A panel of federal judges has ordered lawmakers in South Carolina to redraw certain congressional maps within the state, after ruling that some districts had been racially gerrymandered.
On Friday, three Democrat-appointed judges determined that South Carolina's 1st Congressional District — traditionally a Republican stronghold — had been reworked in previous elections, with the primary intent of diluting Black voters in that territory.
The judicial panel found that the lawmakers' move of relocating some 30,000 African Americans in Charleston County to a neighboring district was apparently "more than a coincidence" and violated the Fourteenth Amendment, based on Supreme Court precedent.
The panel's opinion stated: "After carefully weighing the totality of evidence in the record and credibility of witnesses, the Court finds that race was the predominant motivating factor in the General Assembly's design of Congressional District No. 1 and that traditional districting principles were subordinated to race."
If the panel ruling isn't formally challenged, through appeal, lawmakers will have until March 31 to submit a new map.
Also, the 1st Congressional District can partake in no future elections until the new boundaries are formally approved, according to reports.
"For decades, South Carolina has tried to push Black voters out of the electoral process and effectively silence us with maps that dilute our political power," Taiwan Scott, the resident who filed the case, said in a statement.
Scott's lawsuit also had the support of the NAACP's South Carolina chapter.
"With this order and its call for barring all future congressional elections in CD 1 and ordering the General Assembly to submit a remedial map, we are emboldened and encouraged that we will see fairer congressional maps for South Carolina," said Brenda Murphy, president of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., currently oversees the 1st Congressional District, which covers the southern coastal region of the state, extending from Savannah to Charleston.
In the recently completed midterms, Mace won her general election by nearly 14 percentage points — compared to a narrow victory in 2020 — which predated the district being reconfigured.
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