Groups sue SC Gov. McMaster, state lawmakers over redistricting delay
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and a handful of state lawmakers overseeing the Legislature’s redraw of district lines were sued in federal court Tuesday over map delays and the “prolonged uncertainty” that those delays could mean for voters and candidates.
The 30-page complaint filed by the NAACP, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union, said state lawmakers are taking too long to propose and adopt new maps for the state’s seven U.S. House and 170 legislative seats.
The delay in new maps is of concern because candidates seeking election in 2022 have to file before March ends, the suit said.
In their suit, the groups asked the court to OK a three-judge panel that will set a schedule to ensure the Legislature draws and approves maps well before any elections take place.
“The state’s refusal to tell the public when it will reconvene to take up its obligation to redraw the lines and make it difficult, if not impossible, to resolve any court challenge before the consequential 2022 primaries is unacceptable,” Leah Aden, deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said in a statement.
Now that the House and Senate have wrapped up their respective public listening sessions, the Legislature isn’t expected to be back in Columbia to approve maps until the year’s end after forgoing special-called sessions this fall.
One of the defendants named in the case, Senate President Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, initially called a special Oct. 12 session only to cancel it after his chamber’s redistricting committee said maps would not be ready in time. Another defendant named in the suit, House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, declined in September to call back his members.
Neither have announced specific dates of when they plan to call back their respective chambers.
“I haven’t seen it,” McMaster told reporters Tuesday of the lawsuit. “This is par for the course. Anytime we go through redistricting, we go through lawsuits as well.”
Like all states, South Carolina did not get 2020 census population data until just a few months ago, a delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. District-specific population data has since been published on the House and Senate’s redistricting sites.
The census showed South Carolina’s population boomed over the last decade — about 10.7% — to more than 5.1 million people.
It was not enough, however, to add an additional seat in Congress.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Columbia, was brought by the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and voters, who are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of South Carolina, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Boroughs Bryant LLC and Arnold & Porter.
Defendants include McMaster, Peeler and Lucas, and both chairmen of judiciary committees, Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Horry, and Rep. Chris Murphy, R-Dorchester. The complaint also named the interim director of the State Election Commission and its board.
The speaker’s office and a spokesman with the State Election Commission said they had not received the lawsuit by deadline. Both declined to comment further.
Murphy also said he had not reviewed the suit but told The State Tuesday he can “assure that the process is completely transparent and conforms to every legal standard, and will continue to do (so) until the redistricting process is complete, which I anticipate will be not later than first week of December.”
SC voters need maps before filing, suit says
The suit argues that South Carolina residents like Black voter Taiwan Scott, the only individually named plaintiff, will have their votes diluted and be deprived of political power if U.S. House and state district maps are not redrawn ahead of the 2022 election cycle.
Scott, of Hilton Head, is a registered voter who resides in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, a fast-growing and now overpopulated district represented by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Daniel Island.
Since all congressional and state legislative districts must have roughly equal populations, and Mace’s district has about 90,000 more residents than it should, the district likely will need to shed a significant number of residents during the redistricting process to get down to the appropriate size.
Mace has more than 818,000 people in her district, and the population for each U.S. House district should be 731,204.
If it does not, voters like Scott will have too little voice, impairing their basic constitutional rights under the 14th Amendment, the suit said.
“Mr. Scott seeks fairly apportioned redistricting plans for South Carolina’s legislature before these 2022 consequential elections so that he can communicate his concerns with and hold accountable the appropriate representatives, given the many pressing needs facing Black South Carolinians and Gullah people specifically that state officials must respond to,” the complaint said.
House Majority Leader Gary Simrill, R-York, told The State Tuesday that the chamber’s goal is for filing dates to stay as they always have been, opening in about mid-March and closing at the end of March.
“And we plan to have new district lines adopted prior to the end of the (2021) calendar year,” he said.
Reporter Joseph Bustos contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Groups sue SC Gov. McMaster, state lawmakers over redistricting delay."
