The federal challenge to South Carolina’s congressional map has concluded, two months after the Court ruled that the state’s map is not unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered, reversing a lower court decision that blocked the map’s 1st Congressional District.
On Friday, the plaintiffs in the case — the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a Black voter — agreed to dismiss their remaining claim in a federal lawsuit that challenged the state’s congressional map as being racially gerrymandered and intentionally discriminatory. The move ends the nearly-three-year-long case that reached the high Court.
In May, the Court found there was no “no direct evidence” that the Legislature relied on race when it drew the 1st Congressional District, and that the evidence provided to support that conclusion fell “far short of showing that race, not partisan preferences, drove the districting process,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
The decision was slammed by voting and civil rights advocates, in large part because it seemed to raise the standard by which federal courts assess racial gerrymandering claims. Now, the same map is being challenged in state court as an alleged partisan gerrymander.
Read more about the federal case’s implications and the Court’s decision.
