Does SC’s congressional map violate state constitution? Two groups sue to find out

The American Civil Liberties Union and League of Woman Voters are trying again to have the state’s congressional map redrawn.

The ACLU of South Carolina and the League of Women voters have sued the state over the state’s congressional partisan gerrymander, specifically in the 1st Congressional District.

The ACLU previously sued over the state’s congressional map saying it was an illegally gerrymandered on racial basis. However, the state argued it was a partisan gerrymander. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the map saying it is difficult to untangle partisan and racial alliances in South Carolina.

South Carolina’s constitution says “all elections shall be free and open, and every inhabitant of this state possessing the qualifications provided for in this Constitution shall have an equal right to elect officers and be elected to fill public office.”

Democrat Joe Cunningham won the Lowcountry 1st Congressional District in 2018. The toss-up district flipped back to Republican in 2020 when U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace won the seat. After the redistricting following the 2020 census, which moved Democratically leaning precincts into U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn’s district, Mace won her 2022 race by nearly 14 points.

GOP leadership in the Legislature did not immediately comment on the new lawsuit.

Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey previously said the Republican-controlled General Assembly aimed for a congressional map that produced six Republican congressional districts and just one Democratic district.

“It would have been political malpractice for us to sacrifice the 1st (Congressional District),” Massey told reporters in May after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state’s congressional map. “We were not going to pass a plan to sacrifice the First, but that was all about political calculations. And that was the case because those are the rules that the Supreme Court set out that we knew this is something that we could do, so that’s what we did.”

The latest lawsuit argues that the congressional redistricting plan violates voters’ rights to equal protection under law and their rights to be free from viewpoint discrimination, the ACLU said in a news release.

“Partisan gerrymandering is cheating, plain and simple,” said Allen Chaney, legal director for the ACLU of South Carolina. “South Carolina voters deserve to vote with their neighbors, and to have their votes carry the same weight. This case is about restoring representative democracy in South Carolina, and I’m hopeful that the South Carolina Supreme Court will do just that.”

The ACLU and the League of Woman Voters wants the state Supreme Court to take up this case, as opposed to going to starting with a lower court or going through the federal court system.

“South Carolina’s Constitution protects its citizens’ right to exercise equal influence over our elections,” said Lynn Teague, vice president for Issues and Action of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. “We are asking the court to establish redistricting standards consistent with our Constitution. Our political process must not become one that only preserves the power of those already in office, but the rights of the people.”