A federal court ruled on Thursday that South Carolina can use a congressional map, which it previously deemed unconstitutional due to harmful impact on Black voters, given that the primary election is nearing and the U.S. Supreme Court has been slow to act on an appeal of the case.
The three-judge panel ruled to keep South Carolina’s congressional map in place despite previously ruling the map violates Black voters’ constitutional rights. The state’s primary elections are June 11 with early voting beginning in less than two months.
Democrat Michael B. Moore, congressional candidate for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, expressed disappointment in the court’s decision.
“As a representative of the targeted group that was unconstitutionally denied their political voice, this is deeply troubling,” he told theGrio. Moore is seeking to oust U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican.
April Albright, legal director of Black Voters Matter, told theGrio that she is “heartbroken” by the court’s decision.
“It makes no legal sense. It’s heartbreaking for Black voters in South Carolina because they only have one viable option to send someone to Congress,” Albright said.
Adriel I. Cepeda Derieux, deputy director for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement that the court’s decision “has undermined democracy.”
Derieux added that this ruling has “further entrenched voter suppression in the state.”
Last year, the same three-judge panel took on the case Alexander v. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP in which the NAACP contended that Republican lawmakers violated Black voters’ 14th and 15th Amendment rights by unconstitutionally redrawing thousands of Black residents from the state’s 1st Congressional District to other districts, including Democratic Rep. James Clyburn’s 6th Congressional District to diminish the power of Black voters.
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