South Carolina Senate posts 12 proposed redistricting maps as lawsuit looms

(The Center Square) – The South Carolina Senate Redistricting Committee convened Thursday to take public testimony regarding 12 proposed redistricting plans, including submissions by the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

The ACLU and NAACP claim the Legislature’s compressed redistricting timeline makes it “nearly impossible” to publicly evaluate the proposed new congressional and state legislative districts before lawmakers must adopt them in time for March’s filing deadlines for 2022 election candidates.

A lawsuit filed Oct. 12 in U.S. District Court in Columbia by the ACLU, NAACP and other groups maintains redistricting in December and January before March deadlines provides little time to review new district maps before the filing deadline and should be extended.

Redistricting nationwide got off to a late start because the pandemic delayed completion of the 2020 U.S. census. Instead of receiving data from the U.S. Census Bureau in June, finalized facts and figures compiled from the decennial headcount weren’t available until late August and, in some cases, this month.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s 23-member Redistricting Subcommittee wrapped up its 10 public hearings on reapportioning its 46 state Senate districts in August.

The panel is now reviewing maps available for public view on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s redistricting website by clicking on the “Plan Proposals” tab.

The eight-member House Redistricting Ad Hoc Committee completed its 10-meeting round of public hearings Oct. 4. No public hearings on the maps are scheduled. At least seven are available in the website’s “Submitted Plans” section.

Both chambers were to convene an Oct. 12 special session to approve the reapportioned 170 state legislative districts and to collaborate on reapportioning South Carolina’s seven U.S. House districts.

But when legislative leaders cancelled the October session because delayed census data was still being analyzed, the ACLU filed its lawsuit, petitioning to delay the process and give a three-judge panel – and the public – more to time to evaluate the proposed maps.

“The Legislature’s decision to delay map-making practically guarantees the Legislature will not produce timely maps that meet constitutional and other requirements or follow a process that offers an opportunity for meaningful public consideration,” the lawsuit maintains.

According to the lawsuit, South Carolina’s current maps aren’t simply gerrymandered but “malapportioned” by manipulation with widely variable and uneven populations across legislative and congressional districts.

Malapportionment gives certain voters in a state far more influence over elections than others because of where they live.

Delaying the beginning of the process so the end abuts on deadlines is nothing more than an attempt to run out the clock before the maps are official, the lawsuit claims.

Nonsense, attorneys for the House Redistricting Ad Hoc Committee retort in their response, calling the lawsuit “nothing more than a thinly veiled invitation for the federal judiciary to actively participate in a state legislative process reserved for the South Carolina General Assembly.”

The response cited House Judiciary Committee Chair Chris Murphy’s comments after “lengthy, aggressive demands” by the NAACP during a September public hearing.

In Murphy’s replies, House attorneys said, he repeatedly reiterated “redistricting activities have been delayed substantially by factors well beyond the control of anyone in the House – namely, the belated release of final population data by the U.S. Census Bureau.”

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