Proposed SC Senate map moves Sen. Harpootlian’s Columbia district to the coast
Richland County will lose one of its influential Senate districts, while Charleston County will gain a new district and new senator under a redrawn voting map proposed by Senate staff.
Under the proposed redrawn map unveiled Thursday, the Richland County territory currently represented by Democratic Sen. Dick Harpootlian would disappear, moving voters into other senators’ districts in 2024.
Harpootlian’s current District 20 covers downtown Columbia and a number of in-town communities, stretching out to the northwest hitting Newberry County. But in the proposed map, residents would be absorbed, in large part, by Democratic Sens. Nikki Setzler’s Lexington County District 26 and Darrell Jackson’s District 21.
A Senate panel focused on redistricting gave first approval to the map Thursday but pushed public testimony and any potential vote to Nov. 12. The House has not approved a map either, but both chambers have said they plan to adopt maps in December.
South Carolina added almost 500,000 new people over the last decade, a nearly 10.7% growth, pushing the state’s total population beyond 5 million. Yet particular pockets of the state, including parts of the Upstate; Lancaster and York counties south of Charlotte; and Charleston and Horry counties along the coast, recorded significant growth.
Each Senate district must have a population of 111,270 people.
It made redrawing the Senate map one of the “hardest draws I’ve come across in many years,” said Senate Cartographer Will Roberts.
“The new plan that we have keeps 19 counties wholly intact in a single district,” Roberts said Thursday. “The old plan, in which the South Carolina Senate currently represents, only has 11 counties that are totally contained within one Senate district.”
Proposed South Carolina districts
Harpootlian’s current District 20 now gives Richland County four senators with a home base within the county lines.
But the Senate’s proposed plan would put it at three with Senate Districts 19, 21 and 22 — represented by Democratic Sens. John Scott, Jackson and Mia McLeod, respectively — completely contained in the county. The Senate proposal does, however, add more senators to the Richland County Legislative Delegation, Setzler and state Sen. Ronnie Cromer, R-Newberry, both of whom live outside the county.
Meanwhile, the fast-growing Charleston County area would gain an entirely new district over the James Island area.
“One of the changes that we really had in the Midlands area of South Carolina was trying to make sure that we had three resident senators inside Richland County,” Roberts said. “And the only way to do that was to move one district out of Richland County, and that’s what this plan does.”
Removing a Senate district from Richland County doesn’t mean the county’s population declined.
It actually increased by more than 31,000 people to 416,147, or about 8.2% over the past decade, the 2020 census reported.
However, Charleston County’s population grew much faster, with a surge of about 16.6% in a decade.
“As far as the Lowcountry’s concerned, we did clean up some lines that were down through there,” Roberts said. “We tried to make counties as whole as much as possible.”
Harpootlian, who made redistricting a focus of his campaign for Senate and sits on the Senate’s redistricting committee, told reporters Thursday that having three senators completely within Richland County is a “big plus.” However, he said he’ll take a deeper look at the maps, alongside his demographer, adding the “devil’s in the details.”
Setzler’s proposed new district is a district Harpootlian said he could win, though he acknowledged it’d be tougher to do so.
“The fact they didn’t split many precincts is a good sign, the fact they didn’t split as many counties as the benchmark plan is a good sign,” Harpootlian said. “They could have done a lot worse.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 6:28 PM.
