South Carolina Republicans defy Trump, tank redistricting, for now

A handful of Republican state senators in South Carolina on Tuesday derailed an effort in the GOP-dominated legislature to redraw their state's congressional district map which aims to erase the only Democrat-dominated U.S. House seat ahead of the midterm elections.

Five Republican state senators broke with their party and teamed up with Democrats to defeat a proposal that would have allowed the chamber to vote on redistricting after the South Carolina legislative session comes to a close later this week.

The move came hours after President Donald Trump warned on social media that he'd be "watching closely" as lawmakers met to move forward with changing their state's map.

The setback means it will be much harder for South Carolina to join Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana, which are altering their maps to eliminate Democrat-controlled congressional districts in time for the midterms, when the GOP will be defending its razor-thin House majority. The southern states are the latest battleground in the nationwide redistricting showdown. At stake is which party will control the House during the final two years of Trump's second term in the White House.

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The efforts by Republicans in the southern states come in the wake of a decision by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court to slash a key protection in the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. The justices ruled that race should not dictate the redrawing of legislative district maps.

South Carolina Republicans were trying to advance a new map that could put longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat in the state's seven-person House delegation, out of a job.

Clyburn this past week remained optimistic he can still win re-election.

"I don’t know why people think I could not get re-elected if they redistrict South Carolina," Clyburn said in a CNN interview. "I have a district that’s about 45 percent African-American. I have no idea what the number will be after the legislature finishes, but whatever that number is, I will be running on my record and America’s promise."

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Trump, in a social media post Monday night, urged "South Carolina Republicans: BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS."

"Move the U.S. House Primaries to August, leave the rest on the same schedule. Everything will be fine. GET IT DONE!" he emphasized.

Trump's message came a week after five Indiana Republican state senators who in December helped sink congressional redistricting in the solidly red Midwestern state were ousted by Trump-backed challengers in GOP primaries.

Shane Massey, the South Carolina Senate's Republican majority leader, argued in a speech following Trump's lead in redistricting would be against the interests of the Palmetto State.

"South Carolina has always punched above their weight," Massey said. "Doing this will diminish that influence."

But he also acknowledged that he will likely face political payback from Trump and the president's allies.

"There are likely consequences for me, personally, taking the position that I am right now," Massey said. "I’m comfortable with that. I may not like it, but I’m comfortable with it...My conscience is clear on this one."

Other South Carolina Republicans had raised concerns that carving up the district represented by Clyburn could backfire on their party in the midterms.

Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, a top Trump ally, could still call the legislature back into special session to try and push through redistricting, but his office has so far said that scenario is unlikely.

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The GOP-dominated Tennessee legislature on Thursday quickly adopted a new map that would eliminate the only Democrat-controlled congressional district in the state, and would likely give Republicans control of all nine districts.

GOP Gov. Bill Lee quickly signed the new maps into law.

Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents the majority Black district that's being carved up, vowed legal action.

"Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November. And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful," Cohen wrote on social media. "Next stop is the courts."

Trump praised Tennessee Republicans in his social media post and urged GOP lawmakers in South Carolina to act "just like the Republicans of the Great State of Tennessee were last week."

It's back to the future in Alabama, after the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ideological ruling, cleared the way for the state to put in place a map Republicans drew up in 2023 that had been blocked by lower courts. The map would eliminate one of the state's two blue-leaning congressional seats.

GOP Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday called for a special primary election in August in the four U.S. House districts altered by the new map.

Last week, the Supreme Court said that its decision declaring Louisiana's map unconstitutional should go into effect immediately.

That cleared the way for the GOP-controlled state legislature to begin the process of reshaping the map, and hearings got underway on Friday.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a top Trump ally, took swift action in the immediate aftermath of the high court's ruling, when he delayed the May 16 U.S. House primary elections in Louisiana.

Louisiana Republicans are aiming to erase one or both of the two Black-majority House seats, which are represented by Democrats.

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In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last week signed a bill by the GOP-dominated state legislature that overhauls the red-leaning state's congressional districts, adding four more right-leaning seats by eliminating districts currently controlled by Democrats.

Republicans currently control Florida's U.S. House delegation by a 20-8 margin.

Democrats are fighting back.

On Monday, Democrats filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to halt a Virginia state Supreme Court ruling invalidating a ballot measure that would have given their party an additional four left-leaning U.S. House seats.

Last week's ruling in Virginia means the map used in the 2024 elections will stay in place for the 2026 ballot box showdowns. Democrats currently control the state's U.S. House delegation by a 6-5 margin. The now overturned map could have resulted in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in the blue-leaning but competitive state.

How we got here

The battle over the maps ignited last spring when Trump, aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, first floated the idea of rare, but not unheard of, mid-decade congressional redistricting.

The mission was simple: redraw congressional district maps in red states to pad the GOP's fragile House majority to keep control of the chamber in the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

When asked by reporters last summer about his plan to add Republican-leaning House seats across the country, the president said, "Texas will be the biggest one. And that’ll be five."

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map.

But Democratic state lawmakers, who broke quorum for two weeks as they fled Texas in a bid to delay the passage of the redistricting bill, energized Democrats across the country. Among those leading the fight against Trump's redistricting was Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.

California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that temporarily sidetracked the left-leaning state's nonpartisan redistricting commission and returned the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

That led to five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which aimed to counter the move by Texas to redraw their maps.

But the fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

Republican-controlled Missouri and Ohio and swing state North Carolina, where the GOP dominates the legislature, drew new maps as part of the president's push.

But in blows to Republicans, a Utah district judge late last year rejected a congressional district map drawn by the state's GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the midterms.

And as mentioned, Republicans in Indiana's Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House.