Redistricting debate shifts to South Carolina as Republicans seek clean sweep of House seats – US politics live

Redistricting debate shifts to South Carolina as Republicans seek clean sweep of House seats Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. An effort to reshape South Carolina’s congressional districts will get its first full airing Monday in the state House. Lawmakers will launch a lengthy – and potentially testy discussion – over whether to accede to president Donald Trump’s calls for a US House map that could yield a clean sweep for Republicans, AP reports. Debates already have played out in Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana as Republicans push to leverage a recent Supreme Court ruling that weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minority districts. The ruling has opened the way for Republicans to redraw districts with large black populations that have elected Democrats. In South Carolina, that means targeting a seat long held by representative Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat among the state’s seven representatives in the House. Clyburn has said he has no intention of retiring, even if his district gets changed. He told reporters last week in Washington that he has addresses in Columbia, Charleston and Santee, adding: double quotation mark I live in three districts. I’ll decide which one to run in. “It ain’t about Jim Clyburn’s district,” he added. “This isn’t about voting. This is about turning the clock back to Jim Crow 2.0.” Early voting is scheduled to begin on 26 May for South Carolina’s statewide primaries on 9 June. …