The Supreme Court is taking up a new congressional redistricting case, this time from South Carolina, that could shape the fight for partisan control of the House of Representatives.
Arguments taking place at the high court on Wednesday will focus on a coastal district that is held by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace. In January, a lower court ordered the district redrawn after finding that Republicans who control the state Legislature improperly moved Democratic-leaning Black voters into another district to make the seat safer for Mace in 2022.
When Mace first won election in 2020, she edged Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Cunningham by 1%, under 5,400 votes. In 2022, following redistricting driven by the 2020 census results, Mace won reelection by 14%. She is one of eight right-flank Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
The reason that House Republicans have gone so wacky is that they are no longer afraid of running in a general election as their districts are so heavily gerrymandered. When you’re only thinking about Republican primary voters, you’ll always be inclined to move further to the right.
Time for the Supreme Court to rule that this is a-okay.