The U.S. Supreme Court may be on the verge of making it even harder to win legal challenges accusing state officials of racial gerrymandering - the illegal manipulation of an electoral district's boundaries to alter its racial composition - to dilute the clout of Black and other minority voters. The nine justices this week heard arguments in such a case involving the relocation of 30,000 Black residents from South Carolina's 1st congressional district to another one in an electoral map adopted by the state's Republican-led legislature. The Supreme Court has been asked by the litigants to rule on the legality of the map by the end of the year.
The NAACP claims the voting power of Black South Carolinians was diluted by a map that relied on racial demographics. But the state says politics, not race, was the driving factor. Now, the Supreme Court will rule.
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case involving Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-SC) South Carolina district regarding the state’s Republican-drawn electoral map that critics say is discriminatory toward black voters.