It's Thursday, May 14.
And when the clock strikes 5 o'clock, that means it's sine die.
Except, not exactly. We get into that below.
First, the Senate and House will both gavel in at 10 a.m. today.
Beyond the debate over redistricting, today will be the final day on the legislative calendar for many bills to make it to the legislative finish line and to the governor's desk for his approval.
You can follow the House here.
And you can follow the Senate here.
You're reading The State House Gavel, your daily reporter notebook by Maayan Schechter and Gavin Jackson that previews and captures what goes on at the South Carolina Statehouse.
Notebook highlights:
- Gov. Henry McMaster is set to call the legislature back to Columbia for a special session to tackle mid-decade redistricting. Will a new map pass?
- State leaders celebrate new Robert Smalls statute with groundbreaking to help raise money
Sine die special: redistricting
Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to call state lawmakers back to Columbia after they adjourn at 5 o'clock today, setting up legislative activity over mid-decade redistricting.
That's according to Statehouse Republican leaders, who told reporters Wednesday that the governor is expected to call for a
special session once the clock rings at the end of the session.
House GOP Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, told reporters the lower chamber will gavel in at 10 a.m. Friday and begin the redistricting work to make the state's seven congressional districts all favor Republicans, aiming to eliminate the lone Democratic 6th District currently represented by Congressman Jim Clyburn.
Hiott said the goal is to have a new U.S. House map in place before in-person voting for the statewide June 9 primaries begins May 26.
That is despite that thousands of mail-in absentee ballots have already been issued, and hundreds have already been returned.
Hiott said he hopes to have the map passed by next Wednesday and sent to the Senate. It's not clear what the Senate may do after that.
"It'll be like nothing we've ever seen," Hiott, who is not running for reelection, told reporters. "So, it'll be long, it'll be tedious at times, hopefully it'll be respectful and it will be something like probably I've never seen before."
Sine die rules: Absent a sine die agreement — legislation that dictates what and when lawmakers can return to session post-May 14 — the governor can call the legislature back to Columbia. He just cannot dictate what lawmakers take up. That is at the discretion of each chamber.
Election schedule: Early in-person voting for the June 9 primary starts May 26. State Election Commission Director Conway Belangia testified that it’s not a simple process of removing the congressional races from the ballots that have already been printed. There will not be adequate time to test and prepare machines and could result in a "potential failure," he told lawmakers. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee advanced a bill — H. 5683 — that would also separate congressional primary elections and delay them to Aug. 18, with runoffs on Sept. 1. Candidate filing would also reopen June 1 to June 5, less than a month away.
Lawmakers did pass another sine die vehicle — S. 238 — that will go to the governor for his signature. The governor has up to five days, with the exception of Sundays, to sign or veto a bill or let it lapse into law. That timeline pushes up against the 5 p.m. sine die deadline.
But that bill was not agreed to by both chambers until after the governor already told Statehouse leaders that he was planning to call them back into session, leaders said.
Hiott said that agreement will dictate what the House will do after it finishes the map redraw next week.
No other legislation will be taken up in the House while it hashes out a new congressional map, according to Hiott.
"The next four or five days, how long we're here, we will not do anything but redistricting," Hiott said. "There won't be any conference reports. There won't be any budget reports, nothing. We will deal directly with redistricting. And when we get good with that, then we'll fall under our sine die, ... then the (House) speaker and the (Senate) president decide when we come back for conference reports in the budget."
You can hear Hiott's full remarks below:
Still the question remains: What does the Senate do?
On Tuesday, in a 29-17 vote, the Senate failed to reach the necessary two-thirds vote to agree with House changes made to the sine die resolution that would have allowed lawmakers to take up congressional redistricting after session ends Thursday.
Despite that vote — and the multiple reasons some GOP senators have over redrawing the map now, which include that the U.S. Supreme Court already upheld South Carolina's map — and despite the high likelihood the House sends the upper chamber a map, when the Senate will return and what exactly they will do remains up in the air.
Both Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and Senate Judiciary Chairman Luke Rankin, a Horry Republican whose committee would handle the map redraw, said any redistricting effort would have to go through the committee process.
But Massey noted things are changing rapidly.
"It makes sense to go through the committee process, but we’ll see what the body will allow to get to that point," Massey, R-Edgefield, said. "If we’re in the position where the governor calls us back, everything is on the table. If the governor calls us back, I’m going to have an extended conversation about abortion."
Massey told reporters the governor told him he planned to call the legislature back. McMaster told reporters last week he didn't plan to call lawmakers back and was not pressuring them either.
Massey said concerns still remain over the map.
Those concerns have only heightened, he added.
"I guess the question is whether that matters?" he said.
You can hear Massey's full remarks below:
Read more:
- Post and Courier: In a reversal, SC lawmakers now anticipate special session to redraw congressional district lines
- The State: SC House plans return Friday to take up redistricting, GOP leader says
- Greenville New: South Carolina GOP lawmakers want to redraw voting districts. What it means
What else happened in the legislature Wednesday?
The House voted 59-48 to pass an amended S. 933, legislation that would raise legislative pay to $47,500 starting with the 128th General Assembly — the first time pay would be raised since the 90s.
Under a change made by the House, a legislator can file a written statement accepting the pay raise with the clerk of their respective chamber. A lawmaker who doesn't file a statement accepting the raise would fall under the same pay as the 126th General Assembly.
The bill now goes back to the Senate.
Also, what's on the Senate's Thursday agenda?
About 80 confirmations to work through, Massey said.
Massey told reporters there's also a handful of bills on third reading the upper chamber will work through, in addition to waiting on a slew of legislation from the House.
"We're in about as good of a position as we can be on the calendar," he said. "We're set up pretty good for the last day."
Robert Smalls statue 'for all South Carolinians'
It was a bipartisan affair Wednesday as state leaders celebrated the incoming statue to Robert Smalls, a former legislator, congressman and Civil War hero who will be honored on the Statehouse complex with the first standalone statue to an African American.
Gov. Henry McMaster joined Statehouse Republican leaders to celebrate the groundbreaking for the statue location, just across from the Statehouse's visitor's entrance.
The Robert Smalls commission hopes to raise $1.5 million to $2 million for the memorial, using the event Wednesday to gin up excitement.
"They tell us who we value. They tell us whose story deserve to be remembered. And they tell future generations what kind of courage and leadership we choose to honor," said Colleton Democratic Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, who said monuments matter in telling the state's important Black history.
"For far too long, the contributions of Black South Carolinians were overlooked, minimized, or left out entirely from the public spaces of power in this state — but not today," she added. "Today, we take another step toward correcting that history. And let me be clear. This monument is not just for Black South Carolinians. This monument is for all of South Carolinians."
Matthews, who represents the area of Smalls's home, serves as a co-chair on the committee that is making the Robert Smalls memorial a reality. Last year, the commission chose Basil Watson to sculpt the statue on the complex.
The commission chose the location in part because of its close location to the visitor's entrance. It also happens to stand somewhat across from the statue of Ben "Pitchfork" Tillman.
"It's fitting, deeply fitting, that the monument will stand on these grounds along the side of people like Wade Hampton, and along people like Ben Tillman, who were his contemporaries," said former Darlington Democratic Sen. Gerald Malloy, who is spearheading the fundraising effort. "Not because their stories are the same — because their stories are not — but they all belong as part of South Carolina history. Our history is complex. It's honest. It's painful. It's triumphant. And it's incomplete unless all the voices are represented. So, Robert Smalls belongs here."
Read more:
- SC Daily Gazette: 164 years after Robert Smalls’ escape from slavery, SC legislators celebrate planned monument
- The State: SC’s Robert Smalls monument breaks ground. It needs money to rise from it
- Post and Courier: Lawmakers and SC leaders break ground for statue honoring Robert Smalls at Statehouse
Statehouse daily planner (5/14)
SC House
- 9 a.m. — Blatt 516 — House Legislative Ethics Committee
Agenda
Live Broadcast
Live Broadcast - Audio Only - 9 a.m. — Gressette 209 — 3rd Congressional District Legislative Delegation
- 9:30 a.m. — Third floor Statehouse conference room — Conference Committee on 508
Agenda - 10 a.m. — House in session
Live Broadcast
Live Broadcast - Audio Only
SC Senate
- 9 a.m. — Gressette 209 — 3rd Congressional District Legislative Delegation
- 9:30 a.m. — Third floor Statehouse conference room — Conference Committee on 508
Agenda - 10 a.m. — Senate in session
Live Broadcast
Live Broadcast - Audio Only
Statehouse clips from around the state
- Legislature passes major restructuring of transportation department (Greenville News)
- SC lawmakers reach compromise on charter school reforms in final days of legislative session (Post and Courier)
- South Carolina lawmakers ban grade floors (Sumter Item)
- City of Aiken names building on Newberry Street for S.C. Sen. Tom Young (Aiken Standard)
- Legislators finalize bill allowing toll lanes in SC, requiring pothole repairs (SC Daily Gazette)
- Clementa Pinckney Hate Crimes Act receives favorable report, but no pathway to passing (WCIV)
- SC charter schools to face more scrutiny under finalized accountability bill (SC Daily Gazette)
