COLUMBIA S.C. — Two outspoken Democratic lawmakers want South Carolina to enact redistricting rules into state law, rather than setting up new guidelines every 10 years, to ensure transparency and accountability in the process that redraws legislative voting districts across the state.
State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, an Orangeburg Democrat, and state Sen. Mike Fanning, a Fairfield Democrat, said they are pushing legislation to codify the South Carolina redistricting process, even though they don’t believe it will pass.
However, the two legislators want residents across the state to speak out in redistricting hearings when they occur, including those by the House scheduled for this month.
“When you don’t have the votes, you still have to shine the light on something, and Rep. Cobb-Hunter and I don’t want the public to become engaged, after the maps are already drawn and after it’s adopted,” Fanning said. “This specific legislation shines the light that we don’t have anything in the code of laws that govern the process that we’re about to do.”
The two lawmakers point out how most legislative elections in November are not competitive and say they get pushback from Democrats as well as Republicans who may want to keep their seats safe in a general election.
Fanning said moderates may move further to either end of the political spectrum to avoid a primary challenger.
“Those folks that like to work across the aisle that tend to be moderate, they are not benefited by the process of creating safe Republican or Democratic seats,” Fanning said.
The call for a codifying redistricting processes comes as the House holds hearings concerning how districts should be drawn after last year’s census. Senate hearings were in August.
Each chamber sets rules for the redistricting process every 10 years, after the census is complete. Those rules, however, are not set in law, meaning they can be inconsistent from decade to decade. South Carolina is the only state with no state law setting redistricting criteria, as well as procedures and guidelines.
The proposed Fairness, Accountability, and Integrity in Redistricting Act, which is being pushed by Fair Maps SC, would make sure voting districts are composed of contiguous and compact territory, take into account communities of interest and keep incumbents in their current districts, among other things. It also would ensure public input in the process.
The legislation is sitting in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“South Carolina needs to change the system,” Fanning said. “We can no longer sit back and keep a system in place that for decades has a game in place with no rules, with the politicians getting to decide what voters that we have and what voters that we want in our district voting for us. No rules in place legally. We have committees that might have rules but there, there’s no rules set aside in law.”
Cobb-Hunter also has pushed for legislation to create an independent redistricting commission to draw legislative maps.
“There is language in the legislation, which will not allow for interference by legislators, by the executive branch, no one who is related to a legislator or affiliated with the executive branch can even serve on the redistricting commission,” Cobb-Hunter said.
That legislation is in the House Judiciary Committee.
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