- BIG STORY: McMaster pressured to call lawmakers to redraw districts
- ROUNDUP: Court overturns Murdaugh’s murder convictions
- LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: No parking
- BRACK: Imagine how Truman would deal with legislature
- MYSTERY PHOTO: Isn’t this groovy?
- FEEDBACK: Send us your thoughts
McMaster pressured to call lawmakers to redraw districts
News analysis | In a striking reversal, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Thursday ordered the state legislature into special session to consider a bill that would gerrymander 17-term Democratic Rep. James Clyburn out of his congressional district.
The order, which acceded Thursday to President Donald Trump’s public demands for mid-decade redistricting, came just moments after the 2026 legislative session formally ended at 5:01 p.m. The order also was just 10 days after McMaster’s office confirmed that he would not call a special session to redraw the state’s congressional map, which already gives S.C. Republicans a 6-1 advantage in the state’s U.S. House delegation.
But with Trump continuing to demand action and a rising chorus of Republican party officials and social media influencers joining the push, McMaster informally told lawmakers late Wednesday to begin planning for the special session.
An unstated ‘bargain’?
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, who has emerged in recent days as the redistricting effort’s most outspoken Republican opponent, called the order a “flip flop.”
“The governor for the last eight or nine months has been just as determined and resolute on this issue as I’ve been,” Massey told reporters. “Heck, I talked to the guy four or five times last week and he was firm on it. Something happened earlier this week.”
Massey added, “I’ve heard the rumors, and I hope there’s no corrupt bargain in place. But something happened and it has been a complete 180 on this issue.”
And in a rare move, the Republican mayors of S.C.’s first and fourth largest cities, Charleston’s William Cogswell and Mount Pleasant’s Will Haynie, commented publicly on Statehouse business Thursday, saying they “have real concerns about what’s being proposed.”
“We believe in a government that serves its people, not the other way around,” the mayors said in a joint statement. “We would encourage members of the General Assembly to slow down, ask hard questions, and let principle guide them over politics.”
Still, other Republican leaders, including leading GOP candidates running in next month’s primary to replace the term-limited McMaster, lauded the governor’s action.
‘Political mayhem’
On the other side of the aisle, Democratic businessman and gubernatorial candidate Billy Webster said the push to redraw lines only 12 days before early primary voting is set to begin in the current districts “just makes no sense.”
“Obviously, what is happening here is completely at the behest and the demand of President Trump,” the former Clinton White House official said at a Thursday press conference. “Governors are supposed to govern their way through issues like this, not provoke political mayhem.”
Meanwhile, Charleston Democratic Rep. Spencer Wetmore, a member of the S.C. House committee tasked last week with producing a new map, was blunt in her assessment of the special session.
“It’s a rushed and rigged process to make rushed and rigged maps,” she told Statehouse Report Thursday.
But despite clear anger about the process, Democrats have made no secret of their view that carving up Clyburn’s 6th District would end up backfiring on Republicans by making Democrats competitive in at least three of the new districts — an outcome known as “dummymandering.”
Specifically, Democrats say, GOP candidates would enjoy only a three-point to six-point edge in the 1st, 2nd and 6th districts under the map that’s currently circulating among Republicans — a number that Democrats could potentially overcome in a good year.
That’s one of many objections Massey raised earlier in the week, when five Republican senators joined the chamber’s 12 Democrats in stopping an earlier House-led effort to create a special redistricting session.
S.C. Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain said Massey is right to be concerned, echoing his argument that more competitive districts would draw stronger Democratic candidates and that anger among Black voters over the process would drive higher turnout.
“He knows the population, he knows the demographics and he’s warning his party that they’re about to awaken a sleeping giant,” she said.
What to expect
While Statehouse leaders stressed that the schedule for the special session will remain fluid, House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, laid out a rough timeline for reporters Wednesday night.
House members, he said, would return to the Capitol Friday morning to begin reviewing the recently introduced redistricting bill, which leaders hope to push through the chamber and over to the Senate no later than Wednesday. Over the weekend break, Hiott noted, the map room would be open for members to study the proposed new lines.
As a practical matter, he said, the House and Senate would have to finish their business before May 26, when early primary voting is set to begin under the existing lines.
“Two weeks is basically the timeline we’ve got to finish this bill,” Hiott said.
As for what to expect between now and then, he said he expected long days of tedium punctuated by periods of angry debate.
“It’ll be like nothing we’ve ever seen,” Hiott said. “It will be long. It will be boring. It will be confrontational. We’ve told our caucus members — please, please, please, respect has got to be there from everybody.”
In the upper chamber, where senators have made it clear they want a more deliberative process, possibly including public input, the calendar is less clear.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen once we get into it,” Massey told reporters Thursday.
But at least one Democratic member, Charleston Sen. Ed Sutton, said he knew exactly what to expect — and it wasn’t just redistricting.
Noting that special sessions called by the governor are free-for-alls in which any issue can be brought to the floor, he said that abortion foes, led by Sen. Richard Cash, R-Anderson, would fight throughout the session to bring their no-exceptions abortion ban up for a vote.
“I can guarantee Cash is going to bring up abortion,” Sutton said. “So you can count on that nonsense.”
The House gaveled into special session at 11 a.m. Friday.
- Jack O’Toole is Statehouse bureau chief for Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper.
- Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
S.C. Supreme Court overturns Murdaugh’s murder convictions
Staff reports | The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down two murder convictions of disgraced Lowcountry lawyer Alex Murdaugh. The ruling shocked many across the nation, with one media outlet calling it a “stunning legal bombshell.”
The five-member court unanimously overturned the outcome of Murdaugh’s six-week trial from 2023, which convicted him in the brutal 2021 killings of his wife and son Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. Justices cited “shocking jury interference” and ordered a new trial.
“Our justice system provides — indeed demands — that every person is entitled to a fair trial, which includes an impartial jury untainted by external forces bent on influencing the jury toward a biased verdict,” the justices wrote in a unanimous opinion.
“Although we are aware of the time, money and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but to reverse the denial of Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial.”
The justices wrote that the Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca (Becky) Hill, who was assigned to oversee the evidence and jury during the trial, “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility and his defense,” constituting jury interference.
Murdaugh’s trial drew national attention, spawning countless news reports, podcast episodes and documentaries. He denied killing his wife and son but received two life sentences for the murder charges. He previously pleaded guilty to financial crimes, including stealing millions from clients and his law firm, which carried a 40-year federal sentence. He also pleaded guilty to a S.C. state court to financial crimes and was ordered 27 years in prison.
Murdaugh’s lawyers filed an appeal after his 2023 conviction, arguing that Hill influenced jurors during the trial and that the judge had allowed improper evidence. Prosecutors, however, argued the convictions should stand.
Hill later resigned as Colleton County’s clerk of court and, in December, pleaded guilty to criminal charges for showing sealed exhibits to a photographer and lying about it in court. She also pleaded guilty to two counts of misconduct in office for taking bonuses and promoting a book she wrote about the trial through her public office. She was sentenced to three years probation.
“Both the state and Murdaugh’s defense skillfully presented their cases to the jury as the trial court deftly presided over this complicated and high-profile matter,” the justices reportedly said. “However, their efforts were in vain because Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
S.C. Attorney General and 2026 GOP gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson, whose office prosecuted Murdaugh, said prosecutors will refile charges.
“While we respectfully disagree with the court’s decision, my office will aggressively seek to retry Alex Murdaugh for the murders of Maggie and Paul as soon as possible,” Wilson said in a statement. “No one is above the law and, as always, we will continue to fight for justice.”
Murdaugh will remain in prison for his financial crimes while his new trial moves forward, Wilson added.
In other recent news
STATEHOUSE: Second pay raise for S.C. legislators finalized, to start in 2028. After two years of wrangling with the idea of a pay increase, legislators will get automatic raises in the coming years under a bill sent to the governor’s desk Thursday.
- S.C.’s 2026 regular legislative session closes with Heritage Act expansion
- S.C. political party chairs may have to disclose salaries, income under bill
- Bill to speed road projects moves forward
- Compromise reached on charter school reforms
- High school football league bill moves forward
- S.C. kratom ban bill stalls in Senate
- S.C. lawmakers celebrate planned Smalls monument
‘Mismanagement’ by S.C. treasurer contributed to cost overruns for voting machines, report finds. Loan negotiations by the office of State Treasurer Curtis Loftis contributed to unplanned overages and sky-high financial penalties against the S.C. Election Commission for new voting machines, according to a report Thursday by South Carolina’s inspector general.
POLITICS: S.C. Republican Party plans to sue for closed primaries. The lawsuit, which party officials said Tuesday they’ll file next month, comes after two bills that would have closed primaries stalled at the very beginning of the legislative session.
Simmer, interim head of S.C. Department of Public Health, no longer in job on last day of session. Dr. Edward Simmer, the embattled interim director of South Carolina’s Department of Public Health, was out of his job on the final day of the 2026 legislative session, ending the tenure of a pandemic-era official who became a polarizing figure among state conservatives.
S.C.’s population boom shifts to smaller cities. New census data show that people who moved to South Carolina, the nation’s fastest growing state in 2025, moved to smaller cities — not Greenville, Charleston or Myrtle Beach.
No parking
Award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail has a special knack for poking a little fun in just the right way. This week, he offers a unique look at a beach law.
- Love this week’s cartoon or hate it? Did he go too far, or not far enough? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Imagine how Truman would deal with the S.C. legislature
Commentary by Andy Brack | The S.C. General Assembly’s final legislative week of the 2026 regular session will be remembered as a time when courage ultimately hid.
Three days before the session ended, courage reared its head in the South Carolina Senate when five Republicans joined 12 Democrats to block an effort to redraw the state’s seven congressional districts at mid-decade in what was an obvious political ploy to satisfy a president that GOP rank-and-file politicians fear.
But it wasn’t long before S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster – a big friend of President Donald Trump – caved on earlier pledges that he wouldn’t call legislators back into session to redraw lines.
State Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, the Edgefield Republican who led the call in the Senate for his party to not redraw districts for a variety of reasons, characterized McMaster’s action as flip-flopping. It would have been better for the process if McMaster had come to his decision months ago.
“Based on what I’ve seen this week, I think the governor’s going to do whatever he’s told [by the White House] to do,” Massey said Thursday. “There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of pushback or backbone downstairs this week.”
Yes, the governor was under a lot of pressure to accede to the cynical attempt to carve the state’s only U.S. House Democrat, Jim Clyburn, out of his seat to get a 7-0 majority in the congressional delegation. If lawmakers eventually draw new lines, we hope their effort backfires, sending a torrent of voters to the polls in November to protest. And we believe Clyburn – even with a district without as many packed Black voters – will win whatever lawmakers do.
Nevertheless, there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing business. What the state GOP is doing – fiddling with an election process that has already started (thousands of voters already cast early ballots by mail) – is just plain wrong. It will disenfranchise voters, lead to confusion, waste money and adopt a governance mentality that smacks of banana republicanism. What supporters of redistricting before the 2030 census are doing is, quite frankly, un-American.
At times like these, thoughts turn to former President Harry S. Truman, a modest man from the middle of America who led the country through the strength of his common-sense moral convictions.
“Give ‘Em Hell Harry” served as president from April 1945 to January 1953, a time marked by tremendous change – the end of World War II and the post-war emergence of America’s middle class as a powerhouse. He presided over tremendous change:
- Truman desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces when it was politically dangerous to do so. In fact, he called for expansion of civil rights to guarantee freedom and equality to all, becoming the first president to address the NAACP.
- He supported the Marshall Plan to rebuild a broken Europe and stabilize the continent when some Americans wanted to turn inward.
- He committed the country to resisting Soviet expansion, with some historians saying he prevented a third world war.
- He pushed for national health insurance 20 years before Medicare came into existence. (Did you realize that President Lyndon Johnson awarded the nation’s first Medicare card to Truman in 1965 just seven years before he died?)
Today’s leaders need to remember the courage and convictions of Americans like Harry Truman and learn from his example. If they listen to history, they’ll avoid boneheaded moves like trying to redistrict at mid-decade to satisfy a narcissistic autocrat.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Isn’t this groovy?
Here’s what can only be considered a groovy 1960s-era building. What is it and where is it? Send your best guess – plus hometown and name – to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Last week’s photo, “Green course,” showed an aerial view of the golf course at Hickory Knob State Park in McCormick County. It offers an 18-hole course on the wooded shoreline of Strom Thurmond Reservoir, according to sleuth Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas.
Only one more sleuth – veteran George Graf of Palmyra, Va. – correctly identified the photo.
- SHARE: If you have a Mystery Photo to share, please send it to us – and make sure you tell us what it is!
Send us your thoughts
Please send us your thoughts about politics and policy in South Carolina, but make sure to leave phone numbers and hometowns to help us verify them for publication. We publish non-defamatory comments, but unless you provide your contact information – name and hometown, plus a phone number used only by us for verification – we can’t publish your views.
- Have a comment? Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com. Make sure to provide your contact details (name, hometown and phone number for verification. Letters are limited to 150 words.
Statehouse Report, founded in 2001 as a weekly legislative forecast that informs readers about what is going to happen in South Carolina politics and policy, is provided by email to you at no charge every Friday.
- Editor and publisher: Andy Brack, 843.670.3996
- Statehouse bureau chief: Jack O’Toole
We can use your help
We’re proud to offer Statehouse Report for free. For more than a dozen years, we’ve been the go-to place for insightful independent policy and political news and views in the Palmetto State. And we love it as much as you do.
But now, we can use your help. If you’ve been thinking of contributing to Statehouse Report over the years, now would be a great time to contribute as we deal with the crisis. In advance, thank you.
More
- Mailing address: Send inquiries by mail to: P.O. Box 21942, Charleston, SC 29413
- Subscriptions are free. If you want to subscribe, send us an email: feedback@statehousereport.com with the word “subscribe” in the subject. We hope you’ll keep receiving the great news and information from Statehouse Report, but if you need to unsubscribe, go to the bottom of the weekly email issue and follow the instructions.
- Read our sister publication: Charleston City Paper (every Friday in print; Every day online)
- © 2026, Statehouse Report, a publication of City Paper Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.