Justin Bamberg rejects Evette’s gerrymandering claims in redistricting debate

Justin Bamberg said Bamberg County voters had more at stake than a partisan talking point as South Carolina lawmakers pushed a mid-decade redraw of the state’s congressional lines. In House Judiciary debate, the District 90 Democrat rejected Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette’s claim that Democrats were driving a racial gerrymander, saying her remarks contained factual errors and sidestepped what the new map could mean for representation.

Bamberg’s rebuttal landed as Republicans pressed ahead with a fast-moving redistricting plan tied to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving Louisiana and to pressure from President Donald Trump and the White House. South Carolina’s current congressional map was approved in January 2022, and the state’s 6-1 Republican delegation has left U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn as the lone Democrat in Congress. A proposed map circulated at the Statehouse would remove Clyburn from the 6th District he has held since 1993 and could put as many as three Democratic-leaning seats in play, according to Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey.

For Bamberg, the dispute was not abstract. District 90 stretches across a part of the state where voters already know how much one map can shape who gets heard in Columbia and Washington. South Carolina’s 2026 voter-registration data show 48.79% of registered voters are Republicans, 41.08% are Democrats and 10.13% are independent or other, figures that Democrats have used to argue the current map is already tilted toward the GOP rather than the other way around. That argument is central to the fight now underway over whether Evette’s call to “fix our maps” reflects unfair districts or simply a bid to redraw the political playing field again.

The timing has sharpened the stakes for Bamberg County and the rest of the state. House Republicans advanced a sine die resolution including redistricting on May 6 by an 87-25 party-line vote, and the House released a proposed redrawn congressional map on May 7. If lawmakers move ahead, the plan could delay South Carolina’s June 9 statewide primaries by about two months and force candidate filing to reopen, even though absentee ballots for military and overseas voters had already been mailed and more than 5,000 absentee ballots had gone out overall, according to state Democratic Party chair Christale Spain.

Clyburn, now 85, said he was confident he could win reelection even if the lines change. He also warned Republicans to be careful what they wished for, saying a new map could wind up electing more Democrats in South Carolina. That possibility is exactly why Bamberg’s challenge mattered in the House debate: for voters in Bamberg County, the fight is about whether the district lines that shape their voice will be rewritten before ballots are even cast.