The White House Called. The Map Showed Up. The Senate Left Town.
- Alpha Strategies
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 17
Week of May 4, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session
Just days from Sine Die, the General Assembly was supposed to be cleaning up the budget, the roads bill, and hemp. Instead, week 17 turned the back half of session into a fight over whether South Carolina is going to redraw its congressional map. On top of that, S. 508 (monument and memorial protection), effectively an expansion of the Heritage Act, received House second reading Thursday, May 7, on a 74‑28 vote.
The Senate moved meaningful business through this week, including third reading of H. 5006 (Small Business Tax Cut) and a substantial list of Senate Finance bills. But the Senate saw the congressional redistricting map Thursday and went home without taking up the sine die resolution.
Here is what actually moved this week, what is genuinely at risk in the closing days, and what we are watching next.
S. 883 / H. 5683 / H. 5684: REDISTRICTING
Two separate tracks are moving at once. On Wednesday evening, the House voted 87-25 to amend S. 883, the Senate-originated sine die resolution, to authorize the General Assembly to return after May 14 and take up congressional redistricting. As of Monday, May 11, the House-amended resolution had not been adopted by the Senate.
Meanwhile, the House is fast-tracking the actual map legislation on a parallel path. H. 5683 (a proposed seven-district congressional map) and a companion joint resolution, H. 5684 (moving the U.S. House primary from June 9 to August 11, with associated changes to filing dates and disposition of votes already cast), were both referred to House Judiciary.
Friday, the House Judiciary Constitutional Laws Subcommittee took several hours of public testimony before advancing H. 5684 on a 3‑2 vote. The subcommittee declined to vote on the map itself. Sen. Josh Kimbrell introduced a Senate companion bill proposing to move all primaries to August, not just congressional; it was referred to Senate Judiciary.
The Senate did not take up S. 883 (Sine Die Resolution) this week. They saw the map Thursday, and they went home. The national mid-decade redistricting push accelerated after the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and now South Carolina are the visible results. Governor McMaster, who is in his final term, told reporters he would not call a special session for redistricting and would not have the legal authority to do so as long as a sine die resolution remains in place. The House decided it did not need him to.
S. 883 is not on the Senate calendar for Tuesday, May 12. That does not mean it cannot be taken up. If all 46 senators are voting, two-thirds means 31 votes. Republicans hold 34. The substantive map fight is parallel: full House Judiciary takes up both H. 5683 and H. 5684 on Tuesday.
The June 9 primary calendar already has roughly 5,800 absentee ballots mailed and more than 200 returned. The House-passed budget includes $1 million in each chamber’s budget for redistricting-related litigation — a useful indicator of how seriously the General Assembly believes the federal courts will be involved.
H. 5126: THE BUDGET HEADS TO CONFERENCE WITH A MEDICAID HOLE
The House passed its amended version of the FY27 budget (H. 5126) on Wednesday and returned it to the Senate. The Senate nonconcurred the same day. On Thursday, the House formally insisted on its amendments, and both chambers appointed conferees to the Committee of Conference.
The substantive fight is Medicaid. The Department of Health and Human Services requested $203 million in state dollars. The House funded $175 million. The Senate funded $143 million — more than $40 million below the House.
One important relief valve is now in place: S. 769, the FY27 continuing resolution, was enrolled for ratification on May 6. That gives the General Assembly authority to pay state government’s ordinary expenses if the budget conference does not finish by July 1.
Separately, S. 238 (the session extension authority bill) bounced between chambers all week: the House gave it third reading 117‑0 on May 6 with a Ways and Means amendment; the Senate further amended the House amendments on May 7 and returned it to the House.
SC STATE: NINE MEMBERS PICKED A FIGHT. NINE MEMBERS DO NOT CONTROL A BUDGET.
Coming into week 17, nine House Republicans had sent a letter to Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister calling for SC State University to be stripped of state funding in the FY27 budget, after the university rescinded its invitation to Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette as commencement speaker following student protests. The letter dropped Thursday, May 1. Commencement happened, without Evette, on May 8. The budget the House passed Wednesday did not defund the university.
THE QUIETER HEALTHCARE BILLS
Several healthcare bills moved or stalled this week in ways worth tracking even though they will not lead any newscast.
S. 449 (collaborative practice agreements): On May 5, the Senate took up House amendments and nonconcurred under unanimous consent, sending the bill back to the House.
H. 4767 (physician non-compete ban): Senate Labor, Commerce and Industry reported the bill out favorably May 5. It sits on the Senate contested calendar.
H. 4760 (abortion-inducing drugs): Reported out of Senate Medical Affairs 10‑4 on May 6, with Senator Davis abstaining and Senator Gambrell not voting. The bill creates crimes and penalties related to abortion-inducing drugs, with exceptions, and adds mifepristone and misoprostol to Schedule IV. Sutton and Graham objected to consideration when the bill was called on the Senate floor May 7. It sits on the contested calendar.
H. 4042 (ivermectin): Reported out of Senate Medical Affairs majority favorable on May 6. Senator Matthews objected to consideration when the bill was called on the Senate floor May 7. On the contested calendar.
S. 1095: THE ABORTION BILL ON THE BACK BURNER, SORT OF
S. 1095, the Unborn Child Protection Act, would ban abortion from clinical detection and remove existing exceptions for rape, incest, and fatal fetal anomaly. With three legislative days left and the budget, redistricting, and roads competing for floor time, S. 1095 is not currently moving. But it is also not dead, and “not currently moving” in the final week of session is a status that can change in a single afternoon.
S. 508: MONUMENT AND MEMORIAL PROTECTION MOVES IN HOUSE
The House debated S. 508 on Thursday, May 7. The House then gave the bill second reading 74‑28. Third reading is pending. If the House gives it third reading next week, it goes back to the Senate for concurrence.
THE BILLS THAT QUIETLY GOT DONE
Worth noting in the noise of week 17: a substantial set of bills was enrolled for ratification this week. From the Senate side, the May 6 House Journal records eight bills enrolled for ratification: S. 196 (insurance adjuster licensure overhaul), S. 697 (transferring the SC 211 Network to Consumer Affairs), S. 163 (central bank digital currency prohibition), S. 439 (manufacturing property tax exemption increase), S. 582 (voter qualifications constitutional amendment), S. 357 (mail theft offense), S. 893 (SUPERB underground petroleum response), and S. 769 (FY27 continuing resolution). The House also concurred in Senate amendments on a series of House bills now headed for ratification, including H. 3022 (Long-Term Care Council references), H. 3034 (law enforcement animals), H. 3163 (firefighter workers’ comp coverage for stroke), H. 3453 (veterans’ children tuition), H. 3474 (TNC personal vehicle definition), H. 3556 (primary protests and municipal election dates), H. 3842 (handicapped placards by physical therapists), H. 3872 (Hunting Heritage Protection Act), H. 4292 (Roadway Protection and Safety Act / street takeovers), H. 4799 (veterans homes CON exemption), H. 4805 (judicial circuits / circuit court judges), H. 4813 (magistrate court costs), H. 5064 (Northeastern Tech College Area Commission), H. 5073 (Uniform Grading Policy), H. 5097 (roadside markets), H. 5131 (tribal government plates), and H. 5205 (college student safety training).
WHAT IS COMING
Tuesday through Thursday of week 18 are the last regular session days. The Senate is the question mark. The body left town Thursday without taking up S. 883, and Majority Leader Shane Massey has been openly skeptical. The bill is not on Tuesday’s printed Senate calendar, but it can be moved up at leadership’s discretion any day next week. Whenever it is called, the Senate sine die vote is the single most consequential vote of the closing week.
Tuesday morning, House Judiciary takes up H. 5683 (the new map) and H. 5684 (the primary delay). House passage of either or both is likely. Senate disposition is not.
THE SINE DIE COUNTDOWN
Three legislative days remain.
The unfinished business is large: the FY27 budget conference report; the SCDOT conference report; the hemp conference report; medical malpractice reform (H. 4544 and H. 4670, with S. 922 as a backup vehicle); the DUI bill that needs concurrence or conference; the sine die resolution itself, which is now load-bearing for both the budget timeline and the redistricting timeline. That is a lot of open business for three legislative days.
The historical pattern is that the General Assembly finishes more than expected in the final week and that the priorities of leadership get done. The leadership priorities this year are the budget, the roads bill, and, in the House, redistricting. Hemp is a coin flip. Everything else is at the mercy of how long the Senate sine die debate, whenever it is called, takes.
WHEN THE GAVEL FALLS
When the General Assembly adjourns at 5:00 p.m. on May 14, the work shifts to conference committee reports, sine die return sessions, and, if S. 883 passes the Senate as amended, a redistricting fight that will run through the summer and almost certainly into federal court. The off-season is not the off-season this year.
Alpha Strategies tracks South Carolina’s legislative process week by week to help organizations understand not just what happened, but what it means and what is coming next.
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