The gerrymandered state: S.C. reapportionment leaves voters without options

The gerrymandered state: S.C. reapportionment leaves voters without options

By Monique Cunin
Edited by Tom Benning

Thousands of South Carolinians will vote Nov. 4, but when it comes to electing their state representative or senator - and sometimes their local officials - their vote might not matter.

More than half the state Senate districts and two-thirds of the House's have no race at all. The election was decided in the June primaries - or even before that, when the candidate-filing deadline passed in March.

In 24 of 46 state Senate districts and 85 of 124 House districts, the candidates are running unopposed.

If there was any contest, it was in a party primary. But then voters had to declare Democrat or Republican, this in a quadrennial election year when some might have voted in the other party's earlier presidential primary. Others shun taking sides, so by November, they have no choice.

Every decade, after the census, state legislators must reapportion, moving district lines to match shifting populations so that each district has roughly equal numbers.

"Rule No. 1 among legislators when they redraw election district lines is to try and protect their own seat," said William Moore, a political science professor at the College of Charleston.

The process can't ignore the South's tortuous history of Jim Crow and blacks' disenfranchisement. The U.S. Justice Department gets final say on the maps under the 1965 Voting Rights Act to make sure minorities have a chance at getting elected.

So minority voting strength often ends up concentrated, which in South Carolina often means Democratic strength. Combine that with the tendency of the party in control - the GOP, which took control of the S.C. House in 1994 and the Senate in 2001 - to consolidate that power in other areas, and it's fertile ground for growing noncompetitive districts.

Sometimes the results are odd enough to evoke gerrymandering, a term from the early 1800s when Elbridge Gerry was Massachusetts governor and one misshapen district reminded political observers of a salamander.

State senators elected this year to four-year terms, like Republican David Thomas, will be laying the groundwork for the next reapportionment after the 2010 census. If House members like Democrat J. Seth Whipper want much of a say, they'll have to get elected again in two years.

But that might not be too hard. Thomas has represented Greenville County's Senate District 8 for 23 years and, at the state's other end, Whipper has represented Charleston County's House District 113 for 14 years. Thomas has not had competition since 1988 and Whipper has only had to compete for his seat twice in seven elections.