Matthew Durham

Remember the congressional redistricting map that SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick pushed so hard to get passed earlier this year? The map was designed to give Republicans all seven of South Carolina’s congressional seats. When the State Senate refused to advance it, McKissick called it an “incredible missed opportunity.” Well, take a look at this. Based on Tuesday’s election results, the proposed map would have produced a 4-3 Republican majority instead of the 5-2 majority Republicans won under the current map. Instead of losing one congressional seat, we would have lost TWO! Some of us warned that spreading Republican voters too thin could put additional seats at risk. Those concerns appear well-founded. The map state party leadership wanted could have left Republicans in an even worse position than we are today. What McKissick called an “incredible missed opportunity” looks more like a disaster narrowly avoided.

Has SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick issued any public statements addressing Tuesday’s disastrous election results for Republicans outside of Oconee County? If so, I must have missed it. Party leadership is always quick to take credit for victories, but since Tuesday’s train wreck, it’s been crickets.

Congratulations to Don Mize on his reelection to County Council in District 3. Don has been a steady, principled voice for taxpayers, and I'm proud to serve alongside him. Congratulations also to Bill Bull on his election in District 1. I look forward to welcoming Bill to County Council. To the citizens of Oconee County, THANK YOU! Thank you for trusting the direction your County Council is headed. We've fought to defend our way of life against powerful special interests and institutions. We've cut taxes, capped government spending, protected property rights, and driven the county millage rate in unincorporated Oconee to the second lowest in South Carolina. Tonight, you reaffirmed your trust in that direction, and we don't take that trust lightly. I also want to congratulate my friends Congresswoman Sheri Biggs and Representatives Adam Duncan and Bill Whitmire on their victories tonight! I'm particularly proud of the strong working relationship we've built between County Council and our state legislative delegation. We're working together, sharing priorities, and putting Oconee County first. Thank you for your trust, your support, and most importantly, thank you for keeping Oconee CONSERVATIVE!

At our last Oconee County Council meeting, we passed an ordinance reinforcing our commitment to the Constitution. Elected officials, including County Council members, are already required to take a constitutional oath of office. But appointed officials also exercise government authority, and with that authority comes responsibility. Our ordinance now requires all Council appointed officials and members of county boards and commissions to take a constitutional oath of office. It also provides copies of the Constitution to public officeholders and sworn law enforcement officers. The oath is a commitment to respect the limits of government authority and protect the rights and liberties of the people. Those entrusted with public authority should know and understand the Constitution they have sworn to uphold.

Come out Thursday night for a town hall with Council Vice Chairman Don Mize and me. We’ll discuss property taxes, Flock cameras, the county’s financial review, roads, development, and other issues facing Oconee County. I hope to see you there. Thursday, October 15, at 6:30 p.m. Walhalla American Legion Hut 319 Kenneth Street, Walhalla, SC 29691

What in the world is this? Did anybody else see this in the sky this morning around 6:40?

2026 Oconee County property tax bills are now available online! I just pulled mine and compared it to last year’s bill. Here’s how my taxes changed: * County taxes: Increased $0.77. * School debt taxes: Increased $36.90. For comparison, my property’s appraised value increased by 8.8% due to reassessment. Despite that increase in property value, the county portion of my tax bill remained essentially flat, increasing by just 77 cents. That was County Council’s goal going into reassessment. As I explained in my previous update, County Council has zero control over school debt or the millage required to pay for it. Under state law, the County Auditor’s Office is responsible for levying the millage necessary to cover school debt. It is not a function of County Council. Of course, everyone’s situation is different. Your property’s reassessment, exemptions, and whether you live inside a municipality will all affect your individual tax bill. You can now look up your own 2026 property tax bill online and compare it to last year’s.

Your reassessment notice is not your tax bill. Here’s what Council did tonight and what it means for your taxes.

Today, Attorney General Alan Wilson said that “protecting public safety cannot come at the expense of the privacy and constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens” and that South Carolinians “deserve to know exactly how their data is being used.” Also today, Sheriff Crenshaw forwarded me an Attorney General’s opinion dated Friday concerning Oconee County’s Protection from Mass Surveillance ordinance. The opinion takes the position that Flock cameras are constitutional. The contrast is difficult to ignore. In the opinion, the Attorney General takes the position that the use of Flock cameras is constitutional. Yet today, he is seeking answers from Flock while publicly warning that public safety cannot come at the expense of citizens’ constitutional rights and privacy. Those are many of the same concerns that led us to act in the first place. At the end of the day, an Attorney General opinion is just that, an opinion. It is not a lawful order. There are significant questions the opinion does not address. Just last week, a federal court held that a warrantless search of approximately 30 days of historical ALPR location data constituted a Fourth Amendment search. The court described the system as “indiscriminate mass surveillance” and suppressed the evidence. That ruling is not binding in South Carolina, but it is directly relevant to the constitutional question and is not addressed in the opinion. The opinion also specifically acknowledges that Sheriff Crenshaw asked whether County Council has the legal right to review the unredacted Flock audit logs and data showing how the system has actually been used in Oconee County, records Sheriff Crenshaw has not provided in response to County Council’s request and has said would cost approximately $80,000 to produce. The opinion never answers that question. That is difficult to reconcile with today’s call for transparency from Flock. If South Carolinians deserve to know exactly how their data is being used, then whether their elected County Council can review the audit logs showing how that system has actually been used locally is a significant question that deserves an answer. Although the opinion issued by his office does not fully align with Attorney General Wilson’s public statement today, I agree with what he said: “protecting public safety cannot come at the expense of the privacy and constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” That is exactly why Oconee County has been asking these questions. In full transparency, below is the response I sent to Sheriff Crenshaw. I also copied Attorney General Wilson so he could see exactly what concerns remain unresolved.

Your reassessment notice is NOT your tax bill. I’m seeing a lot of people posting that their property taxes went up after receiving their reassessment notice. What you received shows the new assessed value of your property. It is not your 2026 property tax bill. The last countywide reassessment was based on 2020 property values and was delayed one year before being implemented in 2022. This reassessment uses 2025 values, so it is the first reassessment to capture the significant increase in property values we’ve seen since 2020. State law requires rollback millage when reassessment is implemented. In other words, reassessment itself cannot simply be used as a tax increase because property values went up. County Council is rolling back the county millage accordingly, and we are not voting for a tax increase. Revenue neutral does not mean every individual property owner will pay exactly the same amount as they did the prior year. Some will pay more and some will pay less depending on how their property value changed compared with the county as a whole. For example, we ran the calculations on the homes of all five County Council members. On the county government portion of the tax bill, three Council members are projected to pay less and two are projected to pay more. I’m one of the two whose county taxes are projected to increase. My county portion goes up about $7 because my home increased in value more than the countywide average. Now the part that is a tax increase. The elected School District Board of Trustees voted to take on additional school debt, which increases the amount that must be collected for debt service. That is a tax increase. On my property, it’s about $30. County Council does not determine how much school debt the School District takes on or have discretion over the millage required to pay that debt. If you live inside a municipality, your city or town taxes are another separate part of your bill. Seneca and West Union councils both passed municipal property-tax increases this year. There is also some good news for seniors receiving the Homestead Exemption. For tax year 2026, the exemption increased from $50,000 to $75,000, meaning an additional $25,000 of qualifying home value is exempt from property taxes. County Council has approved a balanced budget and made financial changes that have maintained Oconee County's strong financial position and credit rating. We have done that without voting for an increase in the county property-tax rate. So when you see a significant increase in the value on your reassessment notice, don’t assume that is the amount your taxes increased. It isn’t your tax bill.

A federal court in Oklahoma has now ruled that a warrantless 30-day Flock search violated the Fourth Amendment, calling it “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance” and suppressing the evidence. A similar Flock case is now pending before the Fourth Circuit, the federal appellate court that covers South Carolina. South Carolina sheriffs and county councils: don’t wait for a court to tell you that you’ve crossed the constitutional line. Honor your oath now. Defend the rights of the people you serve.

A look at Oconee County’s action on mass-surveillance technology and Flock cameras, featured today on Newsmax.

West Union approved the development and completed the annexation.

The future of West Union is on the line tomorrow night. West Union has called a special meeting for Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. to vote on the two remaining annexation parcels and the development site plan. I work until 6:00 and will not be able to attend. If you are able to attend, this is a meeting worth watching in person. These decisions will permanently change West Union. A development of this size will dramatically dilute the political voice of current town residents while bringing significant new costs and service obligations. Mayor Oliver is counting on additional revenue from growth. I believe the numbers tell a different story: residential development will not generate enough revenue to cover the additional governmental services it requires. West Union Town Hall — 5:00 p.m.

County Administrator Stewart Jones and I started bagging Flock cameras yesterday. Tuesday night, Oconee County Council drew a line and showed that local government is the first line of defense for individual liberty. To the other 45 county councils across South Carolina: You took the same oath to defend the Constitution that we did. Don’t wait on the General Assembly. Don’t wait on a court to tell you that tracking the movements of your citizens without individualized suspicion crosses the line. You have the same authority Oconee County is exercising. Defend Liberty where you are. @yal_clemson @LibertyAction25 @fitsnews

Congratulations to Trevin Hampton, Oconee County Fire Services Firefighter of the Year! I enjoyed attending today’s Blue Ridge Electric and Crime Stoppers of Oconee County Public Safety Appreciation Luncheon and recognizing those who serve and protect our community every day. Thank you to Trevin and all of today’s award recipients for your service! @blueridgecoop

South Carolina has a proud heritage of leading in the defense of liberty. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we’ve lost some of that willingness to lead. But not in Oconee County. On Tuesday, we’ll lead. Effectiveness is not the standard. The Constitution is.

Three years ago, I traveled to New York City on behalf of Oconee County for meetings with S&P and Moody’s for our bond rating. One of our meetings was held in the new World Trade Center. From the conference room where we made our presentation, I could look down and see the 9/11 Memorial and the footprint of one of the Twin Towers. I realized while looking down on what became known as “ground zero” that on the morning of September 11, 2001, there were people in those towers doing exactly what we were doing that day. They had come to work. They had meetings to attend and presentations to make. Maybe someone in those buildings had also traveled from a small, rural county just like ours to conduct business. None of them walked through those doors that morning believing it would be the last time. They had gotten up that morning, gotten dressed, said goodbye to their families, and gone to work like so many of us do. Ordinary people, living ordinary lives, with no idea what was coming. Of all the images from that day, the one that has never left me is the sight of people jumping from the towers. For years, I thought about the horror of that image. But sitting there, looking down at that footprint, I thought about those people differently. I thought about their families, their hopes, their plans, and the many things left unfinished. Sitting there, looking down at that footprint, made September 11 real to me in a way it had never been before. Twenty-five years later, we remember the nearly 3,000 lives taken that day, the families who never got their loved ones back, the first responders who ran toward danger, and a nation that was forever changed. Never forget.

Two and a half years ago, in the middle of the 2024 County Council elections, two candidates for Oconee County Council filed a lawsuit against the county’s investment in infrastructure and sewer service to the I-85 corridor. Among the plaintiffs were India “Lancaster” Mann and Gwen McPhail, who were actively running for County Council at the time, along with their supporters. I said then and I’ll say it now: this was a politically motivated lawsuit designed to cause chaos in the hopes of propelling them to victory in the election, let alone derailing a generational infrastructure investment. Whatever their failed political motivations were, the consequences for Oconee County families were very real. The litigation dragged on for nearly two and a half years. It tied up money intended for infrastructure and economic development, cost Oconee County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and resulted in lost economic opportunity while this project sat in court. Today, the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in Oconee County’s favor. The Circuit Court had already ruled that the County’s ordinance was constitutional and legal. The plaintiffs then appealed to the Supreme Court. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that the lawsuit was also time-barred under South Carolina’s statute of limitations. Because that issue disposed of the case, the Supreme Court did not separately decide the constitutional question, which the Circuit Court had already ruled on. Now that this litigation has finally reached this point, I intend to ask County Council to direct our attorneys to evaluate and pursue recovery of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded legal expenses from the plaintiffs who brought this lawsuit. The taxpayers paid to defend it. I believe we owe it to them to pursue every lawful avenue to get their money back. There’s a reason this council has aggressively pursued economic opportunity: jobs. 32,000 Oconee County residents are employed. However, more than 18,000 of them, 58%, commute out of Oconee County for their jobs. At the same time, while Oconee is the 5th wealthiest county in terms of property value, our own school district has reported a student poverty index of roughly 70%. Seventy percent of Oconee children live in poverty, while more than half of our working residents leave the county to find a job. That disparity is exactly why jobs matter. We cannot measure Oconee’s economic health by the value of the homes around Lake Keowee while ignoring the families struggling to make ends meet and the thousands of working people who cross the county line every morning to find opportunity. That is why this infrastructure investment matters. For nearly 45 years, Oconee County has worked toward bringing sewer infrastructure to the I-85 corridor. We finally have an opportunity to compete for the advanced manufacturing and industrial investment that has transformed other communities along I-85, from Atlanta to Charlotte. It is about creating good-paying jobs, not building houses. It is about giving an Oconee County kid the opportunity to graduate from high school, go to tech or college, get a good job here, buy a home here, raise a family here, and build a life here. It is about giving a mother or father the opportunity to work closer to their children instead of crossing the county line every morning just to earn a living. And it is about bringing commercial and industrial investment into Oconee County that strengthens our tax base and helps fund our schools and essential services without continually placing that burden on homeowners. This politically motivated lawsuit delayed that work, but it did not end it. My promise, as long as you allow me to continue to serve, is to fight for an Oconee County where our children don’t have to leave home to find a future.