South Carolina Senate blocks Trump-backed push to redraw Clyburn district

The South Carolina Senate stopped a Trump-backed effort to redraw Jim Clyburn’s district, denying Republican leaders the two-thirds vote needed even to bring the bill up for consideration. Twelve Republicans joined all Democrats to block the procedural motion, and a second vote also failed, leaving the House-passed map stalled.

The setback came after South Carolina House Republicans advanced a new congressional map in a 74-37 vote that would have targeted Clyburn’s 6th District and moved the special congressional primary to Aug. 18 instead of the regular June 9 primary. In the Senate, the numbers were not there. Republican lawmakers did not face election this year, but many still balked at forcing a redistricting fight that would have reset the political calendar and put local officials in the middle of a national power struggle.

Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey opposed the push and said his conscience was clear even though he expected political blowback. Gov. Henry McMaster could still call a special session, but his office has dismissed that possibility. For now, the Senate’s refusal means the House map cannot move forward without a change in strategy or a major shift in political pressure.

The stakes in South Carolina are unusually sharp. The state has seven congressional districts, and Republicans already hold a 6-1 advantage. Clyburn’s seat is the only Democratic-held House district in the state, and it is a majority-Black district anchored in communities that have long been central to Black political power in South Carolina. Clyburn, a 17-term congressman and one of the most influential Black Democrats in Washington, voted early in Orangeburg and said he would run for reelection no matter how the lines were drawn.

The fight is part of a broader Trump-backed effort in Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps before the midterms, after the Supreme Court weakened a key section of the Voting Rights Act. That ruling has increased the pressure on majority-minority districts across the South, where mapmakers now see more room to test the limits of race and representation.

South Carolina’s current congressional map dates to Jan. 26, 2022, when McMaster signed Act 118 after the legislature redrew the lines following the 2020 Census. The map has already been the subject of litigation, including a Jan. 6, 2023 federal court ruling that found South Carolina’s 2021 enacted map was a racial gerrymander. The latest defeat shows that even in Republican-controlled states, Trump’s influence still runs into local legislative incentives, procedural roadblocks, and lawmakers unwilling to surrender their own power.