COLUMBIA, S.C. — A three-judge district court issued an order allowing South Carolina’s racially gerrymandered congressional map to remain in place for 2024 elections. This order comes in response to defendants’ delayed request to keep the unconstitutional map in place pending appeal of the panel’s post-trial order to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Today's ruling deprives voters of another fair election. By defending this map, SC legislators prioritize power over people. The League of Women Voters is disappointed that South Carolinians will face another election without justice, but we will continue to seek fair maps.
More than a year ago, the three-judge panel unanimously found that South Carolina’s Congressional District 1 was a racial gerrymander and designed with a discriminatory purpose. The district court had blocked elections from proceeding in South Carolina’s racially gerrymandered congressional map in Congressional District 1 and ordered the state legislature to redraw it given its harm toward Black voting power. However, with the legislature’s deliberate inaction in crafting a new map and knowing that no election could go forward in Congressional District 1 since last year, the court reconsidered its stance, noting, “the ideal must bend to the practical."
Voting can proceed in South Carolina’s coastal 1st District this year under congressional maps redrawn in 2021 while the U.S. Supreme Court continues to weigh whether the Legislature racially gerrymandered the lines to keep a Republican in office.
