The South Carolina Policy Council Archive

It’s nearly the end of the year and South Carolina’s legislative session is rapidly approaching! The first day of session begins on January 14, 2020. Since 2019 was the first…

Update as of 3/2/20: The Senate version of this bill has received a high volume of amendments. As such, specific details contained in this summary may be out of date.…

This past session, lawmakers finally took action on Santee Cooper – without actually taking action. Instead of authorizing a sale of the troubled state-owned utility, they passed a resolution (H.4287)…

Getting answers on your roads, tracking answers across the state It’s year three of the gas tax hike, and most of the $615.2 million of gas tax revenues they’ve collected so…

Last month, the General Assembly passed a budget spending nearly $30 billion – the largest appropriations bill in state history. By contrast, the governor vetoed only 0.1% of legislative spending.…

Your roads aren’t getting fixed. Here’s what you can do about it.   THE PROBLEM: YOUR ROADS AREN’T FIXED It’s year three of the gas tax hike. Under the 2017…

Nearly 2,500 bills and resolutions were filed during the 2019 legislative session. While many of the most concerning bills did not pass, this year was the first half of the…

What they did: The legislative session ended last week with several bills in conference committees (three lawmakers from each chamber assigned to work out the differences between the House and…

What they did: Lawmakers adjourned sine die this week, ending the 2019 legislative session – except for at least one special session later this month. Lawmakers have still not passed the budget,…

In the final days of the legislative session, the House and Senate both passed legislation to give big tax breaks and other incentives for the NFL team the Carolina Panthers.…

Individual Rights S.841 – Expands gun ban that currently applies to drug users, those with an outstanding restraining order, and persons identified as “mentally defective” to include all firearms (including…

  What they did: Despite next week being the last week of the legislative session, lawmakers did not send the budget to conference committee. Next week, the House will get…

A bill passed by the House (H.3145) would subject electric cooperatives to state oversight, increase transparency requirements, and impose basic ethics guidelines for board members. This would create a major…

What they did: This week, the House passed H.4332, a bill which would allow economic development bonds to be issued for freight projects. The bill also creates a special class of economic development…

Taxing and Spending H.4532 – Revises sales tax policy, sets sales tax at 3%, subjects a number of services to taxation, eliminates certain exemptions, creates new tax reserve fund S.819…

Despite passing a twelve-cent gas tax increase in 2017, lawmakers are fast-tracking a proposal to increase the number of toll roads in South Carolina to fund new road construction. S.780…

What they did: This week the House was on spring break, and the Senate debated the $29.6 billion budget adopted by the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate budget is largely…

Government Structure and Reform S.780 – DOT shall examine feasibility of funding bridge and highway projects with tolls, tolls could operate indefinitely, federal match requirement is removed S.785 – Sine…

Last week, the Senate amended and passed the state appropriations bill, which spends $29.8 billion. This includes a surplus of $344 million ($16 million more than the House budget allocated).…

What they did: Lawmakers in both chambers passed a flurry of bills this week in advance of the Wednesday crossover deadline. According to legislative rules, any bill that passes one…

Wednesday, April 10 was the crossover deadline, which means that bills that failed to cross to the other chamber by this date will need a two-thirds majority to be taken…

A bill filed last month (H.4258) would create a state retirement plan for private employees. The 401(K) style plan, called the “Palmetto Work and Save Plan”, would be available for…

What lawmakers did: It has been a busy week at the State House, as any bills that do not cross over to the opposite chamber by next Wednesday (April 10)…

Criminal Law S.747 – allowing use of cameras for civil enforcement of traffic laws H.4445 – endangering emergency services on an accident scene comes with a  higher fine, now it…

The legislative session began this week, and lawmakers have filed another 100 bills – in addition to the 700+ bills prefiled in advance of session (click here for an overview…

This week lawmakers filed an additional 84 bills, a number of which would increase the regulatory burden on citizens and businesses. H.3629 would outlaw the use of hand-held cell phones…

This week, one of the most noteworthy bills to be filed was H.3759, an 85-page bill overhauling the education system. This bill addresses education standards and required tests and contains…

This week, the massive House bill that would overhaul the state education system received its first subcommittee hearing. The meeting was largely to hear input from citizens and no official…

This week, lawmakers filed 130 new bills, 80 of which were congratulatory/honorary/sympathy resolutions. 60 individual resolutions honored boy scouts, and some of the other resolutions honored a school wrestling team,…

Lawmakers filed 82 new pieces of legislation this week, 31 of which were honorary/sympathy resolutions. One of the most notable bills in the “time waster” category is S.500, which allows…