The South Carolina House and Senate on Tuesday approved a compromise redistricting plan that puts the state's new 7th U.S. House seat in the Pee Dee, anchored by Myrtle Beach.
Lawmakers had gone back to the Statehouse just to handle that one issue. They had not agreed on a final plan before their usual adjournment June 2nd.
The pending vote caused supporters of putting the new district in the Pee Dee to travel to Columbia to lobby lawmakers. The plan passed by the Senate in June would have anchored the new district in the Lowcountry and would have split the Pee Dee among four districts.
"It just makes common sense that we stay together and become that 7th District. We're already that. We just need to make it official," said Bill Pickle, chairman of the Florence County Republican Party. He and the other supporters were wearing red t-shirts that said, "Pee Dee Wants the 7th District". They handed out printed material to back their argument.
Jean Hampton, of Myrtle Beach, says the current Congressional district that includes Myrtle Beach doesn't represent the area as well as it could because it stretches along the coast and includes Charleston. "Some of the areas that are farther away, they don't know what's best for Myrtle Beach and the Pee Dee. But if we have a representative just from that particular area, we feel like we have more of a say-so," she says.
But not everyone agrees that putting the new district in the Pee Dee was the best idea. Rep. Harold Mitchell, D-Spartanburg, says Greenville, Spartanburg and York counties have grown more than Horry County and its surroundings, so the new district should have been drawn in the Upstate.
If that had been done, he says, instead of one Congressman representing Greenville and Spartanburg, the area might have had one representing Greenville and another representing Spartanburg.
"There are a lot of different things that are going on at the federal level that, if you had at least two Congressional reps from Greenville and Spartanburg fighting for the Upstate, oh it makes a whole heck of a lot of difference when you look at what's divvied up from Washington coming back into the state of South Carolina," he says.
The redistricting plan now goes to Gov. Nikki Haley's desk. It must also be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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