South Carolina’s Republican senators helped shoot down attempts to redraw the state’s Congressional map, which is backed by President Donald Trump.
The Senate voted 26-18 to kill the bill. The vote included 14 Republicans, nine more than the first vote.
Their excuse? Early voting has already started.
From the South Carolina Daily Gazette:
“Neither my conscience nor my common sense will allow me to stop an election underway,” said Sen. Richard Cash of Anderson County. “The deadline is past. Voting has begun. It is time to conclude the matter.”By noon Tuesday, 26,000 South Carolinians had voted in person. That’s more than the total for the first day of early voting in 2024. The tally rose to 32,300 an hour later. In addition, more than 4,100 mailed absentee ballots had been returned by Tuesday, according to the state Election Commission.Recognizing that Republicans will be angry at the Senate, Cash stressed that the fastest the bill could become law would be sometime Wednesday, after many more thousands of people will have voted. The only way it could have passed sooner was if at least 31 senators — a two-thirds supermajority — had voted Friday to ignore the chamber’s rules for redistricting debates. But that motion failed twice.
The opponents also insist that the state Supreme Court would strike down the map:
Republican opponents in the chamber have repeatedly said the map would likely get struck down by the state Supreme Court because of the rushed process. The record in the Legislature of its creation involved less than 8 minutes of testimony from the drawer of the map, Adam Kincaid, who spoke virtually at a House subcommittee hearing. He did not address senators during a day-long hearing last week.“Our record is 7 minutes 40 seconds talking to the House via Zoom. That’s our record! No questions, no demographic analysis,” Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, said Tuesday in explaining his “no” votes. “I’m stunned — stunned — something like this” advanced as far as it did in the Senate.“Something completely unvetted — something we had no role in shaping,” he continued, “it should come as no surprise that it’s rife with errors. Not only are precincts split, you have precincts that no longer exist.”
Gov. Henry McMaster called for a special session after the Senate blocked the legislation on May 12.
Five Republicans joined the Democrats in that vote.
The new map would shift 1.5 million voting-age citizens into different districts.
The idea is to make the state 7R – 0D. Right now, Rep. Jim Clyburn is the only Democrat holding a seat in South Carolina.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY