Early Voting Starts Tuesday. The New Map Will Not.

ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 19

Week of May 18, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session

Last week ended with the Governor’s special session order, a failed sine die resolution, Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey’s floor speech, and H. 5683 teed up for serious floor action. This week was that floor action. The House moved the bill from renewed floor debate to third reading in three legislative days. The Senate worked the bill across three days: substantive debate and points of order Thursday, two failed motions to suspend Rule 15 on Friday, and a Rule 15B cloture vote on Saturday that produced second reading. Third reading is set for Tuesday.

The central fact, the one that frames everything else, is timing. Early voting for the June 9 statewide primary begins Tuesday, May 26. The Senate will vote on third reading the same day. Whatever this bill ultimately becomes, it will not be law before voters start casting ballots. Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto put it bluntly Saturday: a yes vote will be cast at the same moment voters are standing in line at the polls.

H. 5683: WHAT THE BILL DOES

H. 5683, the bill at the center of the week, adds Section 7-19-35 to the South Carolina Code to establish new election districts for the seven U.S. House seats and repeals Section 7-19-45. The map under consideration was drafted by the National Republican Redistricting Trust. The bill also shifts the U.S. House primary calendar. The June 9 statewide primary stays in place for non-U.S. House contests. A new August 18 special primary is created for the seven U.S. House seats only. Filing for the special primary, if the bill becomes law, runs June 1 through June 5. The November 3 general election remains in place.

THE HOUSE: TEN HOURS, A RULE CHANGE, A LAWSUIT, AND A 12:21 A.M. VOTE

The House came back into session Monday, May 18, with H. 5683 already partially amended from the prior Friday and more than five hundred amendments on the desk. The Democratic minority’s strategy was floor-time consumption: amendment after amendment, brief explanation, motion to table, yeas and nays, tabled, motion to reconsider, motion to table the motion to reconsider, tabled again, next amendment. By Monday evening, after ten hours of floor time, the House had moved through nine of them.

A sample of what was offered and tabled Monday and Tuesday: voter education and direct-mail notification programs, prohibitions on the use of incumbent addresses or partisan data, public hearing requirements, coordination requirements with county election offices, restrictions on splitting historically connected communities, protection of military communities, instant-runoff voting in the special primary, postponement of the November general election in the event of a protest, county reimbursement for special election costs, a two-thirds bipartisan vote requirement, and effective dates pushed to 2028 or 2030.

By Monday evening it was clear the existing pace would consume the rest of the special session without ever finishing the bill. The House Rules Committee convened, over a Rule 4.4 objection that the Speaker overruled, and reported out H. 5709, a special order resolution governing further proceedings on H. 5683. The resolution set H. 5683 for immediate and continuing special order, limited each member to one amendment selected from the desk or newly introduced, and set a deadline of Tuesday morning for that selection. It passed 73-33.

The rule change drew a lawsuit. On Tuesday, the South Carolina League of Women Voters and the ACLU of South Carolina sued House GOP leaders in Richland County Circuit Court, arguing that the Rules Committee’s late-notice meeting violated the Freedom of Information Act and asking the court to void the resolution and the subsequent floor votes.

Judge Daniel Coble heard the case Wednesday, May 20, and denied the relief. The order went further than denying the injunction. Coble ruled that the FOIA provisions cited by the plaintiffs did not apply to the challenged House resolution governing internal House procedure. The plaintiffs’ attorney called that holding separately significant and signaled the ruling could be appealed. The House proceedings were not paused.

Tuesday also produced the bill-reading episode. Late in the day, Rule 5.21A was invoked and required the bill to be read in its entirety. Rule 3.9 was invoked, absent members were sent for, and the outer doors of the House were restricted. The Reading Clerk read every census block in Section 1 of the map. That is the only context in which the geographic detail of H. 5683 was ever read aloud on the floor.

Third reading passed 74-37 at 12:21 a.m. Wednesday. The bill went to the Senate the same morning.

One House amendment of consequence survived. Amendment No. 2, offered by Rep. W. Newton and adopted 79-31, provides that boards, commissions, committees, and authorities required by law to be elected or appointed from congressional districts continue to use the 2022 districts until after the 2030 census. Judicial selection, board appointments, and other downstream consequences of district lines stay frozen on the existing map even if H. 5683 governs federal elections. That is the one substantive carve-out, and it was offered by a member of the majority.

THE COST AND ADMINISTRATION HEARINGS

Before the Senate took up the bill on the floor, Senate Judiciary received testimony Wednesday from the State Election Commission and from county election directors. The numbers had moved.

State Election Commission Director Conway Belangia told the committee that earlier cost projections, given off-the-cuff when the House push began, were too low. After the Commission had time to look at past election spending, particularly poll worker pay, the estimates more than doubled. The figures Belangia presented did not include additional costs that would fall on counties.

Richland County Director of Voter Registration and Elections Travis Alexander testified that his county alone would face roughly $800,000 in additional costs to administer a separate August primary and September runoff. Those figures came through committee testimony, not a fiscal impact statement attached to the bill.  The new map splits Richland County across three congressional districts. Forty-three precincts statewide will have voters from multiple congressional districts casting ballots at the same location, with split-precinct data requiring manual entry. Twenty of those forty-three are in Richland.

Beneath the numbers, Alexander’s point was straightforward: the timeline does not work. Voting machines have to be reprogrammed and tested. That work cannot begin until after the June 23 primary runoffs. He told the committee he does not have the staff or the funding to do what the bill would require.

Separately, the special session itself was already generating additional public costs before the Senate debate even began.

THE SENATE: THURSDAY TO SATURDAY

Thursday opened with Senator Hutto raising a Rule 10 and Rule 37 point of order, arguing that H. 5683 had been improperly placed on the Senate Calendar in a posture that allowed it to be taken up for floor debate. The President overruled the point of order. Senator Rankin then explained the bill, and the Senate worked through amendments. Amendments dealing with military and overseas ballot compliance, prohibitions on using incumbent addresses, expedited judicial review, statewide voter education, and ballot signage were carried over rather than voted up or down.

Friday produced the procedural showdown. Senator Grooms moved twice under Rule 43 to suspend Rule 15. Suspension required two-thirds, or 31 votes. The first attempt received 25 votes. The second received 26. Neither motion succeeded. Hutto held the floor on Amendment 8 through the afternoon, and the Senate adjourned Friday evening without reaching second reading.

Saturday was the day the bill moved.

Grooms tried a different tool. He moved under Rule 15B to bring debate on the entire matter of H. 5683 to a close. Rule 15B is the Senate’s reapportionment-specific cloture rule. It requires only a three-fifths majority, and it becomes available once a reapportionment bill has been under debate for two statewide legislative days. The two-day threshold had been satisfied by Thursday and Friday. The motion carried 26-18.

At the time cloture was invoked, Amendment 8 was the pending amendment. The amendment, offered by Hutto and other Democratic senators, dealt broadly with election administration and voter confusion by requiring any implementation of new congressional districts to allow sufficient time for orderly election administration. Cloture ended debate on the broader matter, but it did not, by itself, adopt Amendment 8.

After a recess, the Senate moved through the remaining amendment posture. It tabled an Ott amendment restricting cross-party voting between the June primary and the August special primary, 34-9, and a Sutton amendment dealing with absentee ballot administration, 26-18. Amendment 8 was then withdrawn as part of Senator Massey’s unanimous consent agreement, along with all other pending amendments.

That unanimous consent agreement put the bill in position for Tuesday: the Rule 26B day requirement was waived for third reading; Sunday, May 24, and Monday, May 25, Memorial Day, were designated as Rule 1B days counting as statewide session days for H. 5683 only; and the Senate was set to convene in full statewide session Tuesday, May 26, at 11:00 a.m.

With Amendment 8 and the other pending amendments withdrawn, the bill that passed second reading was, in substance, the bill that came over from the House. Second reading passed 27-17.

WHY THE MEMORIAL DAY PERFUNCTORY SESSIONS MATTERED

The Sunday and Monday Rule 1B sessions were not about debate. They were about time. By counting those days as statewide legislative days for H. 5683, the Senate created the procedural runway for a Tuesday third-reading vote.

Cloture under Rule 15B is not a one-time event. Saturday’s 26-18 vote closed debate for purposes of second reading. Third reading is a separate question, and to invoke cloture again, the bill had to sit in that posture for two additional statewide legislative days. The Senate could have waited and accumulated those days on a regular schedule. That would have pushed third reading later into the first week of early voting. Instead, the Senate used Sunday and Memorial Day as Rule 1B days, allowing the Rule 15B clock to run without conducting ordinary floor business.

That choice made the Memorial Day weekend posture impossible to ignore. Senator Darrell Jackson objected to holding session on Sunday on religious grounds. Senator Richard Cash, a consistent supporter of redistricting, agreed with Jackson’s objection and asked that Jackson’s remarks be printed in the journal. Senator Deon Tedder noted that the special session was also keeping legislative staff in the building over Memorial Day weekend.

Sunday counted as the first statewide legislative day after second reading. Monday, Memorial Day, was set to count as the second. Tuesday at 11:00 a.m., the Senate is positioned to return in statewide session with the Rule 15B day count satisfied and cloture available again on third reading.

AMENDMENT 8 AND THE BILL THAT PASSED SECOND READING

Amendment 8, the surviving Senate amendment on the floor at the moment of cloture Saturday, was offered by Senators Hutto, Jackson, Sabb, Williams, Allen, Matthews, Tedder, Devine, Graham, Ott, Sutton, and Walker. The operative text required that any implementation of changes to congressional district boundaries be undertaken in a manner that allows sufficient time to avoid voter confusion and ensure orderly election administration.

The amendment was general in form. No specific date. No enforcement mechanism. No constraint on the State Election Commission. A statement of legislative intent attached to the bill.

It was withdrawn as part of the Saturday unanimous consent agreement that cleared the bill for second reading. The bill that passed second reading is, in substance, the bill that came over from the House. Whether anything like Amendment 8 reappears on third reading is one of the open questions for Tuesday.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Other items moved this week, though none consumed comparable floor time.

S. 688, Senator Massey and Senator Kimbrell’s unemployment insurance reform package, was ratified Wednesday. The act amends multiple sections of Title 41 of the Code: it changes the lookback period for the benefit ratio in the unemployment trust fund, provides for a solvency target for the fund, changes the penalty for an outstanding lien when a delinquent report is received, and removes caps on the penalties for failure to file unemployment reports and for unpaid contributions.

The Senate received two vetoes from Governor McMaster on Friday. R127, S. 238, sponsored by Senators Alexander, Peeler, Massey, and Rankin, amended Section 2-1-180 to allow the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House to call their respective bodies into session after sine die adjournment if the General Appropriations Bill or Capital Reserve Fund Resolution is not completed. Notable on its own: McMaster vetoed a bill providing a mechanism for the legislature to call itself back to finish the budget, in a week he himself was already operating the special session he had called by executive order. R227, S. 428, sponsored by Senators Allen, Hembree, and Garrett, amended check fraud expungement provisions in Sections 34-11-90 and 17-22-910 and added Section 17-1-43 requiring the destruction of arrest records of persons arrested as a result of mistaken identity. Both vetoes were placed on the Senate Calendar for consideration.

The House received a third veto Tuesday on R259, H. 5164, sponsored by Reps. Hewitt, Bannister, and G.M. Smith. The bill would have added Section 44-7-255 providing fire and building code exceptions for placement of hospital beds in hallways, corridors, or other means of egress during justified emergencies. The Governor’s veto message explained that he had signed the parallel Senate version, R241, S. 958, the same day, making the House bill unnecessary.

S. 1043, the Civil Air Patrol Leave Act, sponsored by Senators Adams, Zell, Leber, and Graham, was returned to the Senate from the House with amendments and placed on the Senate Calendar.

WHAT IS COMING

Tuesday, May 26, at 11:00 a.m., the Senate convenes for third reading of H. 5683. Under the Massey unanimous consent agreement and the satisfied Rule 15B day requirement, Grooms is positioned to move cloture again. Second reading was 27-17.

Early voting for the June 9 statewide primary also begins Tuesday morning. By the time the Senate votes on third reading, voters across the state will already be casting ballots. The map will not govern any vote already cast.

If the Senate passes the bill in the form it came from the House, it goes to enrollment, ratification, and the Governor. If the Senate adopts any amendment, the bill goes back to the House for concurrence. Under H. 5709, only the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader may offer amendments on Senate amendments in the House, with one hour of debate equally divided.

Litigation is the open variable. The League of Women Voters and ACLU action targeting the House rule changes was denied at the trial level and is in posture for appeal. Additional challenges to any enacted map are expected. One Senate amendment carried over Thursday would have requested expedited Supreme Court review of any constitutional challenge. That amendment did not survive the Saturday unanimous consent.

Administration is the other open variable. The State Election Commission has not been funded for the additional primary and runoff at the levels Director Belangia and the county directors have described. Whether the budget mechanism provides for that, or whether counties absorb the cost directly, is unresolved. The bill itself does not appropriate.

The conference business teed up last week, S. 52 on DUI reform and H. 3924 on hemp-derived consumables, did not move this week. Both remain in conference. Both are available for the special session calendar once redistricting clears. The budget remains unresolved, with the continuing resolution operating.

CLOSING

For clients tracking matters through the legislative or executive branch right now, this week is a reminder that procedure is the policy in a session like this one. The redistricting fight has consumed the floor calendar in both chambers, generated a court ruling that significantly narrows what FOIA reaches in the House, and produced cost and administrative estimates that the State Election Commission and county directors say cannot be met on the bill’s timeline. The bills that did clear, S. 688 in particular, cleared because they had already done the procedural work.

The off-session work that begins as soon as this special session closes is what determines what happens when session reconvenes. Strategy development, drafting, coalition building, agency engagement, and relationship work in the months between now and January 2027 are what move bills then. In weeks like this, the visible vote is only the surface of the story. The real work is understanding the rules, the timing, the pressure points, and the consequences before the vote arrives. Alpha Strategies tracks the procedure alongside the policy so clients know what is real, what is theater, and where their issues actually stand.

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