By Anna Wilder

COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s highest court ruled in favor of Statehouse Republicans, saying it is a legislative right to draw congressional maps even as critics say Charleston’s seat in Congress was unfairly drawn to gerrymander.

The Sept. 17 decision rejected a case filed by South Carolina’s League of Women Voters chapter that sought to protect what the group considered a standing right for voters to participate in district lines free of political engineering.

The Supreme Court sided with the state, agreeing that the redrawing of the coastal 1st Congressional District map in whatever way they see fit is their right.

The seat is currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, who is running as a gubernatorial candidate, and stretches from Charleston to Beaufort.

Republican leaders welcomed the decision and also hinted that the results help ensure that no mid-decade redraw of the state’s seven congressional districts is necessary or should be pursued next year, like red states Texas and Missouri have done, and like what some arch-conservatives in S.C. want to see happen here.

Republicans hold six of the state’s seven seats in Congress, with Democrat Jim Clyburn the lone blue representative in D.C...

The plaintiff expressed disappointment at the 5-0 ruling.

“Partisan gerrymandering is an attack on our most fundamental right as citizens, the right to vote,” said Lynn Teague, vice president at the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. “The people of our state should demand a constitution that protects them and leadership that respects their voices.”

The ACLU said the latest ruling allows lawmakers to “game” the system to “retain their own power” and ultimately “ushers in an even greater entrenchment of political extremism.”

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