NAACP, ACLU argue there’s still time to redraw district lines
By Jessica Holdman
COLUMBIA — South Carolina lawmakers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow voting to proceed this year under congressional maps redrawn in 2021, regardless of how justices rule on a lawsuit accusing the Legislature of racially gerrymandering the lines to keep a Republican in the coastal 1st District.
With just 11 weeks until South Carolina’s GOP and Democratic primaries and no ruling from the nation’s high court on a case that stems from 2022, the state wants permission to again use the challenged lines. South Carolina chapters of the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union, however, argue there’s still time for the state to draw a new voting map, should the justices uphold a lower court’s decision.
They also contend keeping the lines for another election cycle would reward the GOP-controlled Legislature for doing nothing while awaiting justices’ final say.
A panel of three federal judges ruled in January 2023 that state lawmakers drew the coastal 1st District, held by GOP Republican Nancy Mace, in a way that discriminates against Black voters. Their decision sided with the NAACP, ACLU of South Carolina and Taiwan Scott, a Black Hilton Head Island resident who lives in the 1st District, who sued after the Legislature approved new lines following the 2020 census.
In their ruling, the federal judges pointed to 30,000 Black Charleston County residents who lawmakers moved out of the district in an effort to make the seat — which Mace put back into GOP control in 2020 by a slim margin — a safer bet for Republicans. The new lines swept in GOP strongholds in Beaufort and Berkeley counties while cutting out some Charleston suburbs and the entire downtown peninsula.
The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and has been awaiting a final decision since October 2023, when oral arguments took place.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said in January 2023 that “we don’t need to draw anything until five members of the Supreme Court say we have to,” the Associated Press reported.
‘Chaos and uncertainty’
State lawyers contends the delay has “invited chaos and uncertainty into South Carolina’s congressional elections — all to the untenable result of ‘voter confusion.’”
The State Election Commission would need three to five months to implement a new map if one were drawn, according to court filings.
The NAACP and ACLU say that argument doesn’t hold water, especially given that the three-judge panel put the state on notice early last year.
“On the outside chance the (appellate) process is not completed in time for the 2024 primary and general election schedule, the election for Congressional District No. 1 should not be conducted until a remedial plan is in place,” the judges wrote in a February 2023 order telling the state it would not press pause on it’s earlier ruling.
“Contrary to defendants’ pleas, 13 full months of legislative inaction does not warrant a stay,” lawyers for the two organizations wrote in court documents. “And even if an emergency exists — it does not — it is of defendants’ own making. Appellate brinkmanship should not be rewarded.”
As of Monday, five candidates, including incumbent Reps. Nancy Mace and Jim Clyburn, have filed to run in the impacted districts:
- District 1, which under the redrawn map includes voters in Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, Colleton, Beaufort and Jasper counties
- And neighboring District 6, which now stretches from the peninsula north of Columbia, that has long been held by Clyburn
The two-week filing window for June 11 primaries ends April 1.
‘A tight schedule’
The Election Commission needs time to get voter logs and ballots to county-level election boards. And election boards must mail absentee ballots for members of the military by April 25 to comply with federal law.
“This is a tight schedule,” lawyers for the state wrote.
But the state has missed that absentee ballot deadline before, even during ordinary election years, the ACLU and NAACP said.
The organizations also challenged the time frame the state says it needs to adjust to a new map, arguing the three-to-five-month estimate was based on redrawing of state legislative — not congressional — districts.
Finally, the groups said, the state has quickly passed maps before. Plus, lawmakers already have other potential maps on hand that would pass constitutional muster.
South Carolina’s 1st District has long been reliable for Republicans. However, a population explosion on the coast turned it more purple. In 2018, Democrat Joe Cunningham flipped the seat to blue for the first time in nearly 40 years.
Two years later, Mace ousted him by 1 percentage point. Lawmakers redrew the lines ahead of the 2022 election and Mace easily won against Democrat Annie Andrews.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the S.C. Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier.
S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
