Davey Hiott

Davey Hiott is the Republican South Carolina Senate Majority Leader who single-handedly ended the state's post-Callais redistricting push in May 2026. Despite the House passing a calendar extension to enable a special redistricting session, and despite Governor Henry McMaster applying direct pressure, Hiott announced to Senate members that the state would simply not proceed — and it did not. The absence of a floor vote means there is no recorded vote that Democrats can use against individual senators in future campaigns.

Hiott's calculation appears to have been that the legal risk of a rushed mid-decade redraw — which would have invited immediate litigation — outweighed the potential seat gain. Post-Callais maps in other states are already facing court challenges, and South Carolina's Republicans may have concluded that the current map is acceptable without incurring the cost and exposure of a contested new one.

The episode demonstrates that the Louisiana v. Callais ruling, while broadly permissive of mid-decade redistricting, has not produced uniform Republican action: individual state legislative leaders are calculating their own risk tolerance, and some — including Hiott — are declining the invitation. South Carolina's refusal, alongside Mississippi's limited scope, narrows the total Callais seat harvest.