The U.S. Supreme Court docket on Monday agreed to listen to a bid by South Carolina officers to revive a Republican-crafted voting map {that a} decrease courtroom mentioned had unconstitutionally “exiled” 30,000 Black voters from a intently contested congressional district.

The justices took up an enchantment by South Carolina officers of a federal judicial panel’s ruling that discovered the Republican-drawn map had intentionally cut up up Black neighborhoods in Charleston County in a “stark racial gerrymander” and ordered the district to be redrawn.

Gerrymandering is a follow involving the manipulation of electoral district boundaries to marginalize a sure set of voters and improve the affect of others. On this case, the Republican legislators have been accused of racial gerrymandering to scale back the affect of Black voters.

Legislative districts throughout the US are redrawn to mirror inhabitants modifications documented within the nationwide census carried out by the federal authorities each decade. South Carolina‘s Republican-controlled legislature adopted a brand new voting map final yr following the 2020 U.S. census.

In a significant blow to election reformers, the Supreme Court docket in 2019 rejected efforts to rein in gerrymandering carried out for partisan benefit, discovering that federal judges do not need the authority to curb the follow. Alleged race-based gerrymandering might be challenged in federal courts however the Supreme Court docket, which has a conservative majority, has rolled again protections over the previous decade.

Within the South Carolina case, the map at subject set new boundaries for the state’s 1st congressional district, which for nearly 4 a long time had persistently elected a Republican to the Home till 2018, when a Democrat secured what was extensively seen as an upset victory. In 2020, Republican Nancy Mace gained the district by simply over 1 proportion level.

In redrawing the district final yr, Republicans moved greater than 30,000 Black residents in Charleston County to the neighboring majority-Black sixth congressional district, which for greater than 30 years has been represented within the Home by Consultant James Clyburn, a Black Democratic legislator.

The Republican map resulted in a 1st district with a bigger proportion of white, Republican-leaning voters. Mace, who’s white, gained re-election by 14 proportion factors final November underneath the district’s new configuration.

The state convention of the NAACP civil rights group sued in 2022, arguing that a number of Home districts created underneath the map have been designed no less than partially with “a racially discriminatory intent to discriminate in opposition to Black voters in violation of the U.S. Structure.”

A federal three-judge panel in January dominated that the way in which the first district was drawn violated the rights of Black voters underneath the Structure’s 14th and fifteenth Amendments, which assure equal safety underneath the legislation and prohibit race-based voting discrimination.

The methods employed in drawing the district boundaries, the panel wrote, “finally exiled over 30,000 African Americans from their earlier district and created a stark racial gerrymander of Charleston County and the Metropolis of Charleston.”

The judges – all three appointed by Democratic presidents – dominated that no elections may happen within the 1st district till it has been redrawn, prompting the South Carolina Republican officers to enchantment to the Supreme Court docket.

South Carolina NAACP and Taiwan Scott, a Black voter who lives in South Carolina‘s 1st congressional district, on Monday urged the justices to uphold the decrease courtroom’s ruling.

“South Carolina‘s congressional map is the most recent occasion in our state’s lengthy, painful historical past of racial discrimination that have to be remedied,” they mentioned in a press release. “Because the case strikes to oral argument, we implore the courtroom to uphold the panel’s resolution and defend Black South Carolina voters from this egregious type of discrimination.”

The case will probably be heard through the Supreme Court docket’s subsequent time period, which begins in October.

Redistricting in most states is carried out by the celebration in energy, although some states assign the duty to impartial commissions to make sure equity. Gerrymandering sometimes entails packing voters who are likely to favor a selected celebration right into a small variety of districts to decrease their statewide voting energy whereas dispersing others in districts in numbers too small to be a majority.

In one other case involving redistricting and race, the Supreme Court docket is weighing Alabama’s enchantment of a decrease courtroom’s ruling {that a} Republican-drawn electoral map setting the boundaries of the state’s seven U.S. Home districts unlawfully diluted the affect of Black voters. A choice within the case is anticipated by late June.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Enhancing by Will Dunham)