{"id":955689,"date":"2026-05-12T22:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/955689\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T22:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:05:15","slug":"south-carolina-republicans-defy-trumps-demands-for-redistricting-us-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/955689\/","title":{"rendered":"South Carolina Republicans defy Trump\u2019s demands for redistricting | US politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Carolina<\/a> state senators on Tuesday defied pressure from Donald Trump<\/a> to approve plans to redraw the state\u2019s congressional map after the US supreme court effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Republicans scramble to redraw key districts after the US supreme court rendered ineffective a major section of the civil rights law that prevented racial discrimination, Shane Massey, the Republican majority leader in South Carolina\u2019s senate, argued in an extraordinary address that doing so would be against the interest of his state.<\/p>\n

Tennessee\u2019s Republican-dominated legislature moved last week<\/a> to eliminate the state\u2019s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district. Louisiana has postponed its state primaries, with its Republican governor and attorney general arguing it could no longer use its current districts.<\/p>\n

But on Tuesday afternoon, legislators in South Carolina rejected plans to follow suit, with the state\u2019s senate voting 29-17 \u2013 two votes short of the two-thirds needed \u2013 on the proposal. Five Republicans joined all Democrats in the chamber to reject the proposal.<\/p>\n

Trump had <\/strong>urged them to back the redistricting proposal on Monday evening. The US president would be \u201cwatching closely\u201d, he wrote on social media, adding: \u201cGET IT DONE!\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking from the well of the state\u2019s senate chamber, however, Massey gestured to the portraits of its hallowed lawmakers, and noted how South Carolina has influenced America and the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Carolina has always punched above their weight,\u201d Massey said. \u201cDoing this will diminish that influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state senator acknowledged he may well face intense criticism \u2013 not least from Trump \u2013 for resisting calls to redraw South Carolina\u2019s congressional map. But he insisted it was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are likely consequences for me, personally, taking the position that I am right now,\u201d said Massey. \u201cI\u2019m comfortable with that. I may not like it, but I\u2019m comfortable with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many people in power want to do whatever it takes to stay in power \u2026 I believe the legitimate use of power in this case is to make people safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI don\u2019t seek power to punish. I seek it to uplift.\u201d<\/p>\n

All except one of South Carolina\u2019s seven US congressional districts are held by Republicans. The one currently <\/strong>held by a Democrat \u2013 the state\u2019s sixth congressional district \u2013 would have some of its Democratic voters moved into adjoining districts, held by Republicans Nancy Mace and Joe Wilson.<\/p>\n

The district in question is held by long-serving representative and Democratic heavyweight James Clyburn, who has long been a rainmaker for the state, directing federal funding toward highway construction and rural broadband that has had a disproportionate impact on South Carolina, and not necessarily just for Black voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot once did the congressman say, \u2018Take care of my community first and this community second\u2019\u201d said state senator Darrell Jackson, a Democrat, of Richland county. \u201cAll that was said was do right by South Carolina.\u201d If Clyburn is replaced by a Republican, he said, \u201cwho then, is the go-to person. Who then advocates for South Carolina?\u201d<\/p>\n

Massie added: \u201cThere has to be somebody in South Carolina who can make a phone call and somebody at the White House will answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Carolina is nearing the end of its regular legislative term on 14 May. Legislative rules required a two-thirds majority to add a redistricting vote to the session following adjournment sine die, or the session\u2019s end. Put to a vote on Tuesday, this failed.<\/p>\n

Massey argued that their current map is constitutional and already highly gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. The redistricting maps he has seen could end up backfiring, he suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe numbers are not reliable,\u201d Massey said. \u201cWhat I do know is that we are 6-1 today. If we start tinkering with this, my concern is that we could make this a whole lot worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

State senator Luke Rankin of Horry county, chair of the senate judiciary committee in South Carolina and a Republican, echoed those concerns. The redistricting process usually takes many months, and relies on fresh data. South Carolina has been one of the fastest growing states in the country, and the population records of 2020 poorly reflect the actual voting population today, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no time for the senate judiciary committee to fill in the blanks in the process,\u201d Rankin said. \u201cWhat you think you\u2019re getting may not be what you get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Republican speakers echoed these concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re being asked to do this in a matter of days,\u201d George E \u201cChip\u201d Campsen III, a Charleston-area Republican, said. \u201cCalifornia produced their map 285 days before their primaries. We are not 285 days before our primaries. \u2026 South Carolina? 14 days before early voting starts. It\u2019s almost impossible for us to pull this off, not without a tremendous amount of error added in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump called Massey over the weekend, the senate majority leader told his peers on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said you have to do what you\u2019re comfortable with, you\u2019ve got to do what you think is right,\u201d Massey claimed. \u201cBut, these people \u2013 talking about the Democrats in Washington \u2013 he said these people are crazy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I agree with you. He told me these people hate you. And I think, Mr President, that\u2019s obvious. There\u2019s no question about that. There\u2019s a lot of hatred in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Massey pivoted his address to discuss the distinction between politics in South Carolina and Washington DC. He appealed to other Republicans in the chamber to take their political cues from their constituents, and not from Washington leaders whom they are not responsible to, in service to a Congress which he said has been ineffectual under Republican leadership, and could be under Democratic leadership, too.<\/p>\n

Massey likened redistricting to the incitements that led to the French Revolution, and suggested that the act is reminiscent of Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev slamming a boot down on a lectern and calling for his opponents to be crushed. He said that might inspire Democratic opposition and cost some Republican state legislators their seats.<\/p>\n

Low turnout in primaries in South Carolina speak to a general sense of pointlessness among the state\u2019s voters, who tend to be conservative, but less invested in partisan interests than the Republican legislative majority.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you do something like this, there\u2019s going to be an impact,\u201d Massey said. \u201cVery candidly, you\u2019re going to motivate Black turnout, and there will be repercussions for that, down ballot \u2026 The majority will give credibility to minority voices by trying to crush them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Carolina state senators on Tuesday defied pressure from Donald Trump to approve plans to redraw the state\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-955689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116563878042982152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}