COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A group of South Carolina senators are winding up their public hearings about how to draw new districts for South Carolina House and Senate seats as well as the U.S. House.
Meanwhile, a South Carolina House subcommittee plans its own round of 10 public hearings on redistricting starting in September.
The General Assembly is preparing to use the new 2020 U.S. Census data to draw maps for the 46 state Senate districts, 124 state House districts and seven U.S. House districts. The data lawmakers need to draw the new maps should come out later this month.
The Senate subcommittee already has held six public meetings on the maps. Senators are asking citizens to talk about what they want and don’t want done when the maps are drawn because the detailed Census data has not been released.
This week’s hearings are Monday at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College in Orangeburg; Tuesday at Trident Technical College in North Charleston; Wednesday at Horry Georgetown Technical College in Conway; and Thursday at Aiken Technical College in Graniteville. All meetings start at 6:30 p.m. and will be streamed at the South Carolina Statehouse website.
The panel of four Republican senators and three Democrats will take testimony both in person and online.
The House subcommittee handling redistricting met for the first time this past Tuesday and agreed to their own 10 meeting schedule in many of the same towns and cities.
The House committee has five Republicans and three Democrats.
The two chambers usually don’t alter the other chamber’s map. Both chambers will work together on the U.S. House map.
South Carolina addednearly 500,000 people from 2010 to 2020 to become the 23rd largest state in the U.S. with 5.1 million people, according to the Census.