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.
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