Congressional map likely to leave SC with no competitive seats advanced by House panel
By Zak Koeske
A panel of South Carolina House lawmakers on Monday advanced a congressional redistricting plan that closely resembles the Senate’s much-maligned earlier proposal and would likely transform the 1st Congressional District into a solidly Republican seat.
The map, which the House Judiciary Committee passed 13-6 along party lines, was chosen over an initial House plan that would have reshaped four of South Carolina’s seven congressional districts and retained the 1st District, represented by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Daniel Island, as a competitive seat.
Judiciary took up the proposal Monday afternoon, less than two hours after a redistricting subcommittee advanced it. If ultimately approved, it would give Democrats little chance to win back the state’s only seriously contested congressional district, according to a partisan lean analysis by Dave’s Redistricting, a popular map drawing and analysis tool.
The 1st Congressional District seat has flipped from Republicans to Democrats back to Republicans over the past three U.S. House cycles.
“I think it’s extremely unfortunate,” said Lynn Teague, vice president for issues and action with the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. Teague, speaking for the organization, last month criticized the plan as “an obvious racial and partisan gerrymander” that should be rejected.
The favored House proposal, like the current congressional map and the Senate plan, rates poorly on measures of competitiveness, proportionality, compactness and splitting, according to Dave’s Redistricting. All three score worse than the House’s original congressional proposal.
Despite criticism of the map, state Rep. Jay Jordan, who chairs the House redistricting committee, said he supported moving forward with the proposal, known as the alternative plan, due to concerns raised over the initial map proposed by House staff.
The original plan would have shifted Beaufort County into the 2nd Congressional District, a move that attracted significant criticism from coastal residents during a public hearing last month.
Democratic House lawmakers on Monday questioned why the ire of some Beaufort County residents carried enough weight to convince the redistricting committee to completely redraw its map and propose an alternative that closely resembled the controversial Senate plan.
State Rep. Ivory Thigpen, D-Richland, said he thought scrapping the House’s original plan — which was drawn after months of public input sessions — due to pushback from a vocal minority of Lowcountry residents set a dangerous precedent. “If we get into the business of every time one county or one group of individuals becomes very vocal and expresses displeasure in the work that we’ve done, I truly believe we begin to waste the time as well as the money of taxpayers in taking all of the work that we’ve done and putting it aside,” he said.
State Rep. Spencer Wetmore, a Charleston Democrat, raised the point that plenty of speakers also criticized the House’s alternative plan for carving out predominantly Black enclaves of Charleston County and slotting them into the 6th District, a majority-minority district represented by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn that stretches from Columbia to the coast.
At what point then, Thigpen asked, does the committee change its plans in response to public vitriol? Do some voices count more than others, he asked.
Jordan, R-Florence, acknowledged the criticism over the map’s handling of Charleston, but said the volume of those complaints were not on the same level as the displeasure expressed about Beaufort County. Multiple Republican lawmakers who supported the alternative plan also said they thought it was preferable because it closely resembles South Carolina’s current congressional map, which the U.S. Department of Justice signed off on, and would therefore be better able to withstand an anticipated legal challenge.
“If it was good enough then, we’ve got some basis legally to stand on to say it should be on solid legal footing at this juncture,” Jordan said.
Teague disputed that claim, saying that just because the Department of Justice signed off on a similar plan a decade ago did not mean it would still pass legal muster. She said overall she was disgusted with the “sheer dishonesty” of the entire redistricting process.
Lawmakers last month approved new state House and Senate district maps — which Gov. Henry McMaster quickly signed into law — but delayed redrawing congressional lines due to pushback over what was then the lone congressional proposal.
The full House and Senate, which return to session Tuesday, are hoping to fast track congressional redistricting this month. As of Monday, the Senate’s redistricting subgroup had yet to decide on a map plan.
The panel’s original proposal, released in late November, garnered considerable criticism from Democrats and good government groups who argued it was racially gerrymandered and made South Carolina’s lone competitive U.S. House seat uncompetitive for Democrats.
Even Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Horry, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, acknowledged at the time that the panel had “miles to go” on its congressional plan.
In the weeks since, however, the subcommittee has not released any alternative maps or scheduled a hearing to further flesh out its proposal.
It’s possible, however, that the Senate may be able to bypass the committee process and simply assent to working off the House’s congressional map, which would speed things along.
Time is of the essence given that the filing period for candidates is just two months away and state leaders already are facing a federal lawsuit over their timeline for redrawing South Carolina’s seven U.S. House districts A federal lawsuit filed in October on behalf of the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP claims the delay in congressional redistricting risks creating a situation in which residents, potential candidates and voter advocates won’t have clarity on the makeup of districts in time to make educated electoral decisions.
