The State newspaper

After taking public testimony last month on two very different congressional map proposals, a panel of South Carolina House lawmakers will decide Monday which, if either, they favor.

Lynn Teague, LWVSC Vice President, Issues and Advocacy, criticized the alternative House proposal for splitting Black communities in Richland and Sumter counties, but said its most egregious racial gerrymander was in the Lowcountry, where predominantly Black enclaves of Charleston County are separated from largely white areas and slotted into the 6th District, a majority-minority district represented by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, South Carolina’s sole Democratic House member.

The News & Observer

South Carolina lawmakers heard public testimony Wednesday over a proposal to redraw the state's U.S. House districts that scales back the sweeping changes suggested in an earlier map. “We believe that it is an obvious racial and partisan gerrymander and should be rejected,” Lynn Teague. LWVSC VP, Issues & Action, said of the new map.

The State newspaper

A new federal lawsuit alleges South Carolina’s redrawn state House districts continue the state's "shameful history and ongoing record of discrimination" by intentionally diluting the power of Black voters.

The Dec. 24 complaint, filed by a team of lawyers from across the country on behalf of the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP and a Beaufort County resident, marks the sixth consecutive redistricting cycle in which the state's maps have been challenged as unconstitutional.

“Defendants traded one constitutional violation — malapportionment — for two others: racial gerrymandering and intentional racial discrimination,” the suit alleges, while asserting that the U.S. congressional districts, which lawmakers have not yet redrawn, remain malapportioned.

Testimony will be accepted on H 4492 (Congressional maps, Lucas) and S. 865 (Redistricting, Rankin). No new House map has been announced, so the two existing House maps, possibly with amendments, are under consideration. While the first House staff map is preferable to House Alternative 1, neither respects major regional communities of interest.