The Supreme Court upheld a pro-Republican South Carolina congressional map Thursday, rejecting the argument raised by civil rights groups that lawmakers impermissibly used race as a proxy to bolster the GOP’s chances.

But the high court also said that the civil rights groups that challenged the maps could continue to pursue one part of their claim, a move that will likely delay the battle over the districts for months.

With state election deadlines approaching, a federal court in March had already ruled that South Carolina could use the contested map in this year’s election.

The decision was 6-3 along conservative-liberal lines.

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The crux of this issue (and the Supreme Court identified this while more liberal leaning) is that it’s really fucking hard to measure gerrymandering-ness

    Yup, for anyone who hasn’t heard it, I’d highly recommend people listen to FiveThirtyEight’s Gerrymandering Project. While this isn’t to say that gerrymandering isn’t a problem, it’s not as simple as many people make it out to be. Especially with the high level of self-sorting which has been going on, packing lots of Democratic votes in a single district tends to happen, even without trying.