The South Carolina Senate has rejected a congressional redistricting plan backed by President Donald Trump, dealing a significant blow to Republican efforts to reshape voting districts ahead of the November midterm elections. The decision came on Tuesday as early in-person voting began in the state's primaries, with lawmakers deeming it too late to change district boundaries mid-election.
Republican Strategy Suffers Setbacks
The political drama in South Carolina is part of a broader Republican strategy, propelled by Trump, to redraw congressional districts to the GOP's advantage in an attempt to maintain a slim House majority. Republicans have been moving swiftly to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. However, the GOP also faced a setback in Alabama, where a three-judge federal panel issued a preliminary injunction blocking a Republican-drawn map that could have helped the party win an additional seat.
Alabama Ruling
The federal court in Alabama ruled that the Republican plan "intentionally discriminated based on race" by including only one Black-majority district. The court ordered the continued use of a court-imposed map that includes two districts with a significant proportion of Black residents. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, vowed a quick appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and expressed confidence in an eventual victory.
South Carolina Debate
In South Carolina, the Republican-led House had passed a plan that would reconfigure the district of Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, void the results of current congressional primaries, and hold new U.S. House primaries in August. Trump lobbied heavily for the plan, making at least two phone calls to Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and phoning into a private meeting of Republican senators earlier this month. He also maintained pressure on social media.
However, debate stalled in the Senate, where Democrats are staunchly opposed and some GOP lawmakers expressed concerns that aggressive redistricting could backfire by making some Republican-held seats vulnerable to losses due to the addition of Democratic voters. Republican state Sen. Richard Cash stated: "South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today. And neither my conscience or common sense is going to let me stop an election that is already underway."
Clyburn's Response
Among the first to cast an early ballot in the small city of Orangeburg was Clyburn, the Democrat whose district Republicans are trying to reshape in their quest for a clean sweep of South Carolina's seven congressional seats. A defiant Clyburn insisted he would run for reelection regardless of the district's composition. "I'm OK if it's Trump plus 20," Clyburn said, describing the potential Republican advantage. "I would be running where I live."
Clyburn criticized the White House's role, noting that when state lawmakers last redrew congressional districts after the 2020 census, they spent months holding meetings across the state to gather public suggestions. Although that map resulted in a 6-1 seat advantage for Republicans over Democrats, the process was orderly and fair, he said. "When the map was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court said, yes, this is constitutional. But now, this White House says, to hell with the process, to hell with the Constitution, just do what we want done."
National Context
The national redistricting battle has spanned 10 months. Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its voting districts last summer, Republicans have enacted new House districts in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and Tennessee. Meanwhile, voters in California adopted new Democratic-drawn districts, and a court imposed a favorable map for Democrats in Utah. Democrats suffered a setback in Virginia, where the state Supreme Court invalidated a voter-approved redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win additional seats.
Redistricting discussions are ongoing in Louisiana following an April high court ruling that struck down a majority-Black congressional district as an illegal partisan gerrymander. The Louisiana House could vote later this week on a new map that could eliminate a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and improve Republicans' chances of winning six out of the state's seven seats.
Congressional Black Caucus Action
The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts. This follows the caucus's call last week for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers.
Democratic Response
Democrats, who have suffered their own share of setbacks in the national redistricting battle, praised the turn of events in Alabama. Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said: "The fight for justice is far from over in states across the country where politicians are enacting gerrymanders on top of gerrymanders to erase equal representation for communities of color."
More than 26,000 votes were cast in South Carolina by noon Tuesday on the first day of early voting for the June 9 primary, after Democrats called for people opposed to the proposed new map to turn out in force. In 2022, about 125,000 early votes were cast over the entire two-week period.
