COLUMBIA -- S.C. House Republicans are set to take up a proposed map that could eliminate longtime Democrat Jim Clyburn from Congress, laying the groundwork for a possible redistricting fight into the summer.
The new maps, introduced under pressure from Donald Trump's White House ahead of the 2026 midterms, would eliminate Clyburn's Democratic-gerrymandered district stretching from downtown Columbia to the Charleston Peninsula.
The plan was uploaded to the Statehouse website late May 7 and will be debated in a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on May 8.
Among the most significant changes:
The Fifth Congressional District, currently held by Ralph Norman, would effectively be split in two, placing closely-linked Lancaster and York counties in separate districts.
Other alterations:
- Downtown Charleston would be included in a new coastal district with Myrtle Beach.
- Pickens County, based in the Upstate, would also be halved, with some of its residents likely to be represented by a congressman hailing from the Charlotte suburbs.
- Downtown Columbia would be pulled into a district stretching into the Upstate, creating a scenario where Clemson and Columbia could be included in the same district.
The maps, previously purported to have come from the White House, were authored by the National Republican Redistricting Trust, a conservative organization that led the GOP's redistricting efforts ahead of the 2020 census. While copies had been circulating May 6, including to The Post and Courier, most lawmakers had not seen the maps until the following afternoon.
The Friday hearing, scheduled for 9 a.m. in the Blatt Office Building on the statehouse grounds, comes despite apparent reluctance from the Senate, which adjourned May 7 after declining to adopt a session-ending sine die agreement with the House that would allow legislators to address redistricting after the session adjourns next week.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, has repeatedly told reporters his members were unlikely to support any plan without seeing one first and were likely to take up the sine die agreement on the floor prior to the end of session.
Despite calls from sitting members of Congress and Trump himself, Massey still has significant misgivings about the plan, saying he believes it could actually put Republicans at a disadvantage in 2026.
"It's not that I don't want to try to help him," Massey said of Trump during a May 7 gaggle with reporters. "I do want to try to help him, but what I don't want to do is make it worse."
"And I also think that we've got to look out for South Carolina," he added. "You don't want to make it worse for South Carolina."
Massey, who did not name names, said he had been in touch with several members of Congress regarding the maps. Few, save for Clyburn and Myrtle Beach-area Republican Russell Fry, have weighed in publicly.
"Let me make something crystal clear: I'm not going anywhere," Fry wrote on social media late Thursday as a bitter Republican primary rages in the Charleston region he could represent to success 1st District U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace.
There would also be significant interruptions to the election calendar. While ongoing primaries for governor and the statehouse would be interrupted, legislation on the committee's docket May 8 proposes pushing the state's congressional primaries to August 11, an undertaking that will likely cost the state Election Commission an unknown sum to pull off.
Massey also expressed misgivings about losing Clyburn, a powerful congressional Democrat who directed significant sums of money to South Carolina during former President Joe Biden's administration. With all Republicans in Congress, he said, South Carolina could potentially lose sway in Washington when the GOP is out of power.
"There's going to be another Democratic president at some point," said Massey. "I hope that's not the case, but it's going to happen. It is important, I think, that there's somebody from South Carolina who can make a call, and that somebody at the White House will answer it."
Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the South Carolina Democratic Party have issued action alerts to protest the maps ahead of the Friday hearing.