South Carolina Senate rejects President Trump’s call to redraw congressional maps
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Pressure from President Donald Trump Reshaping congressional districts Ahead of the November election, a double setback occurred Tuesday as South Carolina senators refused to do so and a federal court blocked a Republican-backed map in Alabama.
As in-person voting began early Tuesday in South Carolina’s primary, the state Senate rejected a Republican plan to cancel congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary within the scope of revised districts It was designed to help the GOP unseat the longtime Democrat.
Some senators said it was too late to make changes.
“The citizens of South Carolina are going to the polls today. And neither my conscience nor common sense will allow me to stop an election that is already underway,” said Republican state Sen. Richard Cash.
The political drama in South Carolina is part of a Republican strategy — driven by Trump — to realign voting districts to the GOP’s advantage in an effort to retain a slim majority in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections. Republicans are moving quickly to try to capitalize on a recent development. US Supreme Court decision This weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act.
A three-judge federal panel in Alabama issued a preliminary injunction prevent government use A congressional map drawn by Republicans This could help the GOP gain an additional seat. The court said the plan “intentionally discriminates on the basis of race” by including only one majority-Black district and ordered the continued use of a court-imposed map that included two districts with significant Black populations.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, has promised a swift appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and predicted an eventual victory.
Democrats have suffered their share of national election setbacks redistricting The battle complimented the course of events in Alabama.
“The fight for justice is far from over in states across the country where politicians are enacting gerrymander after gerrymander to eliminate equal representation of communities of color,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
Redistricting battle spanned 10 months
Voting districts are usually redrawn after a census at the beginning of the decade. But Trump’s Urged Republican-led states to redistrict Ahead of the November elections, to try to weather political headwinds that generally result in the president’s party losing seats in Congress in the midterm elections.
Republicans have also enacted new House districts in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida since Trump urged Texas to redistrict voting districts last summer. and Tennessee. Meanwhile, voters in California accepted new districts drawn by Democrats, and a court imposed a Democratic-friendly map in Utah. Democrats suffered a setback in Virginia; The state Supreme Court invalidated a voter-approved redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats gain additional seats.
Redistricting debates continue in Louisiana following the high court’s decision in April 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 the seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and increase Republicans’ chances of winning six of the state’s seven seats.
Congressional Black Caucus On Tuesday, he called on major U.S. corporations, including those who have 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 was the case of Black athletes at last week’s meeting. boycott public universities In states that gerrymandered congressional maps to eliminate districts held by black lawmakers.
Clyburn condemns White House role in redistricting
More than 26,000 ballots had been cast as of noon Tuesday on the first day of early voting in South Carolina on June 9, after Democrats called on opponents of the proposed new map to take effect. Nearly 125,000 early votes were cast over two weeks in 2022.
Among the first people to vote early in the small city of Orangeburg were: U.S. Representative Jim ClyburnThe Democrat that district Republicans are trying to recast in their quest for a clean sweep of South Carolina’s seven congressional seats. The defiant Clyburn insisted he would run for re-election regardless of the district’s outlook.
“If it’s Trump plus 20, I’m fine with it,” Clyburn said, describing the potential advantage for Republicans in a reshaped district. “I would be running where I live.”
Republican-led House it had already passed A plan that would restructure the Clyburn district, nullify the results of the current congressional primaries and instead hold new U.S. House primaries in August.
Trump lobbied for the plan; He made at least two phone calls to Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and also called into a private meeting of Republican senators earlier this month. He also continued the pressure on social media.
But debate has stalled in the Senate, where Democrats are staunchly opposed and some GOP lawmakers have concerns that aggressive redistricting could backfire by leaving some Republican-held seats vulnerable to losses from the addition of Democratic voters.
Clyburn noted that when state lawmakers last redrew congressional districts after the 2020 census, they spent months holding statewide meetings to gather public suggestions. He said the process was orderly and fair, even though the map gave Republicans a 6-1 seat advantage over Democrats.
“When the map was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court said yes, it was constitutional,” Clyburn said. But now, “The White House says, to hell with the process, to hell with the Constitution, just do what we want done.”
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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.
