Litigation began in earnest in October of 2021 as the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP anticipated the legislature’s failure to draw valid lines. To compel the timely redrawing of district lines, the conference filed a lawsuit in federal district court. These lawsuits – often called “malapportionment” lawsuits – contend that a map violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because the population totals of the various districts are out of proportion. However, the legislature passed the state senate and state house maps in December 2021 and the governor signed a congressional map in January 2022.
The NAACP filed a second complaint in the same litigation after it determined the House map intentionally discriminated against Black voters and was a racial gerrymander. Specifically, the complaint challenged districts 7, 8, 9, 11, 41, 43, 51, 54, 55, 57, 59, 60, 63, 67, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 90, 91, 93, 101, and 105. A settlement agreement was reached just before a scheduled trial was to begin in May. A revised map was passed by the SC General Assembly on June 15 2022 and signed by the governor two days later.
The day after the settlement agreement was reached for the House map the NAACP presented a third complaint to the district court alleging that districts 1, 2, and 5 in the congressional map were racial gerrymanders. The court held a trial on these claims in October of 2022 and in a January 6, 2023 opinion, it held that congressional district 1 was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. It found that race was the predominant factor motivating the General Assembly’s adoption of Congressional District 1 with the movement of over 30,000 African American residents of Charleston County out of District 1 to meet the African American population target of 17%.” It did not find districts 2 or 5 to be unconstitutional. The legislative officials who were defendants promptly appealed the district court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court where the case is pending. The district court ordered a remedial map to be drawn but stipulated that the deadline to finalize a remedial map would be 30 days after resolution in the Supreme Court.
