In a heated, nationwide redistricting battle, some Republicans are rejecting a redistricting measure backed by President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, five South Carolina Republican state senators sided with Democrats to vote against a sine die resolution that would have allowed the Senate to extend its current session to discuss redrawing congressional district maps. The South Carolina House of Representatives had already approved a proposal to halt next month’s primary elections so that the Republican-dominated legislature could eliminate the only Democratic seat on the state’s congressional delegation, held by Rep. Jim Clyburn (D).

The motion to extend the South Carolina Senate’s session to discuss redistricting needed a two-thirds (31-vote) majority to pass. While Republicans hold 34 of the state senate’s 46 seats, the five defectors ensured that the “yes” vote faltered at only 29 votes. Republicans who crossed the aisle to block redistricting include Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and Senators Sean Bennett, Chip Campsen, Tom Davis, and Greg Hembree.

Prior to the vote, Trump urged South Carolina Republicans to support redistricting. “South Carolina Republicans: BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS,” the president said in a Monday night Truth Social post. “Move the U.S. House Primaries to August, leave the rest on the same schedule. Everything will be fine. GET IT DONE!” Trump also warned senators, “I’m watching closely, along with all Republicans across the Country who are counting on their Elected Leaders to use every Legal and Constitutional authority they have to stop the Radical Left Democrats from destroying our Country, including leveling the playing field against their decades of egregious Gerrymandering and Census Rigging.”

In December, Republicans in Indiana’s Senate also joined forces with Democrats to terminate a redistricting bid, which would have likely switched two U.S. House seats from Democrats’ hands to Republican control. Trump and his political allies vowed to aggressively primary those senators. Following the Hoosier State’s primary elections earlier this month, Trump made good on that promise: only one of the Republican senators who was up for reelection survived his primary; six other senators who voted against redistricting lost their primaries to Trump-endorsed challengers, while one more, incumbent Spencer Deery, has yet to be declared the winner as he leads his Trump-backed opponent, Paula Copenhaver, by only three votes.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R), considered a stalwart Trump ally, is reportedly preparing to convene a special session of the legislature to bypass the thwarted sine die vote and put redistricting on the table. According to local news outlets, McMaster could call a special session as early as Thursday. Earlier in the week, McMaster indicated that he would likely not convene a special session of the legislature, instead urging lawmakers to make use of the remaining days in their regularly scheduled session to get to the matter of redistricting. Now, Massey has confirmed that South Carolina House and Senate leaders are in the process of herding their members back to the State House in Columbia.

South Carolina is only one of many southern states aiming at redrawing congressional district maps in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s consequential ruling last month on the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Focusing on Section 2 of the VRA, which bars discriminating against voters on the basis of race, the Supreme Court struck down the longstanding practice of creating majority-minority districts, which intentionally group ethnic minorities into the same congressional district. Florida, Louisiana, and Missouri have already taken action to redistrict and bolster the GOP’s narrow U.S. House majority, as has Tennessee, where state legislators recently eliminated the only Democratic district in the state.

In response, Democratic state legislators turned to violence by lighting fires, burning signs and flags, and confronting security officers as Republican legislators approved the new maps. Tennessee Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton (R) responded by stripping Democrats of their positions on standing committees and subcommittees. “Due to actions taken by members of the Democratic Caucus during the Second Extraordinary Session of the 114th General Assembly aimed at disrupting the democratic and legislative processes and creating disorder on the House Floor,” Sexton wrote in a Monday letter to Tennessee House Minority Leader Karen Camper (D), “[m]embers of the Democratic Caucus will receive individual letters removing them from all standing committees and subcommittees of the House…”

In a press release, Camper accused Sexton and Tennessee Republicans of covertly conspiring to intentionally discriminate against black voters. “I uncovered what I believe was a deliberate symbolic scheme behind the handling of debate during this extraordinary session. The numbers mattered,” she said, noting that 47 minutes were allotted for debate, in what the Democrat said was “a clear nod to the 47th President.” She then looked at the structure for debate around election laws, which allotted each side (Republicans and Democrats) 17 minutes of arguments followed by 10 minutes of follow-ups and rebuttals.

“Together, those debate allotments totaled 54 minutes — a nod to 1954, the year of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. And when you add 47, 17, and 10 together, you arrive at 74. Nineteen seventy-four was the year Harold Ford Sr. became the first Black member of Congress elected from Tennessee in the modern era,” Camper said. “I saw the symbolism. I understood exactly what was happening.” In order to thwart the alleged white supremacist numeric magic, the Democrat used only 44 minutes of her allotted speaking time, in honor of the 44th president, Barack Obama, “and refused to use the remainder of the allotted time so the final number would not add up to what they intended. Apparently, for refusing to play along, Democrats are now being removed from committees.”

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (R), however, is bucking the red state trend and actually canceling a special legislative session on redistricting. Originally, Reeves had summoned the legislature to Jackson to redraw congressional district maps in accord with a federal court order requiring another majority-minority district in the state. (Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson currently holds the state’s only majority-minority district and is the only Democrat on the state’s congressional delegation.) However, that court order was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s VRA ruling.

“Because of all of that, there is no longer any reason for the legislature to come in on next Wednesday for judicial redistricting,” Reeves said, suggesting that if Mississippi were to cancel or invalidate primary elections in order to draw new congressional district maps (as other states have already done), then blue states would be emboldened to do the same, potentially stripping Republicans of safe districts and otherwise-easily-won seats in the U.S. House. Thompson, whom the governor called a “terror,” would keep his majority-minority district and Republicans would just have to campaign there to unseat the Democrat. According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Thompson’s district is rated D+11.

Hot on the heels of its VRA ruling, the Supreme Court also struck down lower court injunctions mandating that Alabama use congressional district maps creating two majority-minority districts. The use of those maps, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) explained in a Monday night “Washington Watch” appearance, is now unconstitutional, since they “used race as a factor in drawing two separate districts — again, contrary to what the [Supreme] Court said should be appropriate.” Subsequently, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R) rescheduled primary elections in order to allow the legislature time to redraw congressional district maps. “I’m looking forward to the day when Alabama gets a seven-zero congressional representation,” Marshall quipped. “It’s consistent with who we are as a very conservative state.”