The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether South Carolina Republican lawmakers violated the constitutional rights of Black voters in the Charleston area, wading into a significant case that will determine if the legislature must redraw its congressional maps.
The justices in a brief unsigned order May 15 agreed to hear an appeal brought by state Republican officials who want to reinstate the GOP-crafted voting map that a lower court said unconstitutionally “exiled” 30,000 Black voters from the coastal 1st Congressional District currently held by Republican Nancy Mace.
Depending on what the courts decide, it could determine whether a different congressional map will be in place in 2024 for voters in Beaufort, Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton, Dorchester and Jasper counties.
The case is likely to be argued this fall.
The redistricting case stemmed from an amended complaint filed in 2022 by the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP and Taiwan Scott, a Hilton Head Island resident and a Black constituent who lives in the 1st District.
The lawsuit accuses state Republican lawmakers of unconstitutionally redrawing lines for the state’s 1st, 2nd and 5th congressional seats to disadvantage Black voters — a violation of the 14th and 15th amendments.
In their decision, the panel of judges did not find constitutional violations in the 2nd and 5th districts. But when it came to the coastal 1st District, the three federal judges who heard the case in a downtown Charleston courtroom concluded the district lines reduced the overall Black percentage in the 1st District for political gain.
The process they said in their ruling was “no easy task and was effectively impossible without the gerrymandering of the African American population of Charleston County.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
