Ok, so this is my first redistricting diary not focused on Michigan. I chose the state of South Carolina for several reasons, it’s relatively small, it will probably gain a seat, and that new seat may be a Majority-Minority seat. I don’t know if the DOJ will require a new Min-Maj seat, or what the recent Supreme Court decision has to do with this.
The rest of the map I drew with a Republican gerrymander in mind. I tried to dislodge Rep. Spratt, and I think that I was probably successful. I also made Rep. Brown and Rep. Wilson safer, in light of their recent competitive races last year.
This map is incredibly gerrymandered. I mean incredibly. I don’t know much about SC, so let me know if I’ve done something wrong.
District 1- Henry Brown (R) Blue
72% White, 19% African American, 6% Hispanic
Drops all of Horry County (Myrtle Beach) in exchange for Beaufort, Hilton Head area. Drops some heavily African American areas in exchange for more Republican Charleston areas.
District 2- Joe Wilson (R) Green
77% White, 17% African American, 3% Hispanic
This is the most gerrymandered non-VRA seat, mostly so that it can cede it’s black areas to the new 7th District. It follows the SC-GA border, then winds down to the Columbia area and takes in almost all of Lexington County, where Wilson’s home is located. AA population drops almost 10% and this district is much safer for Wilson.
District 3- TBD (successor of Gresham Barrett) Purple
78% White, 14% African American, 5% Hispanic
Includes all of Oconee and Pickens as well as northern Greenville and Spartanburg Counties and winds down to pick up some conservative Columbia suburbs formerly in Wilson’s district. This district includes Barretts home but may or may not contain the home of his successor, which could be problematic if he or she is from Anderson County. Black population drops 6%
District 4- Bob Inglis (R) Red
70% White, 22% African American, 5% Hispanic
Includes all of Anderson Couny and the cities of Greenville and Spartanburg. By far this is the least gerrymandered district in the state. Because it now grabs Aiken County and due to growing minority populations in North SC, the African American and Hispanic populations actually go up in this district slightly.
District 5- John Spratt (D) Yellow
75% White, 18% African American, 4% Hispanic
I drew this district with the intend of defeating John Spratt, because I doubt that South Carolina Republicans settle for a 3-4 Delegation, especially because 2 districts are VRA. The African American vote here is nearly halved, and the district now stretches into Horry County and includes all of Myrtle Beach, a Republican stronghold. I don’t know whether Spratt would win this district, but he may decide to retire rather than find out.
District 6- Jim Clyburn (D) Blue-Green
52% African American, 43% White, 2% Hispanic
This district takes in more of Columbia than before and stretches north into Fairfield, Chester, and Union Counties. To stay majority African American, and to hurt Spratt, it has now grown several oogie tentacles that slither into some of the more rural African American areas, as well as a few small cities. Don’t worry though, it remains contiguous. Despite the additon of another majority Black district, the AA population only falls about 5%
District 7- NEW (D) Gray
54% African American, 41% White, 3% Hispanic
I’ll admit, this district is awfull, but maybe not as awful as it looks at first glance. It starts by taking in the Black neighborhoods of Charleston and North Charleston, the takes in as many black majority tracts as humanly posible without going into Columbia. I tried to salvage some integrity for this map, so I made sure that there were no oogie tentacles like in the 6th, so give me credit for that at least.
What does everyone think? Are they legal?
Update– Based on comments and criticism, I’ve totally redrawn my map, this time giving Spratt the African American majority seat instead of creating a new one. This district is a thousand times less gerrymandered than the last, so I think you’ll all like it much better.
Spratt’s New District is exactly 50% Black
While Clyburn’s is about 55% Black.
To compensate for lost population, Clyburn’s district takes in more of both the Charleston and Columbia areas.
The new 7th district follows the North Carolina border from Spartanburg to Myrtle Beach, taking up much of what was Spratt’s District. The other districts remain almost unchanged, although the first and second become a few percentage points more white. I tried very hard to split as few counties as possible, and even though it may look bad, many counties remain compact in even the 5th and 6th Districts.
which means you were successful in predicting what a nasty GOP gerrymander would look like.
That said, I doubt they would attempt to go this far. For one thing, Spratt is very difficult to beat, he’s been around forever, and is a very powerful member of the House. Even as a Democrat, he has a certain amount of respect from the GOP. Gerrymandering him out this horribly would be frowned upon big time in South Carolina.
That said, the GOP does want the new seat for themselves, so what I expect them to do is try to cram even more African-Americans into Clyburn’s and Spratt’s districts, with the aim of protecting their vulnerable guys and ensuring a solid GOP new seat.
Considering the weakness of their 1st and 2nd districts, trying to go 6-1 is impossible, so settling for 5-2 is a certainty, and they have no real reason to make it two liberal black Democrats instead of one liberal black Democrat and one moderate white Democrat.
If South Carolina was on track to stay at six districts, they might have been able to knock out Spratt. But with seven they just won’t do it. The worst gerrymander I expect is one that guarantees a 5-2 split for the next decade.
There is no way in hell that something like that could pass. But good job finding two minority-majority districts.
Here’s how I understand the current state of the law. If you say it’s a politically motivated map, you’re fine. But if a court thinks you’re implementing a racial gerrymander (and let’s face it, you are), you’ve got a problem.
Anyway, good job. I wouldn’t have the patience for a state I know so little about.
and my districts aren’t half as ugly:
http://www.swingstateproject.c…
I’m mean they’re ugly, but there’s ugly, there’s atrocious, and there’s the SCOTUS will rule it unconstitutional…
I seriously laughed out loud when I saw this. Absolutely excellent job.
hat tip to Marcus for doing this in a less ugly way.
It’s because of districts like these that Section 5 of the VRA needs to be thrown away. Too many districts out there like SC-6, FL-3, and NC-12. If there’s a minority-majority area and they can draw a compact district around it, like in big cities or states with large asian or hispanic populations, fine. But trying to draw lines like these just to get 50% minority population is ridiculous.
They would certainly go for a 5-2 split —
But instead of trying to gerrymander Spratt out of a winnable district, they are more likely to redraw his district to have a slight African-American majority — it would continue to be a Democratic seat, and (assuming Spratt wouldn’t lose to a black candidate in a Democratic primary at some point), it would eventually elect an African-American Democrat when Spratt retires.
Doing this (along with packing Clyburn’s district even more with African-American voters) would allow them to take “problematic” Democratic areas out of CDs 1 & 2 and make those districts much more Republican, while creating a new solidly Republican 7th district.
Even if SC doesn’t pick up a 7th seat, they could use a similar strategy with 6 seats.
Part of the Republican southern strategy continues to be using political segregation — if they can draw lines so most Democratic elected officials are black and representing black-majority districts, they are able to maintain the the perception that Democrats are the “black” party and benefit from racially polarized voting patterns among white voters. To that end, they would actually prefer to see 2 African-American (and presumably liberal) Democrats in the state Congressional delegation than they would to have 1 white southern moderate Democrat and 1 African-American.
Of course if the Republicans don’t completely control the redistricting process (if by some miracle we could take back the governorship) the opportunity for a much less blatantly partisan map is possible. I think it would actually be possible to draw a 4-3 split that protects Spratt and has 2 African American districts — but that would require Democratic control of the entire process, which is virtually impossible.
those districts look like a window broke and the state of South Carolina got covered by broken glass.
SC-1 (blue):
SC-3 (purple):
SC-4 (red):
SC-5 (yellow):
SC-7 (gray):
Southeastern SC:
And stats
SC-1: 78% White, 15% Black (formerly 75/21 White)
SC-2: 68% White, 23% Black (formerly 70/26 White)
SC-3: 75% White, 19% Black (formerly 77/21 White)
SC-4: 81% White, 11% Black (formerly 76/20 White)
SC-5: 75% White, 18% Black (formerly 65/32 White)
SC-6: 56% Black, 37% White (formerly 57/41 Black)
SC-7: 54% Black, 42% White
Basically the 6th starts in Spartansburg/Greenville/Anderson and makes it’s way to Columbia.
Besides being far less obviously gerrymandered, it definitely is more in line with what a Republican controlled redistricting process is likely to result in …