Donald Trump personally urged lawmakers in South Carolina to change their congressional map, remove the state’s only majority-Black district, and give Republicans another secure seat before the upcoming midterm elections. On Tuesday, members of his own party rejected his request.
The South Carolina Senate, led by Republicans, voted 20-24 against the redistricting plan — a surprising rejection of a president used to full support from his party.
The state House had already approved the map the previous week, and Trump had been pushing hard for it. But it didn’t make a difference.
The reasons given by Republicans for going against Trump were very clear.
Senator Richard Cash, who changed his vote, was straightforward: “Neither my conscience nor my common sense will allow me to stop an election that is already underway.” Early voting for the June primary had just started that morning. Cash decided he would not stop an election already in progress.
Another Republican senator offered a strong critique of the entire process.
He explained that the previous redistricting took nine months, included ten community meetings, eight subcommittee meetings, and independent demographic studies. In contrast, this time a consultant from Washington appeared via Zoom for a House subcommittee meeting, spoke for seven minutes and forty seconds, stated he would take no questions, and then left for another appointment.
“Seven minutes and forty seconds is our legislative record supporting this map,” the senator said.
“We have completely outsourced our constitutional duty to a consultant in Washington, D.C. We have no idea how that map was created.”
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey had earlier warned that this effort was short-sighted. “
Republicans are stronger when the Democrat Party is vibrant and viable,” he said. “We are stronger when we have a clash of ideas.”
Think about that.
The Republican Senate Majority Leader of South Carolina is saying that democracy needs a functioning opposition party — a point that seems to have been overlooked by the president in the Oval Office.
Trump aimed to eliminate Black political representation in South Carolina with a map made based on just seven minutes and forty seconds of Zoom testimony.
A few Republicans with a sense of right and wrong stopped him — going against his wishes despite the fate of Indiana Republicans who similarly lost their primaries after refusing to accept Trump’s gerrymandering plan for their state.
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