New SC laws: What passed this year, what didn’t and what that means for you
South Carolina lawmakers came to Columbia in January this year hellbent on getting things done after the COVID-19 pandemic and returned a few months after State House Republicans recorded one of their most successful election cycles in years.
They tackled many of their priorities in the Legislature’s first year of a two-year session in the General Assembly.
Out of the gate, the Legislature passed and Gov. Henry McMaster signed quickly the state’s most restrictive six- to eight-week abortion ban, now blocked by a federal judge. Lawmakers also spent $208 million to fight and contain the state’s COVID-19 outbreak, and they passed legislation to reinstate annual salary bumps owed to classroom teachers.
With few days left on the work calendar, lawmakers sent the governor, and he signed, legislation that would expand the state’s rules over how a concealed weapons permit holder could carry their firearm in public and to make electrocution the default method of executions while adding a firing squad option.
They passed legislation to lure a giant California bottling and distribution company to rural Chester County, sent the governor legislation to penalize slow drivers in the far left lane, and passed a bill allowing college athletes to get paid off of endorsement deals. They also passed bills related to bear hunting, pigs, tire waste, blue catfish and more.
In the state House, lawmakers also repeatedly shot down legislation banning transgender women from playing middle and school sports, but the issue is unlikely to go away next year with the Senate debating a similar proposal.
In all, the General Assembly sent the governor more than 100 bills to sign into law in 2021, most of which did not get the critical or exciting fanfare some received.
But, similar to past years, lawmakers punted hundreds more proposals into next year on topics including medical marijuana, hate crimes, voting changes and whether a customer should be able to get their wine delivered on the same day.
“We have been in a situation where we are two years behind on legislation,” House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, told reporters on the last day of session, May 13. “Obviously, COVID put us substantially behind.”
The South Carolina Legislature isn’t quite done with work this year.
Lawmakers will return in June to wrap up the budget and possibly hash out differences over Santee Cooper, and again in the fall to tackle the once-a-decade debate over redistricting. But in January, when lawmakers gavel back in for another work session, the entire 124-member state House and McMaster will be staring down reelection and looking to promote socially conservative and progressive bills that could win over primary and general election voters.
Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, told reporters Thursday, the last day of the work session, that he was “disappointed” with how the Republicans flexed their legislative powers, using it to elevate and pass “red meat” legislation that included guns and abortion while leaving behind big issues.
“So there are major issues that affect the everyday lives of the people of South Carolina that were not addressed in this session,” Hutto said, listing off broadband internet, incentivizing people to get vaccines, education and tax reforms.
But Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, saw this year’s session a bit different.
“Last year was ... big, election-wise, for us. And we understood that, with sending 30 Republicans to the Senate, there are expectations, and we set out an agenda to try to achieve those expectations,” Massey told reporters. “And we believe we’ve delivered on those things.”
Here’s what SC lawmakers did
Addressed the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 outbreak in South Carolina was nearing the end of its surge and the state’s health department was scrambling to roll out vaccines when lawmakers returned to Columbia in January.
Fairly quickly, the Legislature sent a $208 million spending bill to the governor to help distribute vaccines across the state. About $63 million went to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, with another $45 million to the Medical University of South Carolina and a combined $100 million to hospitals and other providers.
With billions of federal dollars flowing in, lawmakers fixated their attention on ensuring more people could give shots and giving legal legal protections to businesses to prevent lawsuits against the businesses or employers if someone contracts COVID-19 on site.
Lawmakers also focused on getting children back inside the classroom, passing legislation requiring school districts to offer in-person instruction by April’s end after McMaster used his bully pulpit repeatedly on school districts to give parents the option of sending their children back to school.
Passed a bill to hold school boards accountable
State lawmakers never passed that massive omnibus education bill last year, interrupted by COVID-19.
But they found a better procedural option: strip out pieces of the bill that they like and try to get it on the floor for a vote.
In some cases it worked. The Legislature sent the governor one proposal allowing the state’s superintendent to remove local school boards in chronically low-performing districts. The superintendent could take control of those districts for a minimum of up to six years and try and turn them around.
South Carolina’s schools chief already had the authority to take over districts — and they do — but they did not have the OK to dissolve the elected school boards or prevent them from returning to the job after the state left.
Penalized slow drivers
Everyone hates getting stuck behind a slow car in the far left lane. Lawmakers, just like us, apparently do, too.
McMaster signed into law in May legislation that would help try and cut down on the number of slow drivers who sit in the left lane without getting over, but made exceptions for traffic and congestion, emergency vehicles on the shoulder and in situations where a truck can’t get over safely, to name a few.
Violators could get fined no more than $25 for refusing to move over.
Paved the way for wine giant Gallo to come to SC
Considered the next big BMW deal, the Legislature fast-tracked legislation through the chambers this year to give California wine giant E&J Gallo Winery permission to open three standalone tasting rooms — a measure state law did not allow.
The bottling and distribution company plans to open its East Coast headquarters in rural Chester County, investing $400 million and adding up to 500 jobs in its first phase of opening.
The sizable investment was enough to get lawmakers on board, particularly to help a former mill town desperate for jobs.
Restricted abortion (or tried to)
South Carolina already had a 20-week abortion law in place, but the Republican-controlled Legislature sought to narrow it.
This year, lawmakers passed S. 1 to effectively ban most abortions once a heartbeat is detected at about six to eight weeks. Exceptions to the law include mothers whose lives are at risk and pregnancies resulting from rape and incest.
But quickly, and as expected, a court blocked the law, saying the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade stood in the way.
That could change.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled it will hear Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, a decision that could have a massive impact on South Carolina.
Changed execution method
The governor on Friday signed into law legislation to make the electric chair the default execution method while adding a firing squad option. Most Democrats, and even some Republicans, opposed the bill, considering the electric chair, in particular, cruel and unusual.
The move by the Legislature is aimed at restarting executions, ground to a halt over the past several years because of a nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs.
Death row inmates who have exhausted their appeals can be given the choice to die by lethal injection, but without the necessary cocktail, the state can proceed with an execution by electric chair.
OK’d endorsement deals for college athletes
College athletes looking to make some cash exited the legislative session with a big win.
Starting in July 2022, college athletes will be able to enter profit contracts for the use of their name, image and likeness. The law comes with some caveats.
Athletes are not allowed to get paid for their athletic performance, and they can’t take contracts that interfere with their academic or athletic commitments. Athletes also are expected to stay in good academic standing.
Lawmakers touted the bill as essential for making sure South Carolina colleges keep their edge when it comes to recruiting.
Made SC an ‘open carry’ state
McMaster signed legislation into law Monday that will allow concealed weapons permit holders to carry their firearms openly in public.
The move adjoins the state with 45 others that have some type of open carry law in effect.
There are some caveats: Gun owners can’t carry their weapon on State House grounds, a school or during permitted events — or anywhere else they are forbidden.
And you won’t see guns on hips just yet.
The law delays the start of the new rule by 90 days to help the State Law Enforcement Division educate the public and law enforcement agencies to ensure everyone knows the law.
Passed a budget (almost)
Passing a budget is arguably the most important action the Legislature takes every single year.
And while they have so far moved the budget through both chambers and are expected to cross the finish line, the budget process is far from over.
The House gets to tinker with the spending once again in the off session, this time with more money to spend.
On top of millions in federal relief, in April, state economists projected the Legislature will have another $1.7 billion to spend that they did not have in the past year’s budget. However, much of that is one-time cash, meaning lawmakers aren’t going to spend it on expenses they expect to come up every year.
South Carolina teachers and state employees were among the winners in this year’s legislative spending plan.
The $10.6 billion general fund budget that starts July 1 includes $72 million to give all teachers a $1,000 pay raise and money to bump the starting salary to $36,000 under tweaks made by the Senate. Meanwhile, state employees will get a 2% pay raise in the budget, a more than $47 million cost.
Lawmakers also added $30 million to expand broadband internet across the state and millions more to keep college and university tuition low, help rural schools and keep up with the explosion in charter school enrollment over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here’s what SC lawmakers could resolve in 2022
Bills that did not pass this year are not necessarily dead. Lawmakers have next year, too, to get their proposals to the finish line. Here’s a look at big items still on the agenda:
Medical marijuana
State Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, has gotten a key promise from the Senate’s top Republican leader: After about seven years of rejection, the Senate chamber will finally take up a bill whether to legalize medicinal marijuana for people with some of the most debilitating diseases.
The legislation has been slotted as a priority next year, meaning it will be one of the first bills the Senate will debate. A companion bill has been filed in the House, but it hasn’t gotten a hearing.
“That will be at the top of agenda when we come back,” Senate Minority Leader Hutto said.
Hate crimes, police reform
South Carolina lawmakers left Columbia without passing hate crimes legislation, a move that surprised House Speaker Lucas.
The bill enhances penalties for certain violent crimes such as murder, assault and armed robbery targeting a victim based on race, color, religion, sex, gender and sexual orientation and political opinion, to name a few.
The House passed the measure quickly this year in response to the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black Minnesota man who died last May after a police officer knelt on his neck for longer than eight minutes.
Though it has the backing of the state Chamber of Commerce, representatives from the religious community have argued the bill could be used to curtail their religious freedoms, and Senate Majority Leader Massey told reporters he opposes the bill.
Democrats are not completely satisfied with it either, concerned it does not go far enough since it only deals with violent crimes.
Meanwhile, Massey said this month he is “disappointed” the Senate did not take up police reform.
The House passed legislation before they left town requiring law enforcement agencies to have standards in place that may include when an officer can use force and when an officer can pursue a vehicle and shoot.
But the bill also would eliminate the use of chokeholds except in life or death situations, require body cameras and ensure an officer can intervene when other office is breaking the law or agency policy.
Election law, voting changes
With an election year in sight, the Legislature is bound to tackle how South Carolina voters cast ballots.
The House already started that process this year, with two competing bills from state Reps. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, and Brandon Newton, R-Lancaster, that would either expand voting to all registered South Carolinians or curtail how a voter could cast a ballot early.
Both lawmakers see an opportunity over the next year to find a compromise before the November election.
The House and Senate also passed competing election bills this year, both seeking to tackle county election offices. The House left town in May without taking up Senate-made changes to its bill that sought to empower the State Election Commission after a lawmaker objected, or delayed, its movement.
“I don’t think the governor or the Senate were on the same page, and I really think it would behoove us to do a little off season work on that,” Lucas said, adding an initial measure in the bill to overhaul the board is unlikely to get the governor’s support.
“I’m not sure that’s going to be the top priority in the bill.”
Alcohol delivery, curbside pickup
The Senate could return next year and pass two alcohol-related bills born out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Both have passed the House already.
One looks to make permanent the sale of alcohol by curbside, instead of making a customer have to walk inside a store. And the other would let someone order alcohol from a same-day delivery service and have it dropped off to them at their door.
Whether to sell Santee Cooper
After years of back-and-forth over what to do with the state’s debt-riddled public utility, 2021 appeared to be the year the Legislature finally did something.
Both chambers passed their own versions of a Santee Cooper reform bill, with the House leaving town after inserting a line that would let lawmakers evaluate sale offers for parts or the entire utility for a 10-year period.
Now, the two chambers must hash out their differences and are slated to try to resolve those differences in the off session.
Lucas said he considers it “wrong” to sell Santee Cooper now. But five, six, even seven years down the road and the utility is back on its feet, “I think there needs a place to go,” for potential buyers, he said.
Reporters Emily Bohatch, Joseph Bustos and Zak Koeske contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 12:19 PM with the headline "New SC laws: What passed this year, what didn’t and what that means for you."
