South Carolina Republicans Block Redistricting Effort Pushed by Trump To Eliminate State’s Lone Democratic Congressional District

South Carolina Republicans have blocked an effort to redraw the state’s congressional maps ahead of the midterm elections despite President Trump’s insistence that the measure move forward. A small group of GOP lawmakers raised various concerns about eliminating the state’s lone Democratic district. Mr. Trump has been pressing southern states to begin redrawing their congressional maps as quickly as possible in the hopes that Republicans can pick up a number of seats headed into November. The Supreme Court’s decision in Callais has opened the door to nixing those districts which have long been protected under the Voting Rights Act. Republicans in South Carolina made an attempt to extend the legislature’s session in order to consider new congressional maps. That resolution required the support of two-thirds of both the state house and state senate in order to be adopted. While the state house of representatives passed the resolution, the state senate narrowly rejected it on Tuesday. In the end, the resolution was defeated by a margin of 29 to 17. It required 31 votes to pass. All Democrats voted no along with five Republicans. The state senate majority leader, Shane Massey, warned his colleagues of the political challenges which could come as a result of redrawing congressional maps to eliminate the lone Democratic seat. The Democratic dean of the congressional delegation, Congressman Jim Clyburn, was the target of the proposed gerrymander. Mr. Massey warned, however, that spreading Republican voters too thinly could result in Republicans losing a seat. “I think — at best — you’re gonna get 6–1 and you may even go 5–2,” Mr. Massey said on the senate floor. “I don’t wanna go 5–2. I don’t want Hakeem Jeffries as the speaker of the house.”“You’re gonna motivate Black turnout … There will be down ballot repercussions,” he warned, saying Republicans could lose seats in state legislative and local elections come November. “There will be Republican losses … because of this,” Mr. Massey argued. Mr. Massey also said that it would be wrong to throw out the absentee ballots which had already been cast, especially by the elderly or members of the military who may be confused by the change in congressional lines and the change in election day for the primary. Mr. Massey further made the pitch that Mr. Clyburn has been a valuable asset for the state, without using the dean’s name. If Republicans held every single seat in the congressional delegation, then there likely would be no line to the White House in a Democratic administration. “There has to be somebody in South Carolina who can make a phone call and someone at the White House who can answer it,” Mr. Massey said. State senator Luke Rankin, a Republican who voted no on the resolution, said there could be legal challenges to the new map if it did move forward. State senator Chip Campsen, another GOP no vote, invoked President Madison and quoted the Federalist Papers in defense of states’ rights. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” quoting Federalist 51 to argue that no one — not even the president — should dictate how South Carolina’s congressional maps should be drawn. He says those with “no interest whatsoever” about South Carolina’s communities were pushing the gerrymander.

South Carolina Republicans Block Redistricting Effort Pushed by Trump To Eliminate State’s Lone Democratic Congressional District

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