argued that the plaintiffs failed to plausibly plead racial gerrymandering. They also moved to stay the order compelling discovery until the jurisdictional issue was resolved.
On the same day, February 14, the court denied the House defendants’ motions, holding that the NAACP plausibly alleged it has 13,000 members who reside in every county of South Carolina, which is enough to show it has standing in the pleading stage. 2022 WL 453533.
On February 15, 2022, in a hearing before Judge Gergel, the plaintiffs and House defendants requested a two week stay to allow for settlement negotiations, which was granted in the hearing.
While settlement negotiations occurred, the Election defendants filed their answer and a motion to dismiss on February 24, 2022, arguing that the plaintiffs fail to plausibly claim the new map results in adverse effects on an identifiable group and was enacted because of that effect, not merely in spite of it.
On April 13, 2022, the court ordered the NAACP to provide the House defendants with the names and addresses of members who reside in each challenged House district. The disclosure was subject to an “attorneys’ eyes only” protective order.
The plaintiffs and House defendants reached a settlement agreement prior to April 22, 2022, but the court denied their motions for approval of the settlement on April 25, holding that the House defendants alone did not have the requisite authority to settle the claims. 2022 WL 2375812.
On May 5, 2022, the plaintiffs and House defendants reached an effective settlement agreement in which the parties agreed that the House defendants would take steps to enact agreed upon districting maps. The agreement contemplates that the State Senate and Governor will complete the legislative process to enact the maps, but doesn’t bind them to do so. In exchange, the plaintiffs agreed to drop counts one and two from their complaint, with the ability to reallege the claims if the maps were not enacted.
The plaintiffs amended their complaint a third time on May 6, 2022 to remove counts one and two as agreed in the settlement. They maintained their challenge to the congressional district maps as racial gerrymandering and intentional discrimination.
In response, the Senate and House defendants filed separate motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim on May 20, 2022. They challenged the plaintiffs’ standing to challenge the district maps and asserted that they had not alleged enough facts to plausibly support their claims. The court denied these motions on June 28, 2022, holding that the private plaintiff had standing to challenge the district he lived in and the NAACP had associational standing because it had members in the challenged districts. The court further held that discriminatory intent and improper use of race in drawing district lines can be proved by circumstantial evidence, and the plaintiffs alleged sufficient circumstantial evidence to survive a motion to dismiss. 2022 WL 2334410.
On August 16, 2022, the Senate and House defendants moved to strike plaintiffs’ supplemental disclosures as improper and to exclude some of their witnesses as untimely, arguing that the timing of the filings violated Federal Rule 26. The court denied the motion to strike on September 2, 2022, choosing instead to extend the discovery deadline to allow the defendants to respond and conduct their own discovery for the new disclosures. 2022 WL 4009058.
The Senate and House defendants moved for summary judgment on August 19, arguing that their maps were drawn as a partisan gerrymander to disenfranchise democratic party voters rather than based on race.
On September 2, 2022 the plaintiffs and defendants filed a substantial number of motions in limine to exclude expert testimony and exclude certain evidence or arguments. In two opinions filed on September 15, the court denied all of the motions because the purpose of evidentiary gatekeeping is to keep unreliable evidence from the jury. Since the forthcoming trial was to be a bench trial, the judges found “there is less need for the gatekeeper to keep the gate when the gatekeeper is keeping the gate only for herself or himself.” 2022 WL 4276713.
The court also denied the defendants’ summary judgment motion on September 15, 2022. It held that, viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs, issues of material fact remained as to whether the defendants engaged in intentional discrimination against Black South Carolinians or used race as a proxy for partisan goals. 2022 WL 4295187.
On October 6, 2022, the three-judge panel held a bench trial. The trial lasted until October 14, with closing arguments held on November 29, 2022. The panel issued a ruling on January 6, 2023, declaring that District 1 was a racial gerrymander and constituted intentional discrimination against the plaintiffs. The court held that the plaintiffs did not meet their burden for Districts 2 and 5. The order enjoined elections in District 1 until further order of the court and gave the South Carolina General Assembly until March 31, 2023 to present the court with a remedial map for consideration. 649 F.Supp.3d 177.
The panel based its District 1 ruling primarily on the fact that the district’s constituency changed significantly while its black voter population remained constant, which required the removal of 30,000 black residents. The standard for finding a racial gerrymander is whether race “predominated” in the drawing of a district’s boundaries (which is also the standard for discriminatory intent in reapportioning districts). The panel found that race predominated in the drawing of District 1, relying on testimony from the redistricting map’s designer as well as statistical modeling provided by expert witnesses. The map’s designer was directed to keep two of the district’s counties whole, which forced him to substantially redraw the boundaries to achieve the plan’s overall political gerrymandering goals. The court based its inference of racial predominance on the upheaval in the district’s population with the percentage of black voters remaining constant, the makeup of specific communities that were split, and models showing that the state’s ostensible partisanship goals could have been achieved without “exiling” black voters from the district. 649 F.Supp.3d 177.
The panel’s determination that District 2 was not a racial gerrymander rested on the fact that its disputed features were consistent with its shape before the present redistricting plan and the intent was consistent with incumbent protection—a permissible redistricting concern. For District 5, the panel determined that the change in black voters from the previous plan to the present plan was too small to carry an inference of racial gerrymandering. 649 F.Supp.3d 177.
On January 27, 2023, the defendants notified the court that they were appealing its ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court—which exercises direct appellate review over decisions of District Courts sitting in three-judge panels—and they moved to stay the order pending the Court’s review. On February 4, 2023, the court denied the defendants’ motion because they did not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits. The court did, however, extend the South Carolina legislature’s deadline to submit a new district map until 30 days after the Supreme Court resolved defendants’ appeal.
On February 17, 2023, the defendants submitted their appeal to the Supreme Court. They argued that the District Court panel failed to apply the presumption of good faith, that it erred in disregarding the alternative-map requirement, used race impermissibly in its decision, misconstrued the predominance standard, and clearly erred in finding racial predominance in South Carolina’s mapmaking. The State of Alabama and the National Republican Redistricting Trust filed amicus briefs on March 29, 2023.
The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction on May 15, 2023, and the case proceeded into the merits briefing stage. 143 S.Ct. 2456. On July 14, 2023, a number of parties submitted amicus briefs, including the United States (in support of neither party); Judicial Watch, Inc.; the governor of South Carolina; all six of South Carolina’s Republican congresspeople in the House of Representatives; the State of Alabama; the National Republican Redistricting Trust; and the Fair Lines America Foundation. Another tranche of amicus briefs were filed on August 18, 2023. The amici included: the Constitutional Accountability Center, political science professors, historians, the Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos and Jowei Chen, and Congressman James Clyburn. The Court granted the Solicitor General of the United States leave to participate in oral arguments on September 26, 2023, and oral arguments were held on October 11, 2023.
As of November 15, 2023, the case was ongoing.
Summary Authors
Terry Howard (1/3/2023)
Terry Howard (11/15/2023)
For PACER's information on parties and their attorneys, see: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/60656841/parties/south-carolina-state-conference-of-the-naacp-the-v-alexander/
Aden, Leah C (South Carolina)
Audain, Raymond (South Carolina)
Barnes, Anna Kathryn (South Carolina)
Bryant, Christopher James (South Carolina)
Barber, Hamilton Bohanon (South Carolina)
Lewis, Mary Geiger (South Carolina)
Audain, Raymond (South Carolina)
Barnes, Anna Kathryn (South Carolina)
Bryant, Christopher James (South Carolina)
Colarusso, Gina Marie (South Carolina)
Coleman, Santino (South Carolina)
Derieux, Adriel I (South Carolina)
Freedman, John Arak (South Carolina)
Fuisz, Jeffrey A (South Carolina)
Gryll, Sarah Michelle (South Carolina)
Hindley, John Mark (South Carolina)
Hirschel, Andrew Richard (South Carolina)
Ingram, Antonio Lavalle (South Carolina)
Jr, David Allen (South Carolina)
Naifeh, Stuart (South Carolina)
Osaki, Samantha (South Carolina)
Pergament, Adam (South Carolina)
Ramer, Paula Rachel (South Carolina)
Barber, Hamilton Bohanon (South Carolina)
Burchstead, Michael Reid (South Carolina)
Crum, Mary Elizabeth (South Carolina)
Diamaduros, Konstantine Peter (South Carolina)
Hollingsworth, Jennifer Joan (South Carolina)
Jr, Thomas Ashley (South Carolina)
Kenny, Stephen J (South Carolina)
Lambert, William Grayson (South Carolina)
Mathias, Andrew Addison (South Carolina)
Mills, Christopher Ernest (South Carolina)
Moore, Mark Carroll (South Carolina)
Nicholson, Thomas Wells (South Carolina)
Parente, Michael Antonio (South Carolina)
Ricard, Rhett Douglas (South Carolina)
Shedd, Michael Gregory (South Carolina)
Shedd, Erica Wells (South Carolina)
Stringfellow, La'Jessica (South Carolina)
Traywick, Vordman Carlisle (South Carolina)
See docket on RECAP: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/60656841/south-carolina-state-conference-of-the-naacp-the-v-alexander/
Last updated Dec. 1, 2023, 9:55 p.m.
State / Territory: South Carolina
Case Type(s):
Key Dates
Filing Date: Oct. 12, 2021
Case Ongoing: Yes
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a Black South Carolinian voter.
Plaintiff Type(s):
Non-profit NON-religious organization
Attorney Organizations:
Public Interest Lawyer: Yes
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: No
Class Action Outcome: Not sought
Defendants
State of South Carolina (Columbia, Richland), State
Defendant Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Constitutional Clause(s):
Special Case Type(s):
Available Documents:
Injunctive (or Injunctive-like) Relief
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Plaintiff
Nature of Relief:
Injunction / Injunctive-like Settlement
Source of Relief:
Form of Settlement:
Court Approved Settlement or Consent Decree
Content of Injunction:
Issues
Voting:
Redistricting/district composition
Discrimination-basis:
Race: