S.C. Senate Asks Public to Submit Redistricting Maps
Saturday, September 18, 2021 at 4:56PM COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Senators are asking the public to submit proposed maps on new districts in South Carolina based on the 2020 U.S. Census as a special House committee wraps up a series of public meetings on redistricting across the state.
Lawmakers are using the Census data to draw maps for the 46 state Senate districts, 124 state House districts and seven U.S. House districts.
A Senate subcommittee on Friday approved criteria for drawing the districts, turning aside proposals from Sen. Dick Harpootlian to make districts as equal in population as possible instead of within 5% and to make protecting incumbents the least important priority.
"Whether we get back or not is up to how we represent our constituency, not how we drew our districts," the Columbia Democrat said before his proposals failed to come up for a vote Friday.
The Senate called a special session starting Oct. 12 to deal in part with redistricting, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Luke Rankin told the subcommittee members the full maps might not be ready by then. The subcommittee set an Oct. 8 deadline for maps submitted by the public.
The House is still hearing from the public about what they should emphasize when drawing districts.
A House ad-hoc committee will hold its last three meetings outside Columbia this week. The committee has five Republicans and three Democrats.