COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Republican-led South Carolina Senate voted Tuesday against moving forward with a new congressional map, ending for now a last-minute redistricting push that President Donald Trump had pressed lawmakers to approve. The defeat came as early voting began for the already scheduled June primary.
The map would have eliminated South Carolina’s only majority-Black congressional district, the seat held by longtime Democratic Rep. James Clyburn. The House approved the plan last week, and lawmakers had also tried to set another primary election for the affected districts in August, adding another layer of confusion to a calendar already in motion.
State Sen. Richard Cash changed his vote because of the timing, saying, “Neither my conscience nor my common sense will allow me to stop an election that is already underway.” His objection underscored the problem that hung over the entire effort: voting had already started, and election officials would have been forced to reset a process that was no longer theoretical.
State Sen. Tom Davis, who opposed the push, said the earlier redistricting process took nine months of consideration, while this one moved forward over the course of a few weeks. “We have completely outsourced our constitutional obligation to prepare a congressional redistricting map to a consultant in Washington, D.C. We have no idea, no idea how that map was created,” Davis said. His criticism cut to both the speed of the redraw and the way it was assembled.
The failure also marked the end of a special-session effort that Gov. Henry McMaster convened after pressure from the White House and national Republicans. Republicans in the Senate had already signaled earlier this month that they were uneasy with redrawing the state’s map, even as the House advanced it and Trump kept urging lawmakers to act.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey argued that the party would be weakened, not strengthened, by trying to force the issue. “I believe that our state is stronger with vibrant parties. I think we, as a whole, are stronger when we have a clash of ideas. I think that’s true at the national level. I think it’s true at the state level. We are stronger when we have a clash of ideas and we can discuss those policy goals,” he said. Massey added that “Republicans are stronger when the Democrat Party is vibrant and viable.”
Election officials had warned that implementing new district lines for this year’s vote would cost an additional $6 million, a price tag that made the late timing even harder to justify. South Carolina is one of several states that rushed to take up new lines after a major Supreme Court ruling on racial gerrymandering, and the fight has spread beyond one state line. Florida and Tennessee have enacted new maps in recent weeks, Louisiana Republicans are advancing their own proposal, and a panel of federal judges blocked Alabama from using a Republican-drawn map on Tuesday.
For now, South Carolina’s map fight is stalled. The Senate’s refusal leaves the current districts in place, the June primary on track, and Trump’s push for a redrawn map that would have erased Clyburn’s district without the votes needed to move it ahead.
