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by WILL FOLKS
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So-called “Republican” leaders are facing increased pressure from Washington, D.C. to redraw the Palmetto State’s political boundaries to better reflect South Carolina’s purported status as a “red state.”
The legislature’s true ideological moorings be damned, apparently…
The administration of U.S. president Donald Trump has reportedly made overtures to uniparty leaders in the S.C. House and State Senate urging them to heed the call of U.S. congressman Ralph Norman – who has made redrawing these political lines a central plank of his bid for governor of South Carolina in 2026.
Norman reiterated his push just this week after members of the conservative S.C. Freedom Caucus sent a letter on the subject to S.C. House speaker Murrell Smith and Senate president Thomas Alexander. The Caucus’ letter (.pdf) challenged these GOP leaders to call a special session of the legislature for the purpose of drafting “new district lines that will make the 6th congressional district more competitive, thereby better reflecting the voices of voters across the spectrum.”
GOP leaders have thus far spoken dismissively about redrawing the S.C. sixth congressional district – a heavily gerrymandered, majority-minority district created to ensure representation by a black Democrat. In fact, the black Democrat who has occupied this seat since its inception – Jim Clyburn – has worked cooperatively for decades with many of these same GOP leaders to redraw the state’s maps, ensuring his district’s percentage of the black, voting age population did not fall below a certain level.
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In the fall of 2021, FITSNews penned a lengthy story discussing the extent to which Clyburn was manipulating this process to his advantage – conspiring with GOP leaders to draw political boundaries that protected his fiefdom in the Palmetto State’s dirt-poor sixth congressional district.
More recently, Clyburn’s self-serving role was exposed for all to see by ProPublica. Curiously, Clyburn did all of this boundary-rigging while publicly decrying the districts he drew as “racist.”
Norman – like Trump – has seen enough of this hypocritical double standard.
“It’s time for our Republican supermajorities to act,” he wrote on X. “The #rigged6th must be redrawn this year. Call a special session and give the people of the #rigged6th a voice!”
While redrawing the sixth district is touted by Norman as giving its voters a voice, Trump is more interested in pressing the GOP’s national advantage – something which became increasingly important to him just last week.
During the 2025 off-year elections – in which Democrats galloped to victory in numerous blue states – California voters overwhelming approved a ballot initiative expected to swing at least five GOP districts into the Democrat column. Liberal governor Gavin Newsom spearheaded the California redistricting push after Republicans in Texas advanced a plan expected to shift five districts in the Lone Star State from Democrat to Republican.
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Newsom was borderline apocalyptic in his appeal to California voters…
“If we don’t put a stake into the heart of this administration, there may not be an election in 2028,” the prospective presidential candidate said at a press conference in July. “They’re not screwing around. We cannot afford to screw around either. We have got to fight fire with fire.”
In addition to California and Texas, Missouri has drawn a new map – one which will likely add a GOP seat to its congressional delegation. Just last month, North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature advanced a new map that is expected to make its first congressional district – currently held by Democrat Don Davis – more favorable to a Republican challenger.
Will Palmetto State Republicans follow suit? It’s unclear, but multiple legislative sources have told us leaders are “close to flipping” on calling a special session to revisit their maps.
“They are getting a lot of pressure from D.C.,” one legislative source told us.
Another legislative source confirmed the White House had “reached out” to Senate leaders about the possibility of convening a special session to address the redistricting issue.
“Trump wants this,” one GOP lawmaker told us. “And what he wants, he’s likely going to get.”
Keep it tuned to FITSNews for the very latest as the battle over South Carolina’s political boundaries is clearly heating up…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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8 comments
Republicans nationwide are finally acknowledging that they can’t win if voters are allowed to choose them, only if they are allowed to choose their voters. My hope is that they do all this and still lose the mid terms bigly. Nobody should vote for any Republican voting to hide the Epstein files.
Too many attorneys are worried their names may show up on that list or some others. Many are degenerates
Why the need to game the system? If Republicans are best for our country, they should clearly explain all their great ideas and the voters will put them office regardless of the district, right?
If Clyburn is such an asset redraw the lines fairly and let his message take him to victory
Cluburn’s district in no more gerrymandered than the district drawn to dilute the Black vote in Georgetown, Williamsburg, Darlington, Marlboro, and Dillion Counties. What exactly constitutes a “fair” line in your esteemed opinion? If you want to bring race into the equation, then Blacks make up about 26% of the population in SC. If we divide the seven districts by population that would be about 14% of the population in each district if done equally. So, considering that should we not have two majority Black districts out of the seven?
Clyburns district is the only one that is racially gerrymandered. In no sane world should Charleston and Richland be in the same district.
Keep believing that BS. In no sane world should D7 go from Chesterfield County down to Horry or D1 run from Charleston all the way to Beaufort. When you look at the makeup of the population in those districts and the surrounding counties you get the idea why they where drawn the way they are.
Before they gerrymandered to build clyburns district all the districts made sense, go back to the 1973 and 1982 districts when none were gerrymandered.