Month: March 2015

H.3911 would add four years to the period before new license plates must be issued. Currently, new license plates must be provided every six years. This bill would lengthen that…

S.589 creates a music therapy license and a Music Therapy Board, which will serve under the Director of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. This bill is simply an…

S.584 would amend the SC Code regulating marijuana to create more flexibility for medical uses. Current law permits the use of cannabidiol (a non-psychoactive derivative of the cannabis plant) to…

 S.426 would permit circuit solicitors to establish mental health court programs to serve “qualifying mentally ill offenders”. Any circuit solicitor that accepts state funding to create a mental health court…

● Numerous and complicated tax and fee hikes. ● Constitutional issue addressed – briefly. ● Bill to come up in full Senate next week. The Senate Finance Committee had a productive…

DEBATE LIMITED TO ONE GOAL: HOW TO SEND MORE MONEY TO A BROKEN SYSTEM Tuesday’s Senate Finance Committee featured a lot of grandstanding but little action. Senators agreed to strike…

H.3525 bears many similarities to H.3413 and S.409, two other bills introduced this session to create a regulatory framework for transportation network companies (TNCs), that is, companies that provide personal transportation arranged…

THE HOUSE FOUND MONEY FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS PROJECTS, BUT NOT FOR CORE SERVICES The recent House-passed FY16 budget is the largest of the three versions of the budget released this…

S.277 would impose a monthly dual party relay charge of no more than 10 cents on cell phone service customers. The bill would also impose the same charge on every…

H.3865 allows individuals who would not otherwise be eligible to draw unemployment benefits to receive them if they are engaged in “self-employment assistance activities”. Such activities include “entrepreneurial training, business…

H.3838 takes its provisions from other bills already filed, notably Senator Cleary’s S.523 and Senator Grooms S.23. Specifically, H.3838 would exempt large commercial motor vehicles (vehicles that are greater than…

H.3836 would subject natural gas to the same fuel tax that currently applies to gasoline but exempt it from the Inspection and environmental impact fee charged on petroleum products. The…

S.559 would require any person desiring to grow hemp in South Carolina apply for and receive a license from the Division of Regulatory and Public Service Programs at the College…

HOW A BILL IN THE S.C. SENATE WOULD RUN UP AGAINST THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND U.S. SUPREME COURT PRECEDENT [Click here for a printable .pdf version of this report, and here for a short…

WHEN IT COMES TO GETTING YOUR MONEY, STATE SENATORS WON’T LET A LITTLE OL’ CONSTITUTION GET IN THE WAY When a special Senate subcommittee met on Tuesday, the purpose was clear: raising revenue by…

FOR HOUSE LAWMAKERS, ROAD FUNDING IS ABOUT BUILDING NEW ROADS, ‘ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT’ – AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING BUT FIXING THE STATE’S CRUMBLING ROADS AND BRIDGES.  Lawmakers are quick to bemoan the state of…

S.556 would amend the Senate rules by adding a new rule requiring that within 60 days of any proposed agency regulation being submitted to the appropriate Senate committee for review…

S.523 is the Senate Finance Committee’s attempt to solve South Carolina’s infrastructure problems through tax and fee increases. To start, the bill would increase the gas tax by 12 cents, phased in…

S.498 would make it a crime for a private individual to fly a drone equipped with a camera or recording device over the property of another. The bill would also…

Companion bills H.3785 and S.389 would expand the scope of activities that business development corporations (BDC’s) can legally engage in. BDC’s are quasi-public quasi-private entities that receive state and federal funds from…

THE HOUSE IS DEBATING A $497 BOND PACKAGE. IT’S TERRIBLE IDEA, FOR LOTS OF REASONS. NOW TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT LAWMAKERS WANT TO SPEND THE MONEY ON. This week the House will…

  More often than not, state regulation – especially licensing laws – has little to do with protecting the public and everything to do with insulating currently entrenched businesses from competition.…

IT SERVES ITS PURPOSES, ALL RIGHT . . . AND THEY’RE ALL BAD As lawmakers and the governor seek to add more revenue to, and possibly reform, South Carolina’s broken…

H.3746 would mandate that the proceeds from overdraft fees charged by banks or trusts be remitted to the state treasurer and credited to the state highway fund. When discussing other…

H.3745 would specify that prosecutions for ethics violations can be commenced against non-legislative public officials and employees within four years of these officials or employees leaving office. The bill would…

H.3744 would exempt property that is owned or leased by manufacturers, and used in the conduct of business from property tax, provided the manufacturer agrees to donate an amount equal…

H.3374 would rename the Local Government Fund the “Local Government Revenue Sharing Fund” and would delete a requirement that the fund be appropriated an amount not less than 4.5 percent of…

H.3708 and H.3709 would each impose 50 cents surcharges on costs associated with public parking in order to raise revenue for roads. H.3708 imposes an additional 50 cent surcharge on all parking…

H.3705 would require the State Board of Education to develop or adopt curricula, materials, and guidelines for local school boards to use in implementing diversity awareness instruction programs in kindergarten through…

• A pair of omnibus ethics bills now in the General Assembly purport to end legislative “self-policing.” • They don’t. • Instead, both bills perpetuate a system in which lawmakers…