The Supreme Court on Monday decided to take up a case by South Carolina Republicans to preserve a congressional district after a lower court found it had been racially gerrymandered.
South Carolina Senate President Thomas Alexander, a Republican, is challenging a January lower court ruling that found one of the state's seven recently drawn districts was put together in a way that weakened the power of Democratic-leaning black voters. That district, which covers Charleston County, is represented by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).
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The case will likely be argued in the fall and is expected to be decided by the time of the 2024 elections when control of the closely divided House of Representatives will be on the ballot.
A three-judge panel at the district court level ruled in favor of civil rights groups that argued the districts violated the federal Voting Rights Act.
"The Enacted Plan intentionally discriminates against thousands of black Charlestonians, attempting to dilute their voting power by 'bleaching' them out of CD1 and unnecessarily separating them from their neighbors based on their race," according to a motion to affirm filed to the high court in March by the NAACP.
Mace represents the 1st District, where she narrowly defeated Joe Cunningham in 2020 after he became the first Democrat to flip a U.S. House seat in the state in 30 years.
During the redistricting round that took place after the 2020 census, Republicans who control the state redrew the district, and Mace later won by 14 percentage points in November.
Attorneys for Republican lawmakers say the judges should have operated on the presumption that the Legislature was acting in good faith and not attempting to oust voters by race.
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The Supreme Court will soon release a decision in a separate case surrounding racial gerrymandering claims in Alabama, also concerning GOP-drawn congressional districts.
The bench has in recent years cut back on the landmark Voting Rights Act, and the case out of Alabama could make it harder to win lawsuits claiming racial discrimination in redistricting.