McMaster to Order General Assembly to Reconvene to Approve Trump Voting Map

Seanna Adcox and Skylar Laird/S.C. Daily Gazette

COLUMBIA — With just 12 days before early voting polls open, legislators will begin a special session for the purpose of redrawing South Carolina’s congressional lines.

Gov. Henry McMaster will order a special session beginning Friday morning, GOP leaders in both chambers told reporters Wednesday evening.

The self-imposed deadline for passing a new map of congressional districts is May 26, said House Majority Leader Davey Hiott.

“We’re fully aware” that’s when early voting starts, said the Pickens County Republican. “We believe that’s the deadline.”

McMaster, who’s previously said it’s a matter for the Legislature to decide, is expected to officially make the call after the regular session ends at 5 p.m. Thursday. The governor has not yet publicly announced his plans, but Hiott and Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said McMaster informed GOP leaders Wednesday.

“It’s been a moving target like I’ve never seen before,” Hiott said about the redistricting effort. “Everybody thought we were going home at 5 o’clock (Thursday), but we’re not.”

McMaster’s order comes under pressure from the White House, the state GOP and Republicans who want to replace him in the Governor’s Mansion — including the candidate he endorsed, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, who told a House Judiciary panel Tuesday to get it done “by any means necessary.”

It also comes two days after the Senate refused to add redistricting to a resolution setting the rules for what the Legislature can do after the regular session concludes. The 29-17 vote fell two “ayes” short of the two-thirds majority approval needed, as five Republicans joined 12 Democrats in rejecting the White House push.

The failure of that resolution also created a window for the governor’s order. With no law in place for the off-session, McMaster can call the Legislature back.

Legislators sent to his desk Thursday a separate bill limiting off-session work to the budget and negotiations on differing versions of bills that have passed both chambers. But he has until Wednesday to sign it into law.

Zoom in on the differences

For an interactive map of South Carolina’s existing congressional districts, click here. For the proposed map, click here.

It will govern future off-sessions, to include a separate special session to wrap up work on the budget that takes effect July 1. Hiott said that might not be scheduled until after the June 9 primaries.

While ordering legislators back, McMaster still lacks the legal authority to require them to do anything. He also can’t limit their agenda.

‘Best scenario’ timeline

But Hiott said the sole purpose will be redistricting. The process will start in the House with legislation adopting the White House-endorsed map and delaying congressional primaries. The House Judiciary Committee’s party-line vote to advance the bill Tuesday followed the Senate’s rejection of the effort.

Legislators will have access to the House “map room” over the weekend to draft proposed changes in the lines.

The House GOP’s new goal for sending the bill over to the Senate is this Tuesday. That’s the “best scenario,” following what’s expected to be a very long and likely confrontational debate, Hiott said.

That would give the Senate one week before early voting to pass a bill that would nullify part of voters’ ballots. While delaying U.S. House contests, the House bill keeps all other primaries — including statewide offices, state House seats and the U.S. Senate — on schedule for June 9, with runoffs June 23.

If the congressional primaries are pushed to August, the candidates who have been campaigning for months will still be on June 9 ballots. Any votes for congressional candidates simply wouldn’t count.

Senators’ reasons for rejecting the push earlier this week included the confusion it would cause among voters, the thousands of absentee ballots already mailed, and the hundreds already returned.

“Those concerns are heightened every day we get closer,” Massey told reporters. There will be military members overseas who won’t be able to vote in a second set of primaries, whether because they’re on the move or just don’t know to ask for another ballot, he said.

Massey, among the five Republicans who voted “no” Tuesday, said he believed the deadline for overhauling the congressional map passed about three months ago — before candidates filed to run for districts that may look completely different.

“It’s all problematic, based on what’s right,” said the Edgefield Republican, noting he also expects legal challenges if the lines are changed. “I think we’re already too late in the game.”

Why now?

The push from President Donald Trump is to pick up a Republican seat in November, in hopes of helping Republicans hold on to their already thin majority in the U.S. House.

The map created by the National Republican Redistricting Trust would draw U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, South Carolina’s lone Democrat in Congress, out of the seat he’s represented since the lines were gerrymandered in 1992 to create a Black-majority district. The court-drawn map enabled Clyburn to become the first Black South Carolinian in Congress in 95 years.

Due to population changes and required post-census redistricting since, the 6th District is no longer a majority-minority district, though it remains reliably blue.

The effort to redraw South Carolina’s lines to create seven Republican seats followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that threw out Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. While Republicans pushing for the overhaul say that’s why South Carolina needs to overhaul its map, Republicans who oppose the quick rewrite say the Louisiana ruling doesn’t apply to South Carolina.

As Massey has pointed out, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling that upheld South Carolina’s map rejected arguments that the lines were racially gerrymandered. They were upheld as partisan gerrymandered. The goal in packing Democrat-heavy precincts into the 6th District was to ensure the coastal 1st District stayed Republican, as Massey has acknowledged repeatedly.

Massey’s political concern about the proposed map is that it could ultimately result in two Democrats getting elected or at least igniting enthusiasm and an influx of money for Democrats, making it tougher for Republicans to hang on in races from Congress down to county councils.

This is a developing story. Check back for details.