South Carolina Senate kills redistricting bid, preserves Clyburn's district

South Carolina's 6th Congressional District exists because the federal government forced the state to create it. After the 1990 Census, South Carolina submitted a map that scattered Black voters across multiple districts and avoided creating any majority-Black seat. The U.S. Department of Justice, enforcing Section 5 of the , rejected the map — the first time since Reconstruction that the federal government forced South Carolina to create a district where Black voters could elect a candidate of their choice.

Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from Orangeburg, won the newly drawn 6th District in 1992 and has held it ever since. The district's 47% Black voting-age population makes it the only majority-minority congressional seat in the state and the only seat South Carolina Democrats have held in over a decade.

The Supreme Court's April 29, 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais changed the legal landscape dramatically. The Court ruled 6-3 that Louisiana had engaged in an unconstitutional racial gerrymander when it created a second majority-Black district to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The decision effectively gutted Section 2 by making it nearly impossible for minority voters to challenge dilution maps under the VRA.

Republican-led states across the South moved immediately. Florida passed new maps within hours of the ruling. Tennessee drew and passed maps within days. South Carolina's Republican leaders saw the decision as a green light to eliminate Clyburn's district before the November 2026 midterms.

South Carolina House Republicans passed H.5683 on a 74-37 vote at 12:39 a.m. on May 20, 2026, after several days of contentious floor debate. Democrats had filed 520 amendments in an attempt to slow the bill. The House Rules Committee responded with a special order limiting members to one amendment each, which passed 73-33.

The new map would have redrawn all seven of South Carolina's congressional districts to create a 7-0 Republican delegation. It moved the city of Columbia — the core of Clyburn's current district — into a neighboring Republican-held seat and dispersed Black voters across multiple districts.

The Senate advanced the bill on a second reading vote of 27-17 on May 23, 2026. Six Republicans voted with Democrats against second reading, including Sens. Sean Bennett, Chip Campsen, Tom Davis, Greg Hembree, Shane Massey, and Luke Rankin — all committee chairmen. Their opposition at that stage signaled that the bill faced more resistance than Senate Republican leadership had anticipated.

Gov. Henry McMaster had already called a special legislative session after the Senate originally declined to extend its regular session for redistricting in May. McMaster's executive order brought lawmakers back specifically to pass the map.

President Trump applied direct personal pressure on South Carolina senators. He posted on Truth Social the night before the final vote: "The South Carolina State Senate has a big vote tomorrow on Redistricting. I'm watching closely, along with all Republicans across the Country. BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS, just like the Republicans of the Great State of Tennessee were last week!" Trump also made at least two phone calls to Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and phoned in to a private Republican caucus meeting earlier in May.

Massey, who took those calls and had previously supported redistricting, voted no on on May 26 — a direct rebuke of the president's pressure campaign.

On the morning of May 26, early voting opened statewide for the June 9 congressional primary. South Carolinians began casting ballots under the existing district lines — lines that included Clyburn's 6th District exactly as drawn. By 1 p.m., the South Carolina Election Commission reported 32,000 ballots cast, a single-day record for a statewide primary.

The record turnout numbers became a tangible argument against passing the map mid-election. Senators opposed to redistricting pointed out that voters were already choosing candidates based on the existing congressional maps — invalidating those votes would mean stopping an election that had begun.

The cloture vote on May 26 needed 26 yes votes to end debate and force a final floor vote on H.5683. The motion received only 20 yes votes. Twenty-four senators voted no: all 12 Senate Democrats, plus 12 Republicans. The full list of Republican dissenters included Sens. Sean Bennett, Chip Campsen, Richard Cash, Ronnie Cromer, Tom Davis, Greg Hembree, Michael Johnson, Harvey Peeler, Luke Rankin, Everett Stubbs, Jeff Zell, and Majority Leader Shane Massey.

With cloture failed, the Senate moved to a 26-18 vote to "carry over" the bill to the next legislative session — a procedural step that formally ended redistricting for the 2026 election cycle without requiring any senator to cast a direct up-or-down vote on the map itself.

Sen. Richard Cash, an Anderson Republican regarded as one of the Senate's most conservative members, delivered the most direct explanation of the no votes. He said: "I can no longer support the passage of this bill for one simple reason: South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today. Neither my conscience nor common sense will allow me to stop an election that has already begun."

Cash added: "I understand the anger and frustration that we could not pass our redistricting bill any faster. But the rule of law is the bedrock principle of our constitutional republic and it is also a bedrock principle of conservatism." His framing — that stopping an active election violated conservative principles — gave Republican colleagues legal and ideological cover for their votes.

Jim Clyburn cast his own early ballot in Orangeburg on the morning of the vote, before the Senate result was known. He told reporters he was prepared to run in whatever district the legislature ultimately drew. He said: "I am embarrassed that so many people in our legislature will allow strangers in Washington to tell them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it."

The 6th District's survival means the 2026 congressional primaries will proceed under the same maps used in 2022 and 2024. Clyburn, who has held the seat since 1993 and served as House Majority Whip from 2019 to 2023, will face voters in the June 9 primary under his existing district boundaries.

Democracy Docket and the Campaign Legal Center had been tracking South Carolina's redistricting push as part of a broader post-Callais wave of GOP map-drawing across the South. The Campaign Legal Center noted that after Callais, there was already a push for additional mid-cycle redistricting before the 2026 midterm election and that states were engaged in a frenzied race to draw new, racially discriminatory maps.

South Carolina's failure broke that wave within the state. Civil rights advocates noted that the defeat was procedural, not ideological — the same senators who voted no on cloture had supported the bill at earlier stages. The door to redistricting remains open for future legislative sessions after the 2026 elections, when the Callais framework could still be used to redraw maps before 2028.

South Carolina Senate kills redistricting bid, preserves Clyburn's district

Republican Redistricting and Gerrymandering

SC Senate cloture vote fails 20-24, blocking redistricting bill H.5683