In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines that was hardly a surprise, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to South Carolina's GOP-drawn congressional map, reversing a federal panel's 2023 finding that the map illegally diluted Black voting strength by shifting about 30,000 Black voters out of GOP Rep. Nancy Mace's Charleston-area 1st District. The primary, scheduled for June 25, was already set to proceed under the current map.
This case fundamentally differed from the Alabama case decided last June because it was brought forward under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, not Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Whereas plaintiffs in the Alabama case clearly demonstrated an additional Black majority seat could be drawn to satisfy the VRA, it was always going to be difficult for Democratic-backed plaintiffs in South Carolina to prove that race — and not partisan ambition — motivated South Carolina Republicans, given that it's virtually impossible to disentangle race and partisanship in the Deep South.
Although Democrats and civil rights groups have notched victories in Alabama and Louisiana (at least for
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