South Carolina Republicans defy Trump again to reject rapid redistricting drive

Republican lawmakers in South Carolina have defied Donald Trump and rejected a breakneck bid to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of November’s US midterm elections. In a 26-18 vote, state senators rejected mid-decade redistricting in a special session of the legislature, ending hope in Washington to split up congressman Jim Clyburn’s district and add to the list of gerrymandered gains for Republicans . The proposal would have canceled the congressional election under way – early voting began Tuesday morning – and rescheduled it with new district lines that would have significantly reduced the number of reliably Democratic voters in Clyburn’s district. It comes as Republicans push to redraw voting districts to the party’s advantage in a bid to preserves its slim majority in the US House of Representatives, scrambling to leverage a recent US Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. The South Carolina state senate is composed of 34 Republican senators and 12 Democratic senators. Fourteen Republicans voted with Democrats blocking passage of the redistricting bill, days after a supermajority of the South Carolina state House of Representatives voted to send it to the senate. “Nineteen days ago, a map … was generated by a consultant from Washington DC, without any input from South Carolinians,” said state senator Tom Davis, a Republican from Beaufort and Jasper counties. …