TESTIMONY ON LWVSC CONGRESSIONAL MAP PROPOSAL BEFORE THE REDISTRICTING SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SC SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
November 12, 2021 

The League’s Congressional plan relies upon criteria that we have previously reviewed for you. I will not reiterate them here. As in the Senate District plan, substantial population growth along the coast and south of Charlotte accompanied by population stagnation in the I-95 corridor require adjustments of district boundaries, in particular boundaries associated with Congressional District (CD)  1 and CD 6. Appropriate adjustment of these boundaries requires careful attention to the rights of minorities to elect a candidate of their choice. CD 6 serves now to protect those rights and must continue to do so. 

However, at present CD 6 has a very high percentage of minority voters, especially when minorities smaller than our Black population are considered. In 2020 the incumbent received more than 68% of the votes cast, to 30.82% for his major-party opponent. We cannot build districts with the assumption that an established incumbent will continue, but this is a margin so large that it would protect the rights of Black voters even with a new and less known candidate. The current minority margin can and should be reduced. 

We believe that the best way to achieve this is to focus CD 6 on the Midlands and upper Lowcountry, withdrawing it from the Charleston area. 2020 census figures permit the League to draw CD 6 as a relatively compact inland district that follows county and municipal boundaries more often than the current map. This in turn permits drawing CD 1 to reflect the strong economic and social ties between municipalities in the Charleston area. The League map places Daniel Island, North Charleston, and other local cities entirely in CD 1, with Charleston. This gives these cities unified representation and surely makes sense to anyone who knows the close economic and other relationships that unite this part of South Carolina’s coast. 

The League plan offers improvement over the current map in several overall assessment areas. Instead of 12 counties split 12 times, there are 6 counties split 6 times. Instead of 65 split precincts there are 12. Our map improves competitiveness, although we did not design the map using voting history data. The map has somewhat better competitiveness simply because it isn’t designed not to allow successful competition. We did not engineer districts for bomb-proof “safe” margins for incumbents. 

We acknowledge that one current congressman has been drawn out of his district in our map. To clarify a point that has come up in a hearing in the lower house, the League has no position in favor of ejecting incumbents from their districts to get turnover in representation. We simply do not attempt to protect incumbents in the districts that they currently represent. We are agnostic on the issue. 

We hope that the Senate subcommittee will consider our map and its underlying principles in preparing your own. Thank you.