SC House proposes new congressional map that keeps Nancy Mace’s seat strong Republican

COLUMBIA — State House lawmakers released an alternate proposed set of congressional lines making Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s 1st Congressional District safer for a Republican to win — a stark reversal from a previous plan that left the Lowcountry seat more competitive.

Released days before Christmas and one week before the House Redistricting Committee meets to debate the maps, the new proposal aligns closely with a plan released by the Senate that would keep the 6th Congressional District held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn as a majority-Black district.

The overall effect of the Dec. 22 proposal would be improving reelection odds for a Republican in the 1st District.

While the lines between the proposals are vastly different for several seats, the differences have the potential to sway an election outcome only for the Charleston-based district, where victory in the past two congressional races came down to fewer than 2 percentage points.

While the district would retain more conservative-leaning coastal communities in Charleston County — including Mount Pleasant and the tip of the peninsula — the latest proposal would shift more Democratic-leaning areas like West Ashley into Clyburn’s district. 

Under the House’s first proposal, North Charleston is the only part of Charleston County that Clyburn kept. 

The plan was immediately assailed by groups opposed to gerrymandering attempts.

“I had concerns all along about whether they intended to go forward with a map with a competitive Congressional District One, and they did not,” Lynn Teague, director of the League of Women Voters, told The Post and Courier.

“I was certain that they were going to pull a bait and switch,” she added. “And that’s what they’ve done. For all the problems with the first map, the new map is much worse." 

Under the House’s initial proposal, the Republicans’ advantage in the 1st District would have sat at roughly 1.7 percent, which would align with recent electoral margins in the district.

As the GOP incumbent, Mace’s projected advantage under the alternative map would improve to nearly 14 points. Clyburn’s district would have a slight majority of Black residents, at 50.5 percent, instead of slightly less than half in the House’s first plan.

Members of the House Redistricting Committee did not immediately return a request for comment Dec. 22.

The House’s alternative proposal mirrors a Senate plan released days before Thanksgiving that was highly criticized as drawn on racial and partisan lines to heavily favor Republican incumbents.

It actually represents less change to the overall look of the current voting maps statewide, as Mace’s district would retain the coastlines of Beaufort and Colleton counties, while poor counties along the state’s lower border with Georgia would stay in Clyburn’s district. His gerrymandered district would continue to stretch from the ocean to Columbia, while U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s 2nd District would still split Richland County with Clyburn.

The House’s initial proposal brought Wilson’s district all the way down the western border from Lexington County, where he lives, to include Allendale, Hampton and Jasper counties, as well as all of Beaufort County and part of Colleton. 

Wilson praised the plan in a statement to The Post and Courier.

“I am grateful for the release today of the Congressional House Staff Plan Alternative 1 map,” Wilson wrote. “Staff Alternative 1 accepts the compactness of the State Senate Congressional Map.”

Critics of the new House map included Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Cunningham of Charleston, who called it “an insult to every voter in South Carolina.”

In a Twitter thread Dec. 22, Cunningham — who represented the 1st District for one term before Mace flipped it back to red — characterized the Republican-led effort as a partisan strategy to rig elections against Democrats by reducing competition, all within a timeline too tight for voters to offer public input.

Lawmakers already face one lawsuit over the pace of their congressional redistricting plans, with groups including the NAACP and ACLU arguing the process was moving too slowly.

Legislators contend the tight timeline was unavoidable due to the pandemic, which pushed back the whole process by several months. They didn’t get census data until mid-August. 

“Why do Columbia politicians (and incumbent members of Congress) fear competition so much?” Cunningham, a leading critic of the process, wrote. “If their ideas are so good, why rig our elections to make it impossible for them to lose? This is a map that will help elect the most extreme voices in our society. And that’s the goal.”