SC trans athlete ban OK’d, hate crimes dead for 2022
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The second year of the regular session of the 124th General Assembly came to an end Thursday.
Lawmakers voted to grant state employees a new paid leave benefit, created a way for sex offenders to apply to come off of the sex offender registry, and kept transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
But they finished the session with some unresolved issues, including whether to legalize medical marijuana, provide money to construct an interstate to connect to Myrtle Beach, and whether to impose increased penalties for hate crimes.
Here are some highlights of what lawmakers passed, didn’t approve and will come back to later this year.
What they did
Transgender athletes
Transgender women would not be able to participate in women’s sports under the Save Women’s Sports Act adopted by the General Assembly. The ban would apply to middle and high school and college athletics.
Critics of the legislation questioned the need for the bill.
According to the South Carolina High School League, five transgender athletes have applied for waivers to participate in high school sports since 2016. The league has approved only one transgender female high school student to participate and three transgender male high school students.
Gov. Henry McMaster has indicated he would sign the bill.
“I think common sense dictates that boys should play against boys in boys’ sports, men’s sports and the same thing with girls. Otherwise it introduces an element of unfairness into it and I think most of the athletes would prefer to do it the way we’ve been doing it for many, many years,” McMaster said.
School vouchers
School vouchers are likely coming to South Carolina in some form or fashion, but it remains to be seen exactly how they’ll be rolled out.
The House and Senate, which have different visions for a future voucher program, will meet over the coming months in hopes of finding a compromise on their competing school voucher bills.
Both bills are intended to provide opportunities for children whose needs are not being met by public schools, but whose parents cannot afford private education options.
Paid parental leave
State employees are in line to be able to get paid time off after the birth or adoption of a child.
Lawmakers agreed to grant six weeks paid time off after a state employee gives birth to allow for recovery and bonding time. Co-parents who don’t give birth but have a child would be able to take two weeks off.
State employees who adopt a child or have a foster child placed in their custody would be eligible for two paid weeks off from work.
The legislation, proposed by state Sen. Darrell Jackson and state Rep. Beth Bernstein, both Democrats from Richland County, home to potentially thousands of state employees, originally called for 12 weeks paid time off. The benefit was reduced in order to get it passed in the Senate before the end of session.
The bill still requires the governor’s signature.
Early voting and election administration
No-excuse early voting is coming to South Carolina.
Both the House and Senate on Wednesday approved elections bills that add two weeks of early in-person voting, establish a set number of early voting sites in each county and authorize election officials to begin examining and tabulating absentee votes prior to Election Day.
The popular legislation had appeared dead just a few weeks ago due to the Senate’s insistence on including a provision giving the body say-so over the governor’s appointments to the state elections board, but the upper chamber ultimately compromised to get buy in from the House and governor.
Senators ended up settling on confirmation of the state election director and a process for removing the elections board or its executive director if they fail to enforce and defend or publicly discredit state elections laws.
The governor signed the bill into law Friday.
School lunch debt
School districts will not be able to send school lunch debt to collection agencies under a bill unanimously passed by the General Assembly.
The legislation bans public school districts from using debt collection agencies to collect outstanding debts from students and prohibits districts from charging interest or any fees on top of existing debt, according to a news release from bill sponsor state Rep. Wendy Brawley, D-Richland.
“Sending student lunch debt to a collection agency that adds penalties and fees jeopardizes a parent’s credit and could impact their ability to keep a roof over the family’s head,” Brawley said. “The fact that both the House and Senate unanimously voted in favor of my bill to end this practice shows that legislators, Republicans and Democrats, recognize the importance of ensuring that no child should face going hungry at school for fear of their parent’s inability to afford a school lunch.”
The legislation still needs the governor’s signature.
Sex offender registry
Lawmakers agreed on a framework to allow registered sex offenders to come off of the registry, if they meet certain requirements.
The state Supreme Court said lawmakers needed to put together a system for offenders to apply to come off of the registry because being on the list for the rest of their lives is unconstitutional.
Those with lower level offenses will be able to apply to the State Law Enforcement Division to come off the list if they have completed all required treatment programs, properly registered with the county sheriff twice a year, and haven’t committed any other sex-related offenses. Those offenders would be able to apply to come off of the registry after 15 or 25 years depending on the severity of the crime.
Those on the registry for more serious offenses would still need a court to rule if they could off of the registry, and wouldn’t be able to apply until 30 years after their release from prison.
Federal COVID relief
The House and Senate have agreed on how to spend $1.9 billion of the $2.5 billion American Rescue Plan Act money. South Carolina has to allocate the remaining sum by December 2024.
Lawmakers will spend $453 million to speed up the widening of Interstate 26 between Columbia and Charleston and the first 33 miles of Interstate 95 north of the Georgia border.
The Office of Regulatory Staff will receive $400 million to expand high-speed broadband internet and the Rural Infrastructure Authority gets $900 million for water and sewer projects.
The Department of Health and Environmental Control will get $104 million to build a new public health lab. An additional $100 million goes to the Office of Resilience.
What they didn’t do
Hate crimes
South Carolina will have to wait until at least next year for a hate crimes law to go on the books after the Senate declined to take up the proposed legislation.
Last year the House passed the legislation to provide enhanced penalties for violent crimes committed against someone based on their age, political opinion, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, national origin or physical or mental disability.
But the legislation sat on the Senate calendar with several senators’ objections keeping the bill from moving forward.
“That’s a big lift in the Senate. There’s a lot of attention given to the senators who put their name out there as objectors, but there was a lot more opposition than just those people who put their names out there, so there are a number of concerns,” said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield.
South Carolina and Wyoming are the only two states without a hate crimes statute.
USC board overhaul
A bill that would have restructured the University of South Carolina trustee board died for the year after failing to get a vote in the Senate.
Senators took up the bill about 80 minutes before the end of this year’s legislative session, but couldn’t get it across the finish line due to a protracted showdown between Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, and Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland.
In the end, Hutto prevailed by running out the clock.
Afterward, Harpootlian vowed to refile the bill in December so it could be taken up early next year.
Lawmakers want to revamp the board following a series of high-profile hiring and financial controversies in recent years.
Certificate of need
The process by which medical providers receive approval to build new facilities or buy new equipment would have been repealed under a Senate bill passed this year.
Health care providers need to obtain certificates of need from the Department of Health and Environmental Control in order to build a hospital or buy a large piece of equipment.
The senate passed a full repeal of the program in order to stop hospital systems from weaponizing the system to prevent competitors from building new facilities.
However, the bill never made it out of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Critical race theory ban
Legislation aimed at banning the teaching of so-called critical race theory in schools failed to pass the South Carolina General Assembly this session.
The South Carolina House passed the bill in April, with many of the most controversial restrictions on teaching stripped from the bill.
The pared-down bill, which called for creating a way to investigate complaints against teachers and required schools to post textbooks and descriptions of classes online, failed to make it out of a Senate committee before the session ended Thursday.
The House, in a last ditch effort Wednesday, attached the legislation to another bill that already had passed, but the Senate placed it on the calendar on Thursday for consideration “tomorrow,” effectively killing the bill.
Medical marijuana
Allowing people to use marijuana for certain medical reasons came closer to reality than ever before in South Carolina after the Senate approved the South Carolina Compassionate Care Act.
But right before the House was set to take up the legislation, Speaker Pro Tempore Tommy Pope ruled the bill unconstitutional because it included a tax provision. As a result, Pope opined that the bill needed to start in the House, not in the Senate.
State Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, who has worked on medical marijuana legislation for seven years, said he won’t be deterred by the setback.
Davis said he plans to refile the legislation again next year, likely without the fees and taxes attached.
Interstate 73
Long sought after money to build Interstate 73 to connect Interstate 95 to Myrtle Beach did not make it into the either the House or Senate budget proposals.
That’s even after senators representing the Grand Strand tried to add several amendments to the budget to include $300 million to build the first phase of the highway. It’s a project supported by McMaster.
“We’ve got more money now than we’ve ever had at one time,” McMaster said. “I-73 is important. We cannot wait until every other highway is widened and paved in the state before we put money into the Grand Strand.”
DHEC breakup
The Department of Health and Environmental Control remains one agency after the House declined to have a vote on legislation to split it up during the last week of session.
State Sen. Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, pushed to separate the health and environmental functions of the agency into different entities, and the Senate adopted the legislation in March.
But when it got to the House, the legislation was unable to move fast enough to reach the finish line.
State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, even pushed for a compromise that would have required more study during the next two years, but late amendments to the bill ended up delaying debate and preventing a vote.
Budget, abortion restrictions on post-session agenda
South Carolina lawmakers won’t be away from Columbia for too long.
They’ve got to tackle the budget, work out disagreements over certain proposals and have given themselves the option to return to tackle redistricting, university board elections and abortion restrictions, should the U.S. Supreme Court release a ruling on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
Legislators will return to Columbia June 15 — one day after South Carolina’s statewide primary elections — to finalize the state budget that starts July 1.
The two sides have a few major spending differences in their multi-billion-dollar spending plan that three House members and three senators will have to hash out in the weeks ahead.
It’s a difference of more than $1 billion.
The House’s budget spends nearly $14 billion, and the Senate’s spending plan is about $12.6 billion.
What arguably might be the biggest disagreement is over a $1 billion one-time rebate the Senate proposed next to a $1 billion tax cut. The House budget included a $600 million tax cut, but lawmakers did not add the rebate in.
“I walk into this budget process with my mind wide open and know that I will work with the Senate and we’re going to reach a compromise. I don’t enter into any negotiations with anything off the table. That’s not my nature,” said Speaker Murrell Smith. “We’re gonna go in and we’re going to find a path forward and I’m confident that we will have some resolution on the budget and have it ready when we come back here in June.”
After June, and after the U.S. Supreme Court issues its ruling on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, lawmakers will be able to come back to debate what to do next. A leaked draft opinion showed five justices have voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
South Carolina’s fetal heartbeat law, which prevents abortions after a heartbeat is detected, is not being enforced because of a federal court injunction.
“The first process is to receive the decision and understand it and the second part of the process is to obviously address any issues that the Dobbs (v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) decision allows South Carolina to make or if there are issues that we have with a heartbeat bill, that may in and of itself, solve those issues,” Smith said. “So we’re gonna have to see what that decision is, but there’s no doubt we’re going to come back and address it if the opportunity arises for us to do that.”
Massey said any discussion on abortion restrictions will go through a committee process over the summer allowing interested parties to testify in front of lawmakers. The chambers could come back in the fall.
“It’s important that people have an opportunity to be heard,” Massey said. “We’ll go through the committee process and we’ll do all that before we have the debate on the floor and I expect that it’s going to be a spirited debate when that comes.”
This story was originally published May 14, 2022 5:00 AM.
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Zak Koeske is a state government and politics reporter for The State. Before joining The State in 2020, Zak covered education, government and policing issues in the Chicago area. He’s also written for publications in his native Pittsburgh and the New York/New Jersey area.
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