Charleston County GOP finds one district impossible to crack

By Monique Cunin
Edited by Tom Benning

To Charleston County Republicans, trying to wrest control of House District 113 from Democratic state Rep. J. Seth Whipper is already a lost cause.

The GOP can't win in the suburban middle-class district, surrounded by Interstates 26 and 526, because the Legislature drew the district to protect Whipper, said Lin Bennett, the Charleston County Republican chairwoman.

"No one's going to spend the energy or the time to run an election they don't think they can win," Bennett said.

For the fifth time in seven elections, Whipper is unopposed and the 12,432 registered voters in the district don't get any choice - not that that bothers some of them.

"The only thing we care about around here is the property tax when we get the bill," said Erin Methvin, who lives in North Charleston.

Local politics don't concern Russell Barber, the 50-year-old owner of a home maintenance company, who said he has lived in the area for 22 years. "It's like a democracy, and they say we have two choices, neither one I could care less about," Barber said.

Whipper, an attorney, has represented District 113 since 1994. He helped redraw district lines after the 2000 census and said the object was to keep incumbents safe and increase minority representation in the Legislature.

To do this, Whipper, an African-American legislator and member of the S.C. Legislative Black Caucus, said he made concessions by surrendering some Democratic fringes of his district. That helped solidify surrounding minority districts and preserve some of the Democratic caucus's influence statewide, he said.

This kind of give-and-take is typical of districts across the state, said William Moore, a political science professor at the College of Charleston.

District 113, which is the county's portion of North Charleston, is safely Democratic because of its heavily black racial make-up, Moore said. Many S.C. districts are drawn like 113 to increase minority representation in the Legislature, but that also creates more white, Republican-safe districts, he said.

"If every legislative district in the state was drawn to reflect the proportion of African-Americans to whites, then you would have a very different Legislature," likely one with a Democratic majority, Moore said.

Most of the Charleston County districts - some Democratic, some Republican - are considered safe because the General Assembly drew them that way, Moore said.

Moore said "safe" districts have far-reaching implications. Not having competition in general elections increases a legislator's political influence, Moore said, but competition increases legislators' drive to reach out to all the groups in their communities. Some states have imposed term limits on representatives and senators. This allows them to focus on serving constituents, but it also limits voters' choices, Moore said.

Whipper said he is able to meet the needs of all of District 113's constituents because he has served them for more than a decade. And he said the lack of competition has allowed him to go to neighborhood meetings and hear constituents' concerns.

After the 2010 census, Whipper said, the district's shape might change again because some neighborhoods are shrinking and housing in other parts of the district has increased since 2000.

But will that open up competition in District 113? Not likely, Moore said, because most reapportionments are made with incumbents in mind.

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