The Supreme Court of the United States announced Thursday that the new electoral map for South Carolina modified by the Republicans is constitutional. Said electoral was accused by Democrats if being made based on discriminatory and racist parameters.
The Supreme Court approved the new electoral map after a vote that ended with six votes in favor and three against. The judges thus reject that the map was drawn based on racial discrimination. With the new map, Republicans strengthen their results in the state's First Congressional District, represented by Nancy Mace.
BREAKING: By a 6-3 vote Supreme Court overrules a lower court decision finding that South Carolina's First Congressional District is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Alito has the opinion for the conservative majority. The liberal justices dissent. https://t.co/i0v3Ebqd6h pic.twitter.com/BOhu6e0ghC
— Jimmy Hoover (@JimmyHooverDC) May 23, 2024
The opinion written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito stipulates that "A party challenging a map's constitutionality must disentangle race and politics if it wishes to prove that the legislature was motivated by race as opposed to partisanship. Second, in assessing a legislature's work, we start with a presumption that the legislature acted in good faith."
The ACLU took the reform of the electoral map to court last March. The electoral district reform law passed through several courts before reaching the Supreme Court and will finally take effect for the next presidential elections in November in the state of South Carolina.
The district of contention is located in the Charleston area, the most populous city in South Carolina and which currently has Republican Nancy Mace as a representative in the House. In the First Congressional District, the new map displaced nearly 30,000 African American voters to the Sixth Congressional District, which already had a Democratic majority.
