South Carolina governor may defy Legislature, call special redistricting session
Unsatisfied with a failed redistricting effort in the Legislature, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster could call a special legislative session to redraw congressional maps. The Senate majority leader said this late of a remap could confuse voters and invalidate ballots.
Former State Rep. Adam Morgan, R-Greenville, claimed on X that McMaster is “set to call special session” on redistricting. He made the Wednesday post after the state legislature held public and closed debates about redrawing the maps.
McMaster said late Tuesday that the Legislature has until the end of Friday to “finish its important work” and consider redistricting. He wrote on X that residents sought the politicians to take on the issue, and to serve their best interests.
McMaster’s office wasn’t immediately available for comment on Wednesday.
If lawmakers redrew maps, it could replace a map Republicans drew and passed in 2022 that created six Republican districts and one Democratic.
“I’m watching closely, along with all Republicans across the Country,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial Tuesday, “who are counting on their Elected Leaders to use every Legal and Constitutional authority they have to stop the Radical Left Democrats from destroying our Country, including leveling the playing field against their decades of egregious Gerrymandering and Census Rigging.”
State Sen. Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, noted the current map is gerrymandered along partisan lines to give Republicans an advantage.
“We do not have a racial gerrymander in our congressional map,” Massey said. “We do have a partisan gerrymander.”
South Carolina senators decline redistricting melee
The state’s Senate declined to start a special legislative session with the intention of passing a congressional map that would wipe out South Carolina’s lone Democratic district. The votes came as the state’s House of Representatives held a Judiciary subcommittee public hearing on the maps, where Lieutenant Gov. Pamela Evette and Attorney General Alan Wilson, both Republicans, spoke in favor of the plan.
“We have both the duty and the opportunity to maximize our conservative stronghold,” Evette said during the Tuesday hearing, “and ensure our people receive the representation they deserve, grounded in faith, freedom, family values, safe communities, and economic prosperity.”
The map would have cut into the 6th District, which includes communities like Williamsburg and Charleston. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn holds the Democratic seat. Evette said it is necessary to fight “Democratic manipulation” for election integrity and state demands.
However, the map South Carolina currently uses for U.S. House districts was passed and adopted in 2022 when Republicans held a supermajority. Evette said during questioning that the map wasn’t fair.
“How is it Democrat manipulation or left-wing social engineering, if your own party drew the map that the president and everybody is complaining about,” State Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, asked Evette. She replied that South Carolinians requested that the Legislature take up the issue so their vote would count.
Bamberg and Wilson later disagreed on how the maps should be redone, with Wilson arguing it’s best to start the debates now. Bamberg sought input from residents, which he said required the Judiciary Committee to hold public meetings all over the state.
State Rep. Wallace “Jay” Jordan Jr., R-Florence, said during the judiciary subcommittee that the body received more than 350 submissions for public comment. About 13 people spoke in the meeting. The full committee declined to continue further public comment, which led to an outburst.
Over in Senate chambers, Massey opposed the resolution to trigger a special legislative session to redraw the state’s congressional map. He didn’t think it would help residents, as they could face a confusing and expensive primary election.
“The effect of this is to discard those ballots,” Massey said of absentee voters. “That’s tough for me.”
Map debates across the South
Several southern states joined the redistricting effort after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Louisiana’s 2022 map couldn’t be used. The debates have become tense in some states where legislators and residents engaged in screaming matches over the process.
The latest involves Virginia, whose Democratic Party requested the U.S. Supreme Court to restore maps that voters approved in an April referendum vote. The state’s high court ruled that the legislature violated constitutional procedures when it placed the map on the ballot. Democrats argued the state overruled the “will of the people.”
Alabama Republicans were handed a possible court win after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief order that requested a lower court to reconsider the state’s 2023 map. That map had one Black-majority district, whereas a court-ordered 2024 map had two.
The mid-decade effort has so far left Democrats with six seats, and Republicans 15, giving Republicans a potential nine-seat advantage.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
