South Carolina governor names Lindsey Graham’s sister as temporary Senate replacement

WASHINGTON - Republican South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster on July 13 appointed the sister of late US Senator Lindsey Graham to fill his vacant Senate seat until the first week of January 2027.

Darline Graham Nordone - whom US President Donald Trump named as his preferred choice for the post - is expected to be sworn in as early as this week, allowing Majority Leader John Thune to maintain Republicans’ 53-47 majority in the Senate.

Senator Graham died late on July 11.

His sudden death, shortly after he returned to Washington from a trip to Ukraine, coupled with the ongoing absence of Senator Mitch McConnell, is weighing on US Congress as it returns from its July 4 holiday break on July 13 to grapple with key defence and national security legislation during a compressed four-week summer work period.

The US Senate opened on July 13 with Graham’s desk draped in black with a vase holding white flowers atop it.

With McConnell out indefinitely due to illness and Graham’s seat temporarily empty, the Republican caucus is down two members, effectively leaving it with a minimal 51-seat majority that could create hurdles for Thune as he seeks to pass major defence policy legislation and a new Russia sanctions bill.

Also pending are a lapsed foreign surveillance program and Senate consideration of Trump’s nominees, including Todd Blanche as US attorney-general.

McMaster announced his choice of Nordone at a press conference in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. She will fill out her brother’s term, which ends the first week of January 2027, when a new Congress will be sworn-in.

In brief remarks, McMaster praised Graham as “one of South Carolina’s greatest sons”.

He added: “It’s my honour to ask his little sister, Darline Graham, to finish his work for him now.”

Senator Graham raised his sister after their parents died when he was barely out of his teen years and Darline was still a child.

“Lindsey has always been there for me and now I will be there for him,” she said of her appointment to complete his Senate term.

South Carolina’s Republican Party will hold a special primary election on Aug 11 with a runoff on Aug 25 if no candidate wins a majority. Whoever captures the party nomination will face Democrat Annie Andrews in the Nov 3 general election. It was unclear whether Nordone would attempt to join the race for a six-year term.

McConnell statement

Graham sat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and McConnell remains a member. Without them, the struggle already underway to reach agreement on across-the-board government funding could become even more arduous.

Congress and Trump face a Sept 30 deadline to keep federal agencies operating for 12 more months.

Graham died from a heart ailment late on July 11, his office said. McConnell, an 84-year-old Kentucky Republican who has spent half his life in Congress, also chairs the Senate Rules Committee and has been absent since mid-June.

Washington, DC’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is carrying out extensive testing to determine whether there were contributing factors to a preliminary finding that the senator’s cause of death was a tear in his aorta.

The office normally has up to 90 days to make its determinations. In a statement to constituents on July 12, McConnell said he was hospitalised after a fall and later developed mild pneumonia, but has moved to a rehabilitation centre and remains determined to return to the US Senate.

“I’ll keep working hard to get back on the Senate floor as soon as possible,” McConnell said without providing a timeline for his return.

As chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Graham sought a new budget package to circumvent opposition from Democrats and pass Republican priorities such as additional defence funding, new tax cuts and some Trump-backed voter restrictions.

Graham and McConnell were also key to Republican hopes of reviving a lapsed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) programme, as lawmakers scrutinise Trump’s decision to appoint Bill Pulte, an ally with no intelligence background, as acting director of national intelligence (DNI).

Blanche confirmation

Their ability to advance legislation renewing FISA authority will depend on Trump’s DNI nominee, Jay Clayton, who is due for a confirmation hearing this week as Pulte’s replacement.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s loss of Graham also could impact the confirmation of Blanche, who raised hackles among Republicans and Democrats in 2026 as acting attorney-general by promoting a now-defunct US$1.8 billion (S$2.3 billion) “anti-weaponisation” fund that critics say could have benefited Trump allies.

McConnell’s absence from chairing the Rules Committee could create a partisan deadlock on the panel just days after Trump fired the last three members of the Election Assistance Commission in the run-up to the November mid-term elections.

The Rules Committee would handle any new Trump nominations for the independent body that assists election administration officials nationwide. But with McConnell absent, the 17-member panel would consist of eight Republicans and eight Democrats, potentially keeping it from processing nominees.

Trump and his allies have criticised McConnell several times since the president returned to office.

McConnell has opposed Trump’s tariff policies and some of his cabinet picks, as well as his efforts to eliminate the Senate filibuster. As the rules panel chairman, he has also declined to advance Trump’s voter ID bill, known as the SAVE America Act.

The longest-serving party leader in Senate history, McConnell has struggled publicly with health issues in recent years, including freezing up while speaking to reporters in 2023, and was hospitalised for eight days in February with flu-like symptoms. REUTERS