SC Senate adopts redistricting plan that relocates Harpootlian’s seat to Charleston
The South Carolina Senate on Tuesday adopted a new voting map that leaves one of the upper chamber’s best-known members without a district but guarantees three resident senators in Richland County.
Senators voted 41-2 in favor of the map, with Sens. Mike Fanning, D-Fairfield, and Vernon Stephens, D-Orangeburg, casting the lone “no” votes.
The Senate, which also green lit the previously approved House redistricting plan, will send a combined redistricting bill to the House for what is expected to be a perfunctory final reading, Senate Judiciary Chairman Luke Rankin, R-Horry, said.
The House is scheduled to return Thursday afternoon.
The new map, which will remain in place for the next decade, makes sweeping changes to South Carolina’s 46 Senate districts to account for the state’s significant, but uneven growth over the past decade.
Districts in high growth areas, such as the Greenville-Spartanburg area, the southern suburbs of Charlotte and along the coast, shrunk geographically, while districts in rural areas where growth slowed or even dropped expanded geographically.
In Richland County, the plan relocates Columbia Sen. Dick Harpootlian’s district to Charleston to account for tremendous coastal growth, brings Districts 18 and 26 into the county and situates a previously-split district entirely within the county’s bounds.
It gives Richland County an additional resident senator and delegation member, but does so at the expense of Harpootlian, whose district is being absorbed by former Senate Minority Leader Nikki Setzler, D-Lexington, the chamber’s longest-serving member.
Harpootlian was absent for Tuesday’s vote, but has expressed support for the redistricting proposal in the past despite its implications for his political future, saying it made sense to move his district given the explosive growth in Charleston.
Redistricting impact by SC region
In the Pee Dee region, virtually every county but Horry lost population over the past decade, leading to the geographic expansion of many districts surrounding Horry and the shrinking of the resident districts within Horry.
Districts 30 and 32, represented by Kent Williams, D-Marion, and Ronnie Sabb, D-Williamsburg, were stretched further into Horry County to pick up population, while Districts 28 and 33, represented by Greg Hembree, R-Horry, and Rankin, diminished in size.
“We’ve had the highest growth rate of any county in the state,” Hembree said. “My district reached into Dillon County before. Now it is drawn all the way back east of Loris, which is a long way from Dillon County.”
Similar changes occurred in the region near the North Carolina border, where fast-growing districts in York and Lancaster county scaled back geographically so that more rural districts to the south and east could expand to pick up their excess population.
District 17, for example, which includes all of Chester and Fairfield counties and part of York County, spreads east into Lancaster County in the new map.
The combination of massive growth along the coast paired with population loss in rural counties on the Georgia border shaped the redistricting process in the Lowcountry, where mapmakers squeezed the new District 20 into what is currently District 41, represented by Sandy Senn, R-Charleston.
Margie Bright Matthews, D-Colleton, one of the lawmakers whose districts was impacted, picked up the entirety of Hampton County and all of Jasper County with the exception of Sun City, which was made whole in Sen. Tom Davis’ District 46.
While her redrawn district retains roughly the same projected partisan lean, Bright Matthews said she expects her constituency to change in the years ahead due to rapid growth in the area.
“I’m not sure how it’s going to change,” she said. “I just have to be resilient and be able to recognize what their concerns are and address them.”
New map ‘without a doubt’ an improvement
Overall, the Senate map is seen as a less controversial proposal than the House plan, which has been criticized as an “extreme partisan gerrymander.” It splits fewer counties and voting precincts than the current Senate map and is not immediately expected to shift the chamber’s 30-16 Republican advantage.
Rankin told reporters Tuesday the newly adopted Senate map is “without a doubt” superior to the current map.
“In terms of splits of precincts, in terms of whole counties, whole communities, whole towns ... we think this is even better in terms of all the criteria,” he said. “You got a buy in of all parties, save perhaps one or two dissenting votes. And so it is our best effort which we think complies with the visual, the optical, the constitutional, the legal and the principles that we’ve adopted.”
Rankin said he did not know whether the map would be challenged in court, as past redistricting plans have, but pointed to the near unanimous support for the plan and the failure of any senator to introduce a competing plan as indications that relatively few constituents oppose it.
“I would suggest that vote tells the world, this is a good map and it meets the criteria,” he said.
Stephens, a Black freshman Democrat from Orangeburg County who voted against the plan, said he was disappointed with the way it splits his home county and shifts the character of his rural majority-minority district.
As redrawn, Stephens’ District 39 extends further into Berkeley County and picks up the rapidly growing areas of Nexton, Carnes Crossroads and Cane Bay, which have a whiter, less rural demographic makeup than the current district.
“The proposed map takes me deeper into Berkeley County in a district that is now 60% Berkeley County residents and about 18% Orangeburg County residents,” Stephens said. “With that being said, you wonder, is it electable for me?”
Stephens said the shifting composition of the district, which moves from a solidly Democratic seat to a more competitive one that is trending redder in the years ahead, could impact his decision to seek reelection in 2024.
Regardless of his future plans, Stephens said he’ll continue to ardently serve his constituents and believes his ability to work with diverse populations, honed over his nearly 20 years as a school board member, will serve him well.
The nonpartisan League of Women Voters of South Carolina, which has commended the Senate map for its fairness, identified Stephens’ district as its primary concern with the proposal.
In written testimony provided to The State, the League warned that “as the decade progresses, the opportunity of minority voters in this area to elect a senator of their choice may be in danger.”
Fanning, the only other senator who opposed the new map, also represents a district the League highlighted as one that, while still a minority influence district, “may not treat minorities well” in the future due to an influx of primarily white residents in Lancaster County.
While no Republicans opposed the map, Senn, the Charleston senator, came the closest.
Senn, who is significantly impacted by the insertion of a new district in Charleston, said after Tuesday’s vote that she had “begrudgingly” supported the proposal only because she understood how hard her colleagues worked on it.
“This is a body that heavily relies upon seniority, yet the senator from District 20 (Harpootlian), who is my junior, and the next senator from District 20, who’s fictitious at this point, ends up being plopped right in the middle of my district with no say-so by me,” she said on the Senate floor.
The new District 20, which will encompass the James Island and West Ashley communities Senn currently represents, projects to be a safe Democratic seat.
Senn’s highly competitive District 41 seat, meanwhile, will take on a much more rural, Republican character as it stretches deep into Colleton County.
“It’s definitely a removal from the area that I’m used to,” she said, “but I am certainly familiar with rural issues having grown up in Branchville,” a town in Orangeburg County with a population less than 1,000.
This story was originally published December 7, 2021 at 1:59 PM.