The Supreme Courts conservatives were highly skeptical on Wednesday of arguments that Republicans in the South Carolina legislature unconstitutionally relied on race while drawing congressional district lines.

At issue in Wednesdays case, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, is whether a three-judge federal district court erred when it ruled that the state legislature had unconstitutionally manipulated racial demographics when drawing lines for the states 1st Congressional District, in an effort to achieve a Republican district in the Charleston region.

That district court panel ruled that the states movement of white voters into the district, and Black voters out of it, had the effect of bleaching... African American voters out of the Charleston County portion of [the 1st District], in violation of the 14th Amendments equal protection clause, which forbids the predominance of race in redistricting.

But the conservative justices appeared ready to side with the state, which argued that changes to the district were made solely to entrench a Republican political advantage the kind of partisan gerrymandering that the court gave a green light to in its 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause. In Rucho, the court ruled that the Constitution has nothing to say about partisan gerrymandering and, therefore, such cases cant be judged in federal courts.

During arguments, the conservatives repeatedly questioned the reliability of the evidence presented to the district court, and whether the Black South Carolinian plaintiffs had needed to show direct evidence that the state relied predominantly on race to draw the map lines Republicans desired.

We have never had a case where there has been no direct evidence, no map, no strangely configured districts... and, instead, it is all resting on circumstantial evidence, Chief Justice John Roberts said.