US Supreme Court Will Hear South Carolina GOP Appeal on Voting Map

Greg Stohr
·2 min read
1
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

(Bloomberg) -- The US Supreme Court will consider reinstating a Republican-drawn congressional map in South Carolina in a case that could help determine which party controls the House over the next decade.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The justices said they will review a lower court’s conclusion that the GOP-controlled South Carolina legislature engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering when it redrew the state’s seven congressional districts after the 2020 census.

A three-judge panel said that for South Carolina’s 1st District, lawmakers established a target of 17% Black voters, shifting tens of thousands of African Americans out of the district to hit the goal. The configuration left the GOP with a comfortable majority in the Charleston-based district, which elected Republican Representative Nancy Mace in 2022.

South Carolina Republicans led by Senate President Thomas Alexander said the panel, which consisted entirely of Democratic appointees, made a series of legal errors. The appeal contended the lower court failed to look “holistically” at the entire district and should have presumed that lawmakers were acting in good faith.

Republicans say they were motivated by politics, which is permissible, not race.

The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP sued to challenge the map, saying the legislature ignored traditional redistricting principles to dilute Black voting power. The group said a person can’t drive from one end of the coastal district to another without going through the neighboring 6th District.

Both sides said that if the court decided to take up the case, it should put it on a fast track to get a ruling by the beginning of next year.

Since South Carolina picked up a seventh congressional district after the 2010 census, Republicans have held a 6-1 majority every election cycle except for one. Democrat Joe Cunningham won the 1st District in 2018, before losing to Mace two years later.

The case is Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference, 22-807.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.