South Carolina Republicans scored a victory Thursday after a three-judge federal appeals panel ruled the state must keep its congressional map intact for the 2024 cycle.
The panel previously found that the Lowcountry district that elected Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) was racially gerrymandered, but concluded that there was no time to create a new map before the June 11 congressional primary.
The US Supreme Court is still evaluating the map, with a ruling expected in the coming weeks.
“Congressional District No. 1 constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” the panel wrote. “But with the primary election procedures rapidly approaching, the appeal before the Supreme Court still pending, and no remedial plan in place, the ideal must bend to the practical.”
“The present circumstances make it plainly impractical for the Court to adopt a remedial plan for Congressional District No. 1 in advance of the military and overseas absentee ballot deadline of April 27, 2024,” the three-judge panel further explained.
South Carolina’s First Congressional District stretches from Hilton Head Island to the Santee River and includes parts of Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester and Beaufort counties.
The nonpartisan Cook Partisan Voting index lists the district as an R+7 jurisdiction.
In 2018, Democrat Joe Cunningham managed to flip the seat before losing to Mace by just 1.3 percentage points in 2020.
During the decennial redistricting process, state Republicans retooled the congressional lines and shoved some 30,000 black voters into Rep. James Clyburn’s (D-SC) neighboring Sixth Congressional District.
Mace then waltzed to re-election by double digits in 2022, leading liberal activists to cry foul.
The decision Thursday comes as Republicans try to fend off an onslaught of Democrat-backed lawsuits aimed at clawing back their prior redistricting gains.
“It’s actually been a wash overall,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters at a GOP retreat last month about the line-drawing scrums.
Already, House Republicans are grappling with a dwindling majority in the lower chamber, which is set to slip to just one seat next month due to early retirements.
The US Supreme Court heard the South Carolina case on Oct. 11.
Mace has the backing of former President Donald Trump, but could face a spirited primary from her ex-chief of staff, Daniel Hanlon.
