SC Republicans appeal ruling that congressional map is unconstitutional racial gerrymander

South Carolina Republicans have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a federal court ruling that rendered unconstitutional the congressional map lawmakers passed last year.

Lawyers for the state House, Senate and State Election Commission on Friday filed a challenge to the ruling of a three-judge panel. Earlier this month, the judges found a portion of the map — the coastal 1st District, represented by Republican Nancy Mace — was drawn to intentionally disenfranchise Black voters and ordered lawmakers to redraw it.

The House and Senate defendants deny the map is racially biased and assert it was drawn in the best interest of all South Carolinians. They wrote in their motion to stay the U.S. District Court’s order that the order was “riddled with legal and factual mistakes,” misconstrues and misapplies the law and miscalculates data regarding the enacted congressional map.

Their motion requests a stay of the district court’s order pending completion of the appellate proceedings before the Supreme Court. A stay is necessary, the defendants argue, to “prevent a costly and unnecessary remedial proceeding.”

The U.S. District Court has ordered the House and Senate defendants to submit a remedial map proposal by March 31. Any revised map would involve changes to the 1st District, but also to adjoining districts, such as the neighboring 6th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn.

The defendants’ motion argues that, absent a stay, “the Supreme Court could be faced with undoing any court-ordered remedial map late in the 2024 election calendar, with the attendant risk of voter and election administration confusion.”

Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said earlier this month he didn’t think lawmakers should redraw anything until the Supreme Court ordered them to.

It remains to be seen whether the high court takes up the case.

If it does, the body would likely issue an opinion by June 2024, ahead of the congressional elections that November.

A history of the controversial congressional map

The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed the congressional map last January, over the objection of Democrats and public interest groups, which argued it carved up the area around Charleston along racial lines and guaranteed largely uncompetitive U.S. House races.

The South Carolina chapter of the NAACP filed suit shortly after the map’s enactment, alleging lawmakers had used race as the predominant factor when drawing the 1st, 2nd and 5th congressional districts in order to dilute the voting strength of Black South Carolinians and maintain political power.

Republican leaders settled similar allegations leveled against the state’s House map by agreeing to adjust that map’s lines, but could not resolve the dispute over the congressional map. A bench trial over the contested congressional map was held last fall in Charleston federal court.

Republican lawyers argued at trial that politics, not race, had motivated line-drawing decisions.

The map, they said, was drawn to shore up Republican control of the competitive 1st District, and stressed the importance Republican lawmakers placed on ensuring Mace, who won by only one point in 2020, retained her seat. Their efforts were successful, as the Lowcountry congresswoman cruised to a nearly 14-point victory in her redrawn district in November.

What the judges ruled

The panel of three U.S. District judges that ruled on the case earlier this month didn’t buy the Republicans’ argument, at least as it related to the 1st District. Following testimony from statistical experts, who analyzed the map and found it to be racially biased, even when controlling for political considerations, the panel opined that Republicans had intentionally discriminated against Black voters in the 1st District.

The judges did not, however, find the contested 2nd and 5th districts to be unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

The House and Senate defendants, who at trial attempted to discredit the plaintiffs’ statistical analysis, continued to cast doubts on its conclusions and the judges’ acceptance of those conclusions in their motion for a stay.

They argue the judges’ order fails to disentangle race from politics and confuses Republican lawmakers’ political motivations for racial ones.

“The Enacted Plan affects African-American Democrats and ‘similarly situated’ white Democrats in exactly the same way,” the motion states. “That is, the Enacted Plan limits the ability of all Democrats —African-American and white — to form a winning political coalition in District 1 (and, conversely, it improves the ability of all Republicans — African-American and white — to do the same).”