December 13, 2021
Making Democracy Work in SC: House Congressional Plan Hearing This Thursday and Redistricting Update
Congressional Plans
In our last Update, we reviewed the Senate Staff Congressional plan. Their map is posted under Plan Proposals at https://redistricting.scsenate.gov and (by LWVSC) at https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::5fed38de-3f6f-4a01-bca4-0354dfd1f509. (Read our League testimony.) Following considerable criticism for failure to adhere to communities of interest while removing the state’s one naturally competitive district, the Senate has deferred further action on their plan until January.
However, the House has finally released their Congressional plan and they have scheduled a hearing for public testimony on that plan for this Thursday, December 16, at noon. The Ad Hoc Committee will hear testimony on the House Staff Plan, the Senate Staff Plan, and any other submissions. Links to the House Staff Plan, the Senate Staff Plan, and public submissions are available at: https://redistricting.schouse.gov/. The agenda is attached below.
Those who wish to present virtual testimony are instructed to email virtualtestimony [at] schouse.gov by 5:00 pm Wednesday, December 15, 2021. Additionally, written comments may be emailed to Redistricting [at] schouse.gov or mailed to:
The League has posted the House block file to Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA) at https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::7d5faa6d-9847-4f8b-9529-e17d0167f0d8. DRA provides easily accessible data for districts as well as an analysis of the overall map.
SC House and Senate Maps
SC House and Senate maps have been approved in both houses as H.4493, ratified as Act R. 118, and have been signed by the Governor.
A final assessment by the League of Women Voters found that the Senate map became somewhat less competitive as it moved forward from the initial staff version but continues to be a reasonable map in which the number of competitive districts is not reduced from those currently available and the mean or average partisan difference in districts has been significantly improved over the current map.
The House map as finally approved reduces the current 16 potentially competitive districts to only 8 and increases the mean or average partisan gap in the districts. A Monte Carlo Markov Chain analysis of the less extreme earlier House Judiciary version found that in an analysis of geometric partisan bias, only 407 maps out of more than 11.8 billion were worse than the House map. It is an extreme partisan gerrymander with a very high level of incumbent protection.
In spite of this, only 15 House members voted against the plan on the third reading, when it mattered. We appreciate the negative votes of representatives Brawley, Garvin, Govan, Howard, Jefferson, J. L. Johnson, King, Matthews, McDaniel, McGarry, Ott, Pendarvis, Rivers, Robinson, and Wetmore.
