On Tuesday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “The Weeknight,” co-host Symone Sanders Townsend said that Rep. James Clyburn’s (D-SC) district “already looks like it was gerrymandered.”
While speaking with Clyburn, Sanders Townsend said, “Congressman, we have a map of the sixth congressional district that you currently represent, and we’re going to put it on the screen. Before the creation of this district, South Carolina had actually not elected a black representative to Congress for about 93 years, 1897, I believe. The district’s southern border touches Georgia. It goes around the center of Charleston. It cuts through Black Belt farmland to the state capital of Columbia. It contains the Gullah Geechee coastal homeland. The district is home to both of the state’s two historically black colleges — two of the state’s historically black colleges, and even some of the poorest people in the United States. That’s Barnwell County, Allendale County. It is rural. The district itself already looks like it was gerrymandered. I don’t understand how you represented people in Columbia and Charleston. So the way in which they are talking about eliminating this particular district and carving it up, I think it is, yes, about you, sir, but it’s also, specifically, about the voting power of black people to elect the representative of their choice.”
She then asked Clyburn about arguments from Republicans that he’s to the left of the state, which Clyburn answered by saying the state votes about 40% Democratic. Clyburn also stated that he gets votes from white voters as well.
Hellbound and Down 