The South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina, is seen after sunset on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023. (STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s GOP controlled South Carolina House kicked off efforts to redraw the voting lines for Congress.
Five weeks ahead of South Carolina’s primaries, the House voted 87-25 along party lines Wednesday to add redistricting to a resolution governing what the Legislature can do after the regular session ends on May 14.
The vote does not guarantee redistricting will happen.
But House Republican leadership said they will get the mapping process started immediately, even as the measure allowing off-session debate still needs a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
House Judiciary Chairman Weston Newton told reporters a bill will be introduced Thursday morning. Hearings will start Friday.
“We passed it. We’re going to start the process and see where that takes us,” the Bluffton Republican said.
What a new map would ultimately look like, the timeline, and the costs — to include the prospect of holding a separate, statewide election for Congress — remains to be seen. Democrats tried repeatedly to get answers that Republicans said didn’t yet exist. They kept circling back to the response that the resolution approved Wednesday only opens the possibility of redistricting.
Democrats countered the vote opens the door to potentially months of uncertainty for voters and candidates, even as they stressed a new map may ultimately help Democrats in November.
The decision follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week that threw out Louisiana’s congressional map as unconstitutional gerrymandering based on race.
The White House asked Republican leaders in both chambers to take a look at the ruling and South Carolina’s map.
Rep. Justin Bamberg, first elected in 2014, lamented the national influence. South Carolina legislators used to take pride in the Statehouse not being like Washington: “It seemed like there was a D.C. shield around this place.”
“This place was impervious to that, and decisions were often made about what’s best for the people in South Carolina,” the Bamberg Democrat added.
Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, chimed in that Wednesday’s vote was nothing more than “an effort to bring the national chaos down to South Carolina.”
Under the House proposal, the redistricting effort would affect congressional primaries only, likely pushing them back to a later date, Newton said. The primaries for other statewide and legislative races would proceed as scheduled June 9.
Even so, primary ballots have already been printed. Absentee ballots for military service members and other voters overseas were mailed more than a week ago and 193 ballots have already been turned in, according to state election officials. Early voting for the primaries begins May 26.
The attempted redraw would put congressional candidates in limbo. Beyond potentially extending their campaigns an unknown length of time, some may be drawn out of the district they’re seeking.
Among those candidates impacted is state Rep. Mark Smith, who is among 10 Republicans, seven Democrats and two minor-party candidates running for the coastal 1st District.
“To cancel this election that’s already underway, I worry what message that it would send to those voters who have already cast their votes in this election,” the Daniel Island Republican said ahead of the vote.
“I think we need to be very slow and deliberate in this process,” he added. “Timing of this and the implementation of this, and the optics and the strategy matter.”
Still, Smith said he supported the effort. He voted with his GOP colleagues despite his misgivings.
Sen. Wes Climer, who is running for the 5th District, also said he is “more than happy to support the president’s request that we pursue that in South Carolina.”
“No matter the issue and no matter how it affects you, a legislator can’t make policy choices on the basis of his own interest,” the Rock Hill Republican said. “It is in the best interest of the people of South Carolina to maximize Republican vote share in the (U.S.) House of Representatives.”
But unlike the House, said he would like to see all state primaries delayed so they can take place on the same day, arguing it would “minimize voter confusion and save taxpayers a lot of money.”
Republicans’ efforts are focused on the 6th District, the only one among South Carolina’s seven U.S. House seats represented by a Democrat. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, who’s seeking an 18th term in November, could not be reached for comment following the vote.
“We’re in a state right now where you have a supermajority in this body. You have a supermajority in the Senate,” as well as every statewide office, said Rep. Jermaine Johnson, D-Hopkins. “You have all the power that you could ever wish to have.”
House Democrats pushed back further saying there is no way a map can be drawn and approved in a month. Not to mention the court challenges that will almost certainly follow.
“We’re so afraid of upsetting the 9% of South Carolinians that vote in Republican primaries that we just trip over ourselves to do their bidding,” said Rep. Spencer Wetmore, D-Folly Beach. “If I thought today’s amendment was some altruistic effort to hear real South Carolinian voices, I might be inclined to support it.”
The effort also likely faces a tight vote in the Senate, where Majority Leader Shane Massey has called it unnecessary and potentially harmful to Republicans. Democrats in the House on Wednesday repeated his prediction that a new map may result in two or possibly three Democrats in South Carolina’s delegation rather than seven Republicans.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in legal challenges following the post-2020-census redrawing of lines, already determined that South Carolina’s map, while drawn based on politics, was not racially gerrymandered. GOP leaders acknowledged precincts were moved between the 1st and 6th districts to make the coastal 1st District safer for Republicans following a population boom in the Lowcountry that had turned it more purple.
The Edgefield Republican also raised concerns a redraw might not survive a challenge before the state Supreme Court.
After the federal challenge on race failed, opponents of the map sued in state court on the argument that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution.
SC Supreme Court upholds voting map, throws out partisan gerrymandering claim
That failed too. But in his opinion, Chief Justice John Kittredge warned “a future challenge may present more fully developed constitutional violations” resulting in a different ruling.
“We are seeing — and will continue to see — state legislatures race to further minimize and perhaps erase the representation of the state’s minority political party in Congress,” he wrote. “These results may, indeed, be in line with each respective state’s constitution and laws, but they collectively have the effect of diminishing our constitutional republic as a whole. This is a troubling prospect for those who adhere to our nation’s founding principle that the People are sovereign.”
The South Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which was involved in those lawsuits, invoked Kittredge’s opinion in its statement coming out against this latest effort.
“Rigging electoral maps is wrong, no matter which party does it,” added its director, Jace Woodrum. “South Carolina lawmakers who choose to participate in this cynical race to the bottom are only demonstrating their fear of and contempt for the voters.”
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
