Author: South Carolina Policy Council

H.4555 would repeal South Carolina’s right-to-work law, allowing union membership to become a prerequisite for employment. That would, in other words, allow unions to force workers to join whether or not…

H.4466 would make it illegal, with limited exceptions, for a business to consider an applicant’s credit history or credit report when hiring. An applicant’s’ credit history could convey important information…

H.4430 would require that all movie theaters, sporting arenas, and concert venues install metal detectors. The principal effect of this policy will be to increase costs for the businesses that…

S.957 would prohibit employers from inquiring as to, considering, or requiring the disclosure of the criminal history of an applicant prior to the applicant being selected for an interview or…

H.4494 would require that magistrates and municipal judges who were disciplined by the Commission on Judicial Conduct during their term due to a complaint, or who are facing an active complaint…

H.4494 would require any magistrate or municipal judge who is seeking reappointment to be rescreened by the Judicial Merit Selection Commission (JMSC) if during their term they were disciplined by…

H.4442 would make all misdemeanor offenses eligible for expungement. This is particularly relevant for legislators who are subject to the Ethics Act, which only contains one felony. In other words, almost all…

H.4404 would prohibit General Assembly members from being elected to a judicial office for five years after leaving office. The bill would also prohibit family members of a General Assembly…

H.4402 and H.4406 would respectively make Family Court Judges and state Supreme Court Justices popularly elected. South Carolina’s judicial selection process is already politicized by the process of elections via the legislature. These…

H.4400 and H.4401 would remove the roll-call requirement for certain legislative votes. Under the bills legislators would be able to vote on up to ten budget sections, or ten sections worth of budget…

S.949 would make it illegal to engage in deer hunting within 300 yards of a residence without permission of the owner and occupant. Current law prohibits deer hunting within 300…

S.946 would allow the owner of a vehicle that unlawfully overtakes a school bus to be ticketed even if the driver of the vehicle can’t be identified. This directly contradicts the…

S.944 and S.935 each seek to impose limits on the use of statehouse grounds by requiring groups to receive some form of permission before use. S.944 requires the Director of…

S.943 would require that anyone who purchases a firearm register that firearm’s serial number and their contact information with the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) within 30 days of purchase.…

S.942 is truly Orwellian. The bill would require any state resident to obtain a “weapons purchase permit” from the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) before buying a firearm or ammunition…

S.941 would mandate that no person or firearm dealer sell or transfer a firearm prior to the completion of a background check through the State Law Enforcement Division and the…

S.939 would prohibit the ownership, transportation, or sale of “assault weapons” by private individuals in South Carolina. The term assault weapon is vaguely defined by the bill as “semi-automatic firearms…

S.930 would eliminate adverse possession in South Carolina colloquially known as squatter’s rights. Under current law if an individual, other than the legal owner, holds or possesses a piece of…

S.917, S.918, H.4551 and H.4552 would all prohibit a licensed firearm dealer from transferring a firearm before either the completion of a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check, or…

S.913 would make police dashcam videos subject to FOIA. While this could help punish and prevent abuses of police power, it could also enable the use of dashcam video by third…

H.4496 and H.4522 each attempt to protect innocent citizens from police surveillance by respectively prohibiting automatic number plate recognition systems and cell-site simulator technology or devices (commonly known as stingrays). Both of these devices, whether through the…

H.4463, H.4485, H.4533, H.4439, H.4618 and S.915 are hate crime laws that impose additional penalties on criminals who committed a violent or threatening act against an individual, because of the individual’s race, religion, sexual…

H.4422 would allow a law enforcement agency to photograph a motor vehicle with an illegal defect and then contact the owner of the vehicle by phone or mail informing them of…

H.4421 would require an individual register any “unmanned aerial vehicle, an unpiloted aerial vehicle, or a remotely piloted aerial vehicle” (aka drone), with the aeronautics commission prior to operating such…

S.929 would allow terminally ill patients to use investigational drugs, biological products, or devices (treatments methods that have begun but not completed the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approval process) upon…

H.4540 would prohibit insurers licensed in South Carolina from requiring preauthorization for a prescription medicine or treatment unless the medicine or treatment differs from FDA approved methods. This may seem…

S.921 would expand the definition of state employees, as it relates to those eligible for worker’s compensation, to include volunteer chaplains “performing their duties as a chaplain for any municipal,…

H.4569, would require $326.5 million of the projected $1.2 billion surplus (which as The State’s Cindi Scoppe explains is actually closer to $560 million) be sent to the governor’s office, which would in turn…

H.4527 mandates that the General Assembly appropriate $25 million to DHEC for a revolving fund that provides financial assistance loans to owners of damaged private dams that have public access…

H.4524, would require that before any nonprofit receive funds from a state agency, it must disclose: how it plans to use those state funds, a copy of its adopted annual…