SC Republicans don’t want a fair voting map. That’s why independent redistricting is needed
A U.S. Supreme Court case is allowing South Carolina Republican lawmakers to finally say out loud what’s been an open secret.
They don’t care about fair elections. They simply want to win, democracy be damned. In doing so, they’ve made the loudest call of all for independent redistricting.
This has become obvious after The State’s Zak Koeske reported on a lawsuit that claims South Carolina’s GOP-dominant legislature redrew the state’s voting map to dilute the power of Black voters.
Koeske reported that Republican lawmakers and staffers said in federal court the map “was drawn to enhance Republican political advantage in the coastal 1st District, which has evolved into a swing district in recent years, but had not used race to accomplish that goal.”
“I think saying that (partisanship) was a factor is an understatement. It was one of the most important factors,” Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, testified. “The Senate was not going to pass a plan that sacrificed the 1st.”
Because of a 2019 decision by the nation’s highest court that allowed partisanship to govern redistricting, Massey and his cohort have no shame in admitting they didn’t care about fairness when the map was redrawn in 2020.
But what about integrity? What about doing the right thing, not because it’s to your advantage, but because it’s the right thing to do?
Republican lawmakers threw character out the window when they redrew the maps in 2020 and shifted Black communities near Charleston that were in the 1st Congressional District, held by Republican Nancy Mace, into the 6th Congressional District, held by Democrat James Clyburn of Columbia.
When Massey says the Senate wasn’t going to pass a plan that “sacrificed the 1st,” what he means is that South Carolina’s most powerful Republicans are willing to burn democracy for power.
South Carolina has always been a one-party, conservative state, with the exception of a few years after the Civil War.
Conservatives will continue to dominate this state until Armageddon. But with a Democratic-leaning Black population that equals about 30% of the entire state, South Carolina should have a Congressional swing district. That’s practical, fair and allows democracy to, if not flourish, at least exist.
The 1st Congressional District proved it could be that swing district after Democrat Joe Cunningham won it in 2018.
Instead of promoting democracy and equity, Republicans have decided that gerrymandering is a better course of action. It’s just one more sign that the GOP is willing to unravel democracy, as if promoting the Big Lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election wasn’t enough.
Power to redraw maps needs to be removed from lawmakers’ hands and given to an independent commission. However that commission is created, its members must be untouched by politics. How about tap the minds at our state’s universities?
The Republicans who drew the maps believe they’re solidifying their power. They’re ignoring the signs that such partisan maps are emboldening extremists at the fringe of the Republican party who believe in authoritarian rule. These new maps are undoing the ability of reasonable conservatives to win across the country.
South Carolina Republicans need to open a history book and read Abraham Lincoln’s “Lyceum Address.” They’ve forgotten or never knew it.
“If destruction be our lot,” Lincoln, a Republican, said of the United States, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 7:55 AM with the headline "SC Republicans don’t want a fair voting map. That’s why independent redistricting is needed."