Redistricting Stalls In South Carolina As Missouri Advances Map

As a result of the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, several southern states have rushed to disenfranchise Black voters.

May 14, 2026 - 14:02

Redistricting Stalls In South Carolina As Missouri Advances Map

Exterior view of the South Carolina State House in Columbia, South Carolina — Source: Leonid Andronov / Getty

Over the last week, several Republican led state legislatures throughout the South have shown that they believe the “fair” part of free and fair elections to be entirely optional. While redistricting efforts to disenfranchise Black voters are currently underway in Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana, South Carolina made the surprising move to vote against eliminating the state’s only majority-Black district.

AP reports that while the South Carolina House approved a new map that would eliminate the state’s only district represented by a Democrat, the map failed in the state Senate by a 29-17 vote, with five Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition. Republicans were only two votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the new map.

While President Donald Trump pressured South Carolina Republicans to “be bold and courageous” and postpone the state’s primary elections in order to pass a new map, Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey pushed back against Trump’s pressure.

Massey was among the Republicans who voted against the effort now. Massey said that he expects redistricting to come up again before the June primary.

“I got too much Southern in my blood,” Massey told AP. “I’ve got too much resistance in my heritage.”

We got Republican politicians invoking the Confederacy to defend voting rights. This has got to be the weirdest episode of The Twilight Zone ever made. To be fair, Massey’s concerns weren’t about disenfranchising Black voters, but about potentially giving Democrats more of an advantage in the state, leading to a 5-2 or even a 4-3 Republican split in House seats. Massey added that he expects redistricting to be brought up again ahead of the state’s June 9 primaries.

On the other end of the spectrum is Missouri, where the GOP has secured yet another redistricting victory in court. According to KCTV, Missouri’s Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court ruling that found the state’s new congressional map didn’t violate the state’s constitution. The core issue in this case was whether the new districts were sufficiently compact, as required by the state constitution. Democrats argued that splitting Kansas City into two districts violates those requirements. Clearly, the Missouri Supreme Court disagreed.

Missouri was the first state after Texas to launch a redistricting effort last year at Trump’s behest. Missouri’s state legislature passed a new map that added a new House seat, favoring Republicans.

The thing is, Missouri’s state legislature has been going against the will of its voters for quite a while now, with redistricting seemingly being the straw that broke the camel’s back. Missouri’s voters quickly launched a ballot initiative challenging the new map, which, if approved, would require the midterms to be conducted under the old map.

The Supreme Court also heard a case brought forth by voters in favor of the referendum. Attorney Jonathan Hawley, who represented the voters who sued, argued that continuing to conduct the midterms with the new map despite the referendum “would dilute the referendum right, if not destroy it altogether.”

Missouri Solicitor General Lou Capozzi argued that suspending the maps before verifying the signatures would allow activists to undercut the process by sending boxes of fraudulent signatures. Despite the absence of evidence of fraud, the Missouri Supreme Court somehow found this argument reasonable. The court rules the map must stay in place until Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins verifies all the signatures. Hoskins has previously sworn that he will do everything in his power to protect the map, so it’s not like he’s a particularly trustworthy person for the job.

The ACLU and Campaign Legal Center, which represented the suing voters, said in a joint statement that the rulings sided “against voters in every respect. This state — and our democracy — are worse off for this outcome.”

So basically, the courts have no interest in protecting voting rights, and all of “America’s” supposedly “sacred institutions” are now fair game to tear down and rebuild in Trump’s image. If the courts don’t work for us, and the politicians don’t work for us, then what recourse does the American public have?