redistricting

The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved a Republican-held South Carolina congressional district, rejecting a lower-court ruling that said the district discriminated against Black voters.

South Carolina Rep. Russell Ott, D-Calhoun, announced on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024, that he will file in March to run for the redrawn state Senate District 26.

The nation's highest court will now decide if South Carolina's 1st Congressional District was racially gerrymandered and must be redrawn or if a lower court got it wrong.

The Supreme Court is taking up a congressional redistricting case from South Carolina that could shape the fight for partisan control of the House of Representatives. Arguments taking place at the high court Wednesday will focus on a coastal district held by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace. A lower court ordered the district redrawn after finding Republicans who control the state Legislature improperly moved Democratic-leaning Black voters into another district to make the seat safer for Mace.

A federal appeals court has denied South Carolina Republicans' motion for a stay in the ongoing challenge over the state's congressional district map. Leading GOP lawmakers will now take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court in attempt to avoid redrawing the map that a three-judge federal panel last month deemed unconstitutional. According to an early January ruling, the boundaries passed last year by the Republican-dominated state Legislature mark an intentional splitting of Black voters in South Carolina's 1st District. In their Feb. 4 order, the judges postponed the date by which new maps may be presented.

A federal court has ruled South Carolina lawmakers illegally used race as the basis to redraw the boundaries of one of its U.S. House districts. A three-judge panel wrote Friday that the General Assembly diluted Black voting power when it remade the boundaries of the 1st District — the only U.S. House district flipped by South Carolina Democrats in more than 30 years. The ruling requires the state to redraw the map by the end of March and prohibits any elections before a new map is approved.

A federal trial to determine whether South Carolina's congressional maps are legal is closing with arguments over whether the state Legislature diluted Black voting power. The NAACP says the General Assembly removed Black voters from the coastal 1st District to make it easier for Republicans to win and dilute African American votes. The General Assembly says it drew maps fairly to deal with 10% population growth concentrated along the coast. A panel of three federal judges will hear closing arguments in the case Tuesday morning in Charleston. A ruling is expected later.

A settlement of a redistricting lawsuit has added drawing new South Carolina House maps to the list of things state lawmakers need to do in the final three days of the General Assembly's session this week. The House agreed to redraw maps that include the areas around Orangeburg County, areas around Richland and Kershaw counties and areas around Horry and Dillon counties. The new maps would settle the lawsuit from the ACLU and NAACP.

Civil rights groups are accusing South Carolina Republicans of unconstitutionally creating "racially gerrymandered" U.S. House maps to disadvantage Black voters. An amended complaint was filed Thursday in a lawsuit by the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP. The lawsuit says the maps would keep South Carolina's 6th District as a majority-Black district, while "working adeptly to deny the ability of Black voters to elect or even influence elections in any of the other six congressional districts." Redistricting cases are considered by three-judge panels. For this case, that includes Michelle Childs, who is being considered for a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy. Attorneys for leading Republican lawmakers have defended the maps' constitutionality.

Civil rights activists worry that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling could embolden Republicans to take aim at splitting majority-Black districts and ultimately reduce Black voters' influence on Capitol Hill. In Florida, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis took the unusual step last month of asking the state Supreme Court whether a Democrat's plurality-Black congressional district could be broken into whiter — and more Republican — districts. That type of request might typically face steep hurdles under laws meant to protect representation of marginalized communities. But the ground rules may be shifting after the high court sided with Republicans in Alabama to block efforts to add a second majority-Black district.