Many here in South Carolina harbor a deep contempt for the federal government in Washington. So it's particularly galling that our reapportionment process is controlled by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights.
The U.S. Constitution gives states the authority to design districts, but a civil rights-era federal law sets the parameters. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, designed to ensure that white officials don't weaken the voting influence of blacks, requires certain states with a history of racial voting discrimination to submit their maps to either the Justice Department or a federal court before they can take effect.
South Carolina has a dubious voting rights history, as do Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia as well as parts of Florida, North Carolina and Texas.
The Voting Rights Act prohibits "retrogression," or the elimination of black-majority election districts through reapportionment.
Drawing new district lines is required every 10 years following the decennial census count.
Beaufort County's population has grown about 30 percent, to about 155,000 people, since 2000. Each of the 11 council districts will expand accordingly, from about 11,000 people to about 14,000. Districts must be approximately equal in size.
As a Beaufort County Council Redistricting Committee nears a recommendation, state lawmakers are in the middle of hashing out a map that makes room for a seventh congressional district because of South Carolina's population growth.
Internal fighting among the majority Republicans threatens to derail the GOP's railroading of a map that benefits them.
That's unusual because the majority party usually has enough votes to pass district designs that preserve and extend their dominance. The Voting Rights Act has often been described as the majority's most powerful tool.
The state Legislature is split over two congressional district maps. A state House version would give the new seat to the Myrtle Beach/Pee Dee region; the other, approved by the state Senate, would make Beaufort and surrounding counties part of the new district.
The latter proposal has the backing of Beaufort County Sen. Tom Davis, who says he has no designs on the U.S. House seat but believes the Lowcountry region should be united as "communities of interest."
Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell opposes the Beaufort-anchored district and believes the plan is susceptible to a federal court challenge.
But a plan that splits Beaufort County between two congressional districts, like the one favored by the state House, is less advantageous locally than one that keeps Lowcountry counties together.