The United States Supreme Court is hearing from South Carolina officials Wednesday, Oct. 11, as they defend a congressional district map drawn by Republicans. The map was blocked by a panel of three federal judges who said the state unconstitutionally moved Black voters from one district to another. In the ruling, the panel said that South Carolina Republicans purposely moved 30,000 Black voters from South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District — which includes parts of Charleston — to give Republicans an edge.
The voters were moved into South Carolina’s 6th District. Ultimately, the court ruled that the map was unconstitutional, violating both the 14th and 15th Amendments.
Now, the Supreme Court — with a six to three conservative tilt — will hear the case, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP.
In recent years, Democrats have been more competitive in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. In the 2018 election, former House Representative Joe Cunningham won the seat in an upset, becoming the first Democrat to win the seat since 1978.
In 2020, Republican Nancy Mace won the seat back in a narrow victory. After Mace’s victory and the 2020 census, Republicans sought to redraw the district map to give it a Republican tilt. To do so, the court ruled that Republicans unlawfully removed voters based on their race from the district and said Republicans deliberately set a limit of 17% of voters in the district to be Black.
Mace won reelection in 2022, and the NAACP and other civil rights groups have since challenged the map.
“This case is about black voters resisting attempts to muzzle their political voice,” said Antonio L. Ingram II, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Gerrymandering is the manipulation of a set of electoral district boundaries to marginalize a particular group of voters while increasing the influence of another group. In this case, South Carolina Republicans are accused of racially gerrymandering, an effort the lower court referred to as “bleaching” the district.
However, South Carolina Republicans say race had nothing to do with the re-mapping, insisting they solely looked at voters’ political leanings.
“As members of the General Assembly and leaders of the General Assembly, we are defending our maps because we believe they were race-neutral and that they were within the confines of the laws that have been established by the United States Supreme Court,” said Speaker of the South Carolina House Rep. Murrell Smith, R-S.C.
The Supreme Court ruling could determine which party would win the congressional seat in 2024. If the lower court’s ruling is upheld, it could help Democrats cut into the thin majority Republicans have in the House. Both parties have requested the Supreme Court issue its ruling by Jan. 1, 2024 — the start of the election year.
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