Starting Tuesday, the State Senate will host 10 public hearings across the state designed to give you an opportunity to learn about the process and speak up with your concerns and questions as the state determines the boundaries of the 46 state Senate districts, 124 state House districts, and seven U.S. House districts.
Lynn Teague, Vice President for Issues and Action for the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, will be watching and her team will be using the hashtag #wearewatching to make sure legislators know it.
“Our ultimate concern is one of human nature,” Teague said, explaining that the league wants to make sure legislators are serving the public interest rather than their own private interests.
She wants South Carolinians to watch with her because redistricting “will determine whether your vote matters or not.”
The goal should be to design legislative districts without gerrymandering, defined by the Brennan Center for Justice as “the practice of drawing districts to favor one political party or racial group” that skews election results, “makes races less competitive, hurts communities of color, and thwarts the will of the voters.”
Teague said South Carolina’s districts are currently biased toward the majority party, adding, “On the whole, our maps are very non-competitive.
So what is redistricting?
