South Carolina will use a congressional map that a federal court ruled was “unconstitutional” in this year’s election, following uncertainty over the timing of the Supreme Court’s review of a district that a lower court said was racially gerrymandered.
Republican lawmakers have shuffled thousands of black voters out of the state’s 1st District, represented by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, to make the district around Charleston more reliably red. The state NAACP filed a lawsuit, arguing that the legislature’s action was unconstitutionally discriminatory.
The Supreme Court heard the case – Alexander v. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP – in October, testing the legal limits of partisan gerrymandering when it intersects with race, POLITICO Previously reported. It seemed likely that the conservative majority would side with Republican lawmakers in South Carolina and leave the map in place.
The same panel of lower judges that initially found it unconstitutional said in an order Thursday that the state would use the map for this year’s elections ahead of the June 11 congressional primary. The deadline for sending military and foreign ballots is April. 27.
As a result, it is “plainly impractical” for the court to wait for a higher court decision, the justices wrote in the order.
“With primary elections fast approaching, the Supreme Court appeal still pending and no recovery plan in place, the ideal must turn to the practical,” they wrote.