What Happened
Reuters reported that a bid to redraw South Carolina's congressional map failed in the state Senate on Tuesday after several Republicans broke with President Donald Trump and voted against the effort.
The proposal would have allowed lawmakers to postpone the June 9 U.S. House primaries and dismantle the district represented since 1993 by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn. Reuters said the Senate vote was 29-17, two votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to extend the legislative session.
The Guardian reported that five Republicans joined all Democrats to reject the plan after Trump publicly urged senators to back it, writing that he would be "watching closely" and telling them to "GET IT DONE!"
Why This Matters
This is not a civics-class footnote. Republicans already hold six of South Carolina's seven U.S. House seats, and the national redistricting fight has turned into a midterm arms race with legal stationery.
Reuters noted the fight comes after a recent Supreme Court decision gave states more leeway around districts with Black and Latino majorities. That is why one state-map vote now feels like somebody moving furniture around in the House majority with a forklift.
The Dumb Part With The Emergency Map Blender
The dumb part is the sheer shamelessness of trying to shove democracy into the copier two months before a primary and hoping nobody notices the toner smells like panic.
South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, a Republican, told colleagues that "too many people in power want to do whatever it takes to stay in power," according to The Guardian. That is a pretty clean sentence to have lying around when the political machinery starts making raccoon noises.
The Bottom Line
For now, South Carolina did not join the latest redraw-the-map-before-lunch movement. Clyburn's district appears likely to survive into the midterms unless Gov. Henry McMaster calls lawmakers back for a special session.
Congratulations to the state Senate for briefly remembering that elections are supposed to pick politicians, not the other way around with a Sharpie and a stopwatch.
Sources
Reuters: Republicans in South Carolina Senate reject redistricting bid that Trump backed
The Guardian: South Carolina Republicans defy Trump's demands for redistricting