POLITICS
Supreme Court Considers South Carolina Gerrymandering Case
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday is considering whether South Carolina illegally created race-based congressional districts to benefit Republicans.
According to a lawsuit brought by the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a Black voter named Taiwan Scott, the state’s 1st Congressional District was redrawn after the 2020 census to benefit the GOP after a Democrat won the seat in a 2018 upset. The district, in the southeastern part of the state, had previously been held by Republicans for decades.
The seat was narrowly retaken by Rep. Nancy Mace, the current incumbent, who was one of eight Republicans who voted last week to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the position as House speaker. The new map was used in the 2022 midterm elections.
In January, a district court panel ruled that because race was the primary factor in the changes made to District 1, it amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The court described the change as bleaching Black voters in Charleston County out of District 1.
“To achieve a target of 17% African American population, the court wrote, Charleston County was racially gerrymandered and over 30,000 African Americans were removed from their home district.
State Senate President Thomas Alexander and state Republicans appealed the ruling, arguing that lawmakers considered only politics, not race, when redrawing the map.
The Republican-led state legislature sought to further strengthen the GOP lean of the 1st District, and they argue that such partisan gerrymandering was effectively upheld by the Supreme Court in 2019, when it ruled that Congress could pass laws to prevent partisan districting, but courts could not.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in an amicus, or friend of the court, brief joined by the League of Women Voters of the United States, said that there are longstanding redistricting precedents against racial gerrymandering acknowledged by the Supreme Court.
Race cannot be the predominant factor when drawing district boundaries, even if it is used to achieve political objectives, absent a compelling interest that does not exist here, the Lawyers’ Committee wrote. Lawmakers cannot hide behind the veil of partisanship while undermining racial minorities in the redistricting process.
TMX contributed to this article.
