‘They diluted Horry County’: Voters ask for less gerrymandering as SC redraws lines
Now that South Carolina lawmakers are beginning the once-a-decade task of redrawing political district lines, voters in this corner of the state have sent a strong message: Make the districts fairer and more inclusive.
At hearings across the 7th congressional district in recent weeks, voters asked SC senators to gerrymander districts less and give minorities more say as they redraw political district lines to be used for nearly a decade.
Those lines determine which elections a voter participates in, who a voter can choose at the ballot box and who represents them. A committee of South Carolina state senators, led by Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Luke Rankin (R-Conway), has been holding hearings across the state this month to hear from voters before they begin the work of drawing new district lines.
The U.S. Census Bureau released its first tranche of population data from the 2020 population count on Thursday, giving lawmakers time to meet legal deadlines in redrawing the district lines. Figures showed Horry County — the most populous county in the 7th congressional district and a stronghold for Republicans in the state legislature — as having grown by nearly 82,000 residents. It’s one of the fastest growing counties in the country and the fastest in South Carolina. Horry County also edged out Spartanburg County to become the fourth largest county in the state.
It’s not yet clear if that population growth will cause the county to gain any new political districts, either at the local or state level, but it will certainly influence how those districts are drawn, with much of the growth being in unincorporated areas of Horry County, like Carolina Forest and outside of Conway, rather than in the cities and towns.
At the hearings in Florence and in Conway, voters asked Rankin, as well as state Senator Ronnie Sabb (D-Williamsburg) and other state senators, to avoid gerrymandering and draw lines in such a way that give voters of color more of a say at the ballot box.
In Conway Wednesday evening, Conway resident and political consultant Antonius NeSmith questioned why the lines of the 7th congressional district are “real jagged” near Florence, Marion and Georgetown, which have higher populations of Black voters than other areas. He suggested that if the district lines were drawn to include Hemingway, Stuckey and Andrews in the 7th district, Black voters would have more of a say in who gets elected.
“Looking at the map, the lines are real jagged toward the edges of Florence, Marion and Georgetown, excluding Hemingway, Stuckey and splitting Andrews which is majority African American,” he told the state Senate panel gathered in an auditorium on the Horry-Georgetown Technical College campus. “I am puzzled trying to figure out how minorities could ever have a chance to elect our candidates of choice with these kinds of racial disparities.”
Other speakers argued that some state Senate lines ought to be drawn to include more communities of color so that those voters have more representation.
“We are asking that the under-served and underrepresented communities are not ignored and that fair representation is in the forefront in drawing the lines of district 32,” Marvin Neal, the head of the Georgetown NAACP chapter, said. “Elected officials only reflect the biggest and strongest groups of voters that elect them. This leaves all others unrepresented and often leads to major problems with political gerrymandering, partisan gridlock and no-choice elections.”
Sabb is the state senator for district 32.
In Florence last week, voters there also asked Rankin and the other state senators to avoid gerrymandering as they redraw the district lines.
“I’m just asking that the redistricting be fair, consistent and not gerrymandered, that’s basically all I’m asking,” said Patty Burns, a resident of Cheraw who spoke at the hearing.
Darlington County Council member Joyce Thomas also spoke, and said she’d like to see district lines drawn in such a way that the districts are competitive and don’t split up areas where voters of color live into separate districts. She said lines ought to be drawn in such a way that allow voters of color to have a greater say at the ballot box.
“Legislative districts should not be drawn with the intention to reduce competitiveness, I feel like people need to be fair,” she said. “I feel like district lines should ensure that minorities have the opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.”
Pearlie Lawson, the head of Marlboro County’s NAACP branch, argued that incarcerated people at the state and federal prisons in her area are included in calculations for other purposes, like receiving funding, but not for redistricting. She said that dilutes the districts and reduces locals’ influence. Like other speakers at both the Florence and Horry hearings, Lawson asked the panel to keep communities of color together so those voters could have more of a say in their districts.
“The goal should be to keep our communities intact,” she said.
In Horry County, Little River resident Brian Kasprzyk said he didn’t mind gerrymandering if it meant that districts were more diverse, elections were more competitve between political parties and voters had more choices.
“My message to you is this: Please create districts that are competitive. I want to base (votes) on the issues from opposing points of view,” Kasprzyk said. “I believe that democracy works best when ideas are debated, discussed, argued, disputed, deliberated, contested and questioned in public.”
Cedric Blain Spain, though, argued that gerrymandering and splitting up communities of color leads to less influence from those voters and, over time, widespread apathy because it’s harder for their votes to carry meaningful influence. Blain Spain, the Horry County Democratic Party’s state executive committee representative, argued that Black people in Conway and elsewhere in Horry County have contributed greatly to the Grand Strand’s economy for decades, but lack the voting power that white residents have because they’re split into separate districts.
U.S. Census data released Thursday showed that Horry County added more than 26,000 non-white residents in the last decade, though that figured paled compared to the nearly 56,000 new white residents the county added during that period.
Instead of keeping the voters of color together in Horry County districts, Blain Spain argued, “they diluted Horry County.”
“Apathy is not an unreasonable response to a system that wastes my voting potential before I even get to the ballot box,” he said.
Rankin, for his part, said the feedback from voters will influence how the state Senate draws its lines, and that the lines won’t be “racially motivated” but rather based on which areas are gaining population and which are losing population. He said that everyone has different ideas of which communities belong together in voting districts, and that that input will be included in the Senate’s decisions.
“This won’t be a racially motivated decision in my view and if I had my way…my goal is to be as fair to all parties and fair to the folks of SC and get a bill that passes the senate and ultimately is affirmed by the federal courts,” he said.
The state House of Representatives will undergo its own process in coming months to draw district lines.
Several voters at both hearings suggested that redistricting in South Carolina would be more fair if an independent commission of citizens, rather than the legislature, drew the lines. Rankin said that idea has been floated before but has never “gotten traction” and wouldn’t be a “cure all.”
Blain Spain, as well as other voters of color, said that South Carolina should do better to empower Black residents, especially in Horry County.
“Black folks have worked for years to build Myrtle Beach, doing domestic works, making sure people make the almighty dollar in Myrtle Beach,” he said. “But then it’s Black folks in Horry County that don’t get fair representation because of gerrymandered districts.”
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 8:35 AM with the headline "‘They diluted Horry County’: Voters ask for less gerrymandering as SC redraws lines."
