COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A special House committee working on drawing new districts based on the 2020 U.S. Census is crisscrossing South Carolina this week.
The House ad-hoc committee will hold four meetings, traveling from Rock Hill to Greenville to North Charleston and then to Bluffton. The committee has five Republicans and three Democrats.
Both the House committee and a similar Senate subcommittee which already held 10 hearings across the state will 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 meetings are being held before the new maps are drawn. Committee Chairman Jay Jordan said Thursday that the House is waiting for the final Census data at the end of the month to make sure it matches preliminary data released in August.
The two chambers usually don’t alter the other chamber’s map. Both chambers will work together on the U.S. House map.
This week’s House hearings are Monday in Rock Hill at the Baxter M. Hood Center at York Technical College; Tuesday at the Greenville High School auditorium; Wednesday at the North Charleston City Hall; and Thursday at the Bluffton High School auditorium. All meetings start at 6 p.m.
“Public input is indispensable to ensuring our districts best represent the people of South Carolina,” Jordan said at the Thursday redistricting meeting in Florence. “We truly are the house of the people. We want your input on specific issues or concerns in your communities, in your neighborhoods.”
South Carolina added nearly 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.
Much of that growth was along the coast and the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina. Twenty-four of South Carolina’s 46 counties lost population, mostly in rural areas.