Mac Deford

@macdeford.bsky.social

3805 Followers 113 Following

Husband. Dad. Coast Guard veteran. Former local gov’t attorney. Democrat running for U.S. Congress to tackle affordability, uphold the Constitution, and fight corruption. 🔗 https://defordforcongress.com

Mac and his wife Caroline holding I voted stickers on the first day of early voting.
The South Carolina Senate voted, the democratic process produced an answer, and Governor McMaster ignored it. Rather than honor that result, he has capitulated to demands from a White House that cannot achieve through elections what it now seeks to accomplish through a special session: the redrawing of maps, the erasure of a majority-Black district, and the cancellation of thousands of absentee ballots already cast by real South Carolinians, including the men and women who wear this nation's uniform. Those votes will not be thrown out because they were cast in error, or because any law requires it, but because politicians in Washington have decided that certain voters hold too much power and they need a map that corrects that problem. The Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act, Tennessee has already moved to exploit it, and now our governor has chosen to follow. He has done so not because the law of South Carolina demands it, not because the people of this state have called for it, but because a coordinated national effort to diminish Black voting power has found in Henry McMaster a willing instrument.
South Carolina Republicans are trying to redraw congressional maps in the middle of an election year because they cannot defend their record on rising costs, broken infrastructure, and chaos in Washington. That kind of political gamesmanship creates real consequences. With the primary just weeks away, voters, candidates, and election officials deserve certainty. Instead, they are being pulled into a redistricting fight driven by national politics and partisan pressure. This will cause mass confusion among the electorate. It also threatens fair representation in South Carolina. Congressman Jim Clyburn has spent decades making sure communities too often ignored by Washington have a voice. South Carolinians deserve fair maps, stable elections, and representatives who answer to them, not party bosses in Washington. And Republicans may be making a serious political miscalculation in the process. Their proposed map would make South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District even more competitive. Polling already shows me in a dead heat with the Republican frontrunner, and national Democrats have already put SC-01 on the DCCC target list. The GOP is trying to draw a map to protect itself. Instead, it may be creating an even clearer path for voters to flip one of the most competitive seats in the South. But this fight is bigger than one district, one map, or one election. No party should be allowed to rig the rules for its own advantage. Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. That is why I am committing to fight for federal legislation to ban partisan gerrymandering nationwide by 2030.
12 South carolina legislators just made attacking same-sex marriage their top priority.
Mac Deford Honors the Life and Legacy of Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., South Carolina Son and Civil Rights Giant