The big issues that will dominate the SC Legislature in 2020
South Carolina lawmakers will have their hands full when they return to work in two weeks, from quelling frustrated public school teachers to deciding whether to sell a multi-billion-dollar utility.
House Speaker Jay Lucas and Senate President Harvey Peeler will gavel in their respective chambers at noon, Jan. 14.
Here are the big issues on the Legislature’s agenda.
Let’s start with the budget
It’s the one thing that S.C. lawmakers are legally bound to do each year: pass a balanced budget.
Lawmakers got a pleasant surprise last fall when state economists announced they would have $1.8 billion in extra money to spend in the state’s $10.2 billion general fund spending plan — the state’s largest in years.
But now comes a fight over how to spend it, and there are a host of needs — from raising state employees’ pay to upgrading S.C. prisons and repairing crumbling state-owned buildings.
Lawmakers also will want money to send home for local projects. But that kind of spending is facing more scrutiny.
The State exclusively reported this month that lawmakers for years have quietly funneled tens of millions of dollars in pet projects through the state budget through vague earmarks.
Some lawmakers who have benefited from the practice defended it, while others now call for more transparency of how taxpayer money is spent.
What to do with Santee Cooper
The state-owned electric and water utility’s future will hang in the balance this spring as lawmakers consider a sale or takeover of the 85-year-old agency.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has called for Santee Cooper’s sale as a way to prevent electric rate hikes after the utility wasted $4 billion on the now-abandoned construction of a nuclear power plant in Fairfield County.
But lawmakers are bitterly divided over what to do next — and any decision will affect the agency’s 1,600 employees and the 2 million South Carolinians who rely on its power.
Lawmakers will have three options: sell Santee Cooper to a for-profit power company; allow another utility or firm to take over and manage Santee Cooper, keeping it state-owned; or allow Santee Cooper to reform itself without outside help.
Either way, lawmakers have been working toward this for 30 months, with little consensus to show for it. Expect this debate to be a huge time-suck at the State House this year.
Fixing SC classrooms
Fresh off organizing a 10,000-strong teacher rally at the State House in May, a grassroots group run by a teacher is stepping up its demands in 2020.
SCforED has given lawmakers a March 17 deadline to pass legislation that would help them in the classroom, saying that failure to meet their legislative goals will leave their members “no choice but to respond accordingly to the failures of South Carolina government to offer its teachers, past, present and future an honorable deal.”
Why that date? The group hasn’t been clear in posts, but March 17 is the day after filing opens to run for State House seats.
The frustration from teachers boiled over in May when teachers rallied at the State House amid a legislative debate to fix the state’s K-12 public schools system which they argued did not include them. A bill some state leaders say would deliver the fix passed the House but has not cleared the Senate — a goal Senate Education Committee chairman Greg Hembree has said he hopes to hit by this month.
Even if the bill fails to pass, teachers have seen some of their demands met. Last summer, McMaster signed a state budget that gave teachers at minimum a 4% pay raise and boosted the state’s starting base to $35,000. This year, the governor has said he plans to ask budget writers to spend $211 million to add $3,000 to teachers’ yearly pay.
Prison upgrades
Legislators have turned their attention toward the state prison system after seven inmates were killed at a state-run facility in 2018.
The Lee Correctional Institution riot, blamed in part on illegal cell phones, was the most deadly prison riot in the U.S. in 25 years.
This year, the state’s Department of Corrections will ask lawmakers to spend more than $100 million for security upgrades to replace locks, purchase new safety equipment for officers and buy new equipment that can help detect cell phone usage. That request comes a year after the Legislature spent only $10 million — out of a $40 million request, in part for locking systems — on security upgrades.
In the wake of the riot, the S.C. House Oversight Committee started a thorough review of the Corrections Department, which has continued to turn up problems with funding for the state’s prison system. The state’s prisons have historically been underfunded, jockeying with states like Alabama for the lowest per-inmate in the country.
Security problems can stop the agency from performing some of its most basic core functions, officials say, including keeping inmates from rehabilitation and educational classes because there are not enough full-time corrections officers.
Abortion
Senate Republicans worked over the offseason to fast-track a fetal heartbeat abortion ban that would criminalize abortion after about six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.
The bill passed the House last year and now has advanced to the Senate floor. But that might be the end of the road for this highly controversial proposal. Democrats have promised a session-killing filibuster if it ever comes up for debate, and Senate Republicans don’t have the votes to stop them.
After backing down during an abortion stalemate in 2018, the Senate GOP likely won’t start a fight they can’t finish this year. If they do, expect a heated debate.
2020 race and what else?
Yes, 2020 election year politics, including the presidential primary, likely will affect how much work lawmakers get done this year.
Why? Each of the 170 State House seats is up for re-election next year. But it could also mildly disrupt the first two months of session if lawmakers decide to miss committee hearings, or floor debates, to campaign with their presidential hopeful ahead of the Feb. 29 Democratic presidential primary.
Lawmakers also will use an election year opportunity to tout bills they have filed, no matter if the legislation has any chance of passing, and make floor speeches fit for public TV to help bolster their candidacy.
Here’s what else you could hear about this year:
▪ Tax reform: Lawmakers agree the state tax code needs work. But agreeing on how to fix it remains the tough part. South Carolinians will hear a lot of talk about tax reform and tax cuts in the year, but State House leaders may make a broader play in 2021 when not every lawmaker is up for re-election and when legislators are back to facing a two-year cycle.
▪ Dam safety: A bill that would exempt up to two thirds of the state’s 2,400-regulated dams from state oversight is a flash point for dispute. More than 80 dams, most privately owned, have broken in South Carolina during hurricanes and floods since 2015, prompting many people to say the state needs tighter regulation to protect people downstream. But the bill’s supporters say their plan to exempt many dams from oversight would reduce unnecessary regulation of farmers and small landowners.
▪ Offshore drilling: Sen. Chip Campsen’s offshore oil drilling bill would stop the construction of pipes or other infrastructure needed for drilling. President Donald Trump is advancing efforts to drill offshore, but many South Carolina leaders oppose offshore drilling because of environmental concerns. Campsen persuaded the Legislature to impose a temporary ban last year.
▪ Plastic bags: The Legislature will again consider whether to prevent local governments from banning plastic bags, the handy shopping sacks that are blamed for littering the landscape and waterways of South Carolina. Local governments across the coast and in some parts of the state’s interior have instituted bag bans or are moving to do so. An industry-backed bill working its way through the Legislature would stop local bag bans.
▪ Recycling: Lawmakers are expected to debate whether to ease state oversight on certain types of plastic recycling efforts. One bill would exempt from certain state regulation companies that melt plastic. Boosters say a change in law would help improve the market for recycling, but critics say it would lead to a loosely regulated industry that could pollute the environment the way unregulated dumps have.
Reporters Emily Bohatch and Sammy Fretwell contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 3, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "The big issues that will dominate the SC Legislature in 2020."
