South Carolina Republicans defy Trump’s demands for redistricting

South Carolina state senators on Tuesday defied pressure from Donald Trump to approve plans to redraw the state’s congressional map after the US supreme court effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act.

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’s senate, argued in an extraordinary address that doing so would be against the interest of his state.

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature moved last week to eliminate the state’s 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.

But on Tuesday afternoon, legislators in South Carolina rejected plans to follow suit, with the state’s senate voting 29-17 – two votes short of the two-thirds needed – on the proposal. Five Republicans joined all Democrats in the chamber to reject the proposal.

Trump had urged them to back the redistricting proposal on Monday evening. The US president would be “watching closely”, he wrote on social media, adding: “GET IT DONE!”

Speaking from the well of the state’s senate chamber, however, Massey gestured to the portraits of its hallowed lawmakers, and noted how South Carolina has influenced America and the world.

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

The state senator acknowledged he may well face intense criticism – not least from Trump – for resisting calls to redraw South Carolina’s congressional map. But he insisted it was the right thing to do.

“There are likely consequences for me, personally, taking the position that I am right now,” said Massey. “I’m comfortable with that. I may not like it, but I’m comfortable with it.

“Too many people in power want to do whatever it takes to stay in power … I believe the legitimate use of power in this case is to make people safer.”

He added: “I don’t seek power to punish. I seek it to uplift.”

All except one of South Carolina’s seven US congressional districts are held by Republicans. The one currently held by a Democrat – the state’s sixth congressional district – would have some of its Democratic voters moved into adjoining districts, held by Republicans Nancy Mace and Joe Wilson.

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.

“Not once did the congressman say, ‘Take care of my community first and this community second’” said state senator Darrell Jackson, a Democrat, of Richland county. “All that was said was do right by South Carolina.” If Clyburn is replaced by a Republican, he said, “who then, is the go-to person. Who then advocates for South Carolina?”

Massie added: “There has to be somebody in South Carolina who can make a phone call and somebody at the White House will answer.”

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’s end. Put to a vote on Tuesday, this failed.

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.

“The numbers are not reliable,” Massey said. “What 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.”

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.

“There is no time for the senate judiciary committee to fill in the blanks in the process,” Rankin said. “What you think you’re getting may not be what you get.”

Other Republican speakers echoed these concerns.

“We’re being asked to do this in a matter of days,” George E “Chip” Campsen III, a Charleston-area Republican, said. “California produced their map 285 days before their primaries. We are not 285 days before our primaries … South Carolina? 14 days before early voting starts. It’s almost impossible for us to pull this off, not without a tremendous amount of error added in.”

Trump called Massey over the weekend, the senate majority leader told his peers on Tuesday.

“He said you have to do what you’re comfortable with, you’ve got to do what you think is right,” Massey claimed. “But, these people – talking about the Democrats in Washington – he said these people are crazy.

“Yes, I agree with you. He told me these people hate you. And I think, Mr President, that’s obvious. There’s no question about that. There’s a lot of hatred in Washington.”

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.

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.

Low turnout in primaries in South Carolina speak to a general sense of pointlessness among the state’s voters, who tend to be conservative, but less invested in partisan interests than the Republican legislative majority.

“When you do something like this, there’s going to be an impact,” Massey said. “Very candidly, you’re going to motivate Black turnout, and there will be repercussions for that, down ballot … The majority will give credibility to minority voices by trying to crush them.”