SC House Race Highlights Gerrymandering Issues

by Sharelle Burt

July 11, 2024

Maybe Michael B. Moore is the answer.

The race for the Democratic seat of South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District is tight after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of gerrymandering that would benefit the Republican Party. 

For the past four years, The Washington Post reports, the district, once a competitive bipartisan area, has been represented by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace. Now, the area is seemingly red thanks to the redrawn lines in spring 2024, which introduced more Republican voters and limited the growth of the 17% of Black voters.

In 2023, a federal three-judge panel found the district lines represented unconstitutional racial gerrymandering that “exiled” a district of thousands of Democratic Black voters. Shortly after, Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in May 2023 that there was minimal evidence showing that South Carolina lawmakers used race as a focus on how the lines were drawn to force a Republican lead. 

Before the ruling, federal courts could not block gerrymandering. Some Democratic voters, including a supporter of the 1st District’s Black Democratic nominee, Michael B. Moore, think the practice is a thing of the past. During a prayer service, a woman praying for the candidate said, “We don’t care about no gerrymandering.”

However, gerrymandering and the issue of redistricting is a hot topic in a number of GOP-led states, including the Palmetto State. In regards to Black voters, who already struggle with political representation, experts say the decisions handed down have narrowed the scope of guaranteeing they receive equal say. “For minority voters, for people who believe in partisan fairness, federal litigation just isn’t the answer under the Roberts court,” Harvard Law School professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos said. 

Moore is the great-great-grandson of a Civil War hero and is pushing to give South Carolina a fighting chance as its second Black Democrat in Congress, following in the footsteps of Rep. James E. Clyburn.

On top of addressing issues including the rise in crime and abortion, Moore claims he is fighting to curb gerrymandering. “I’m looking to build on battles started by my ancestors,” Moore told a group of voters. “There are very serious threats to democracy that we all know are going on—even in this district, where 30,000 Black folks were gerrymandered out of the district. Either we believe in ‘one person, one vote’ or we don’t.”

He has some support in the fight. Black voters represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund sued over the original gerrymandering decision.