COLUMBIA – In a new legal filing, the League of Women Voters of South Carolina — represented by the ACLU of South Carolina and the ACLU — urges the State Supreme Court to uphold South Carolinians’ right to a functional representative democracy and to reject politicians’ dangerous and unamerican arguments that they should be allowed to rig elections without any regard for the Constitution.
“Lawmakers cannot be given free rein to cheat voters out of a representative democracy,” said Allen Chaney, Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina. “I hope the Court will stand up to this unconstitutional power grab by the General Assembly.”
“South Carolinians deserve the right to choose their representatives, not the other way around," said Lynn Teague, VP for Issues and Action of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. "Equitable redistricting standards protect citizens' right to be truly represented in our democracy. The League of Women Voters of South Carolina remains committed to ensuring all South Carolinians have their voices heard.”
“Politicians use partisan gerrymandering to silence voters rather than earning their support,” said ACLU senior staff attorney Theresa J. Lee. “It undermines fair representation, weakens the power of communities of color, and erodes public trust in our electoral system. Every voter deserves an equal voice — districts should be drawn to serve the people, not the politicians."
The League’s January 24 reply brief caps off written arguments in the landmark voting rights case League of Women Voters of South Carolina v. Alexander. Originally filed July 29, 2024, the case asks the State Supreme Court to end the practice of partisan gerrymandering and strike down South Carolina’s 2022 Congressional redistricting plan as unconstitutional. Oral argument has not been scheduled in the case.
Following the 2020 Census, state lawmakers were tasked with redrawing South Carolina’s seven Congressional district maps. In the process, they manipulated district lines to create an artificial Republican advantage in the First Congressional District, a coastal district traditionally anchored in Charleston. This is known as partisan gerrymandering, which is unconstitutional under the state constitution. Lawmakers boasted about partisan gerrymandering in court, showed no remorse for their actions, and now demand total immunity for their actions.
No excuses
The case is built on the guarantees of the South Carolina Constitution. Specifically, Article 1, Section 5 states:
All elections shall be free and open, and every inhabitant of this State possessing the qualifications provided for in this Constitution shall have an equal right to elect officers and be elected to fill public office.
The League’s brief points to five states where citizens have challenged the practice of partisan gerrymandering based on their state constitutions: Alaska, Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Utah. In all five cases, the states’ highest courts have set standards for assessing partisan gerrymandering.
The new filing points out ways in which South Carolina’s constitutional election protections are stronger than those of the U.S. Constitution, and even stronger than in some of these five “sister states.” An equal right to elect, as the filing points out, guarantees more than the right to vote.
The new filing also takes time to knock down deceptive claims and excuses from politicians who seek to uphold partisan gerrymandering. Governor Henry McMaster, for example, complains in his filing that partisan gerrymandering is a longstanding “political reality.”
“[T]he fact that a constitutional violation goes years, decades, or centuries without judicial redress hardly absolves it,” the ACLU points out in the reply brief. “Courts often vindicate constitutional rights after yearslong, continuous violation of those rights.”
Case background
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of South Carolina, and Duffy & Young LLC filed the case on July 29, 2024, on behalf of plaintiff League of Women Voters of South Carolina. The defendants are the President of the State Senate, the Speaker of the State House, and the Director of the State Election Commission. Governor Henry McMaster chose to intervene and filed his own response in defense of partisan gerrymandering.
The facts of the case are not in question. In the course of the redistricting process, and again in court during a previous case challenging racial gerrymandering, they swore that they were rigging the map to lock in a 6-1 Republican majority in the state’s congressional delegation.
“The panel acknowledged that the General Assembly pursued a political goal of increasing District 1’s Republican vote share. It achieved that goal by moving Republicans into the district and Democrats out of the district," said John Gore, an attorney representing South Carolina lawmakers, at the start of his oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in Alexander v. SC NAACP.
As we remind the Court in this filing, the General Assembly is “the mere creature” of the State Constitution. If our ruling elites oppose “free and open elections” and seek to deny the “equal right to elect officers,” they should put that request in writing and ask the people of South Carolina to amend our Constitution.
For more information about this ongoing case, see our case page for League of Women Voters of South Carolina v. Alexander.
