By Jessical Holdman
COLUMBIA — A voter advocacy group and lawyers representing South Carolina’s General Assembly each made their case Tuesday to the state Supreme Court over whether the state’s post-census redrawing of congressional voting lines violates the state constitution.
Filing suit last July, the South Carolina League of Women Voters argued that political gerrymandering of the map redrawn by legislators and signed into law in January 2022 watered down Democrats’ influence in the coastal 1st District, to the point that it violates the state constitution’s guarantee of an “equal right to elect officers.”
In Wednesday’s hearing, justices said there’s nothing in the constitution specifically banning the consideration of politics in redrawing voting maps. They questioned how they can tell legally when the Legislature goes too far.
The latest lawsuit followed a 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May 2024 that tossed out an earlier case brought by South Carolina chapters of the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union. They argued state legislators racially gerrymandered the coastal 1st District, held by Republican Nancy Mace, and discriminated against Black voters.
In that case, staff and members of the GOP-controlled Legislature testified it was politics — not race — that influenced how the lines were redrawn following the 2020 Census.
The League of Women Voters pointed to that testimony, including statements from the lead map drawer that legislators told him to review how precincts voted in the 2020 presidential election and move them to give Republicans an advantage in the 1st District.
“I think the record is clear that elected officials use (gerrymandering) and voters largely hate it,” said Allen Chaney, the lawyer representing the organization.
No voter, Democrat or Republican, has the right to decide the outcome of an election, Chaney said. The issue is whether one party’s influence has been intentionally diluted to give the other the advantage, he said.
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