Will the Pee Dee Get It's Own District? Not This Time....
According to an article in TheHill.com, US Census Data indicate that more congressional seats will be heading south in the 2012 reapportionment - but South Carolna will not be one of them. Some people I know might have to wait ten more years to run for Congress.
Seriously, I know of a few people who were making plans to run in 2012 if SC got a 7th District, and the Pee Dee got out from under Jim Clyburn's thumb. Looks like it ain't gonna happen. Here are the winners and losers:
Winners:
Texas +3
Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Georgia +1 each
Losers:
Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Jersey, Louisiana. -1 each.
Yes, there is an obvious regional trend. the Rust Belt is losing seats, and the Sun Belt is gaining seats - provided that your state wasn't hit by Hurricane Katrina......But the Palmetto State won't be reaping the benefits, at least for another decade. So, you'll be seeing the Pee Dee get scraped along with loser areas like North Charleston, NE Columbia, Bamberg and Edisto Island. It'll be a bottom barrel district of unlike-minded communities too far away from each other to organize - either with itslef , or against it's Congressman.
Of course, Florence County does have the most voters in the 6th district, but they're not able to exert any power over the rest of the District, so look forward to another ten years of frustration and political impotence....
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4 comments:
There are four urban centers without a resident member of Congress - Aiken/North Augusta, Florence, Myrtle Beach and Spartanburg.
Of those four, two are connectable - Florence and Horry. Combined, you could get most of the population for a new district. Throw in the coastal half Georgetown, then part of Darlington, Dillon, Marion and Marlboro (the 5th is going to have to shed some population too), and you get a pretty decent seat for a GOP candidate.
Jim Clyburn would love to lose his biggest source of opposition (Florence), and since the 1st and 2nd have picked up a lot of population. You could put Horry and Georgetown in the new 7th, and swing the 1st down to Beaufort County. To offset that, you could take Allendale, Hampton and Jasper and give them to Clyburn.
Net result - Clyburn never finishes under 75%, Henry Brown and Joe Wilson run about the same margins as they do now, Wilson does a lot less traveling, and the new 7th is a GOP-leaning district.
Odds are the district would polarize with Horry versus the rest of the district. In primaries, probably 40% of the vote would come from outside of Horry, so your next congressman would probably be from Myrtle Beach.
Earl maybe Mark McBride. No Mark has blown it.
Yeah, it definitely will be a MB seat. I would guess Alan Clemmons or Luke Rankin. Someone like that..
Alan would be ok but he would have to grow some hair
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