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A three-judge federal appeals panel has issued a ruling in a case involving a congressional map in South Carolina following the 2020 Census. According to reports, the trio of Democrat-appointed federal judges has ruled that the state’s 1st Congressional District in the Republican-drawn map was racially gerrymandered and must be redone.
The judges noted that the GOP-controlled state legislature redistricted 30,000 black residents from Charleston County to a nearby county, claiming it “was more than a coincidence,” according to the ruling. Referencing multiple U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the judges wrote that the map violated the 14th amendment.
“After carefully weighing the totality of the evidence in the record and credibility of witnesses, the Court finds that race was the predominant motivating factor in the General Assembly’s design of Congressional District No. 1 and that traditional districting principles were subordinated to race,” they wrote.
According to one definition, gerrymandering is the practice of moving the boundaries around certain districts to achieve a political outcome, giving an unfair advantage to one political party.
South Carolina lawmakers will have until March 31 to redraw the district. The ruling also states that there can be no elections until a new map is drawn and approved.
The Hill reported:
The longtime Republican district, which runs along much of South Carolina’s coast, had in a major upset elected former Rep. Joe Cunningham (D) in 2018. Two years later, Rep. Nancy Mace (R) narrowly defeated Cunningham by 1.3 percentage points.
After the district lines were redrawn, she won on a more comfortable margin of nearly 14 percentage points this past November.
A resident of the district and the NAACP’s South Carolina wing challenged the new maps, also bringing claims of racial gerrymandering in two other congressional districts that were thrown out by the judges.
The three-judge panel, however, did side with the resident and the NAACP regarding their claims about the 1st Congressional District. The judges tossed out other allegations about the district’s boundaries, the outlet reported.
“For decades, South Carolina has tried to push Black voters out of the electoral process and effectively silence us with maps that dilute our political power,” Taiwan Scott, the district resident who filed the case, noted in a statement, according to The Hill.
“Today’s decision finally recognizes this egregious, generations-long effort to box us out of representation. While there is still a lot of work to be done, we are one step closer to rectifying South Carolina’s long history of voter suppression, and one step closer to the representation we deserve,” he added.
Brenda Murphy, president of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, described the decision as a “crucial win.”
“With this order and its call for barring all future congressional elections in CD 1 and ordering the General Assembly to submit a remedial map, we are emboldened and encouraged that we will see fairer congressional maps for South Carolina,” she said, according to The Hill.
Meanwhile, the nation’s highest court heard oral arguments regarding congressional maps in North Carolina that struck down by a state court over similar claims of gerrymandering. At issue is a clause in the U.S. Constitution that some argue gives state legislatures control over the drawing of congressional districts and that state and federal courts have no role in the process.
“Conservative Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical about a state court’s decision to strike down Republican-drawn congressional districts in North Carolina, but it seemed unlikely a majority would embrace a broad theory that could upend election law nationwide,” the New Yorker reported late last month.
“The appeal brought by North Carolina Republicans asks the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to embrace a hitherto obscure legal argument called the ‘independent state legislature theory,’ which could strip state courts of the power to strike down certain election laws enacted by state legislatures,” the outlet continued.
“The independent state legislature argument hinges on language in the Constitution that says election rules ‘shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof,'” the report continued.
“Supporters of the theory, which has never been endorsed by the Supreme Court, say the language supports the notion that, when it comes to federal election rules, legislatures have ultimate power under state law, potentially irrespective of potential constraints imposed by state constitutions,” the outlet said.
