Happy Thursday — the final legislative day of Week 10.
You're reading The State House Gavel, a daily reporter notebook by reporters Gavin Jackson, Russ McKinney and Maayan Schechter that previews and captures what goes on at the South Carolina Statehouse this year while lawmakers are in session.
What we're watching today:
- Dr. Edward Simmer, Gov. Henry McMaster's pick to lead the new Department of Public Health, has his first confirmation hearing at 10 a.m. before the Senate Medical Affairs Committee (session starts an hour later at 11 a.m.). We reported Tuesday why this could be Simmer's toughest hearing yet.
- Berkeley Republican Sen. Larry Grooms's Senate panel is expected to soon release its report and recommendations over the $1.8 billion accounting error. That report is expected to include a recommendation that Republican Treasurer Curtis Loftis — one of three officials entangled in the error who has not resigned — be removed from office. Loftis on Wednesday through his office released a lengthy statement on the pending report, arguing senators are trying for a "power grab."
Notebook highlights:
- The House Education and Public Works Committee rewrote a bill targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at state agencies, higher education, schools and local governments.
- Tort reform is on a delay after the Senate GOP leader was absent Wednesday and Thursday of session — days after a breakthrough was reached.
- How leaders say South Carolina's ban on student cellphone use in schools is working.
House panel amends anti-DEI bill
The House Education and Public Works Committee on Wednesday scaled back some of the major concerns stakeholders, students and others expressed over a bill targeting diversity, equity and inclusion at colleges and universities, state agencies, local governments and schools.
Recall: Back in early February, House GOP leaders rolled out H. 3927 (sponsored by Rep. Doug Gilliam, R-Union) in a nod to President Donald Trump's executive order on DEI. The bill was incredibly expansive. It not only targeted hiring and training practices and programs and policies, but it also included contracts that any of these sectors had entered into with private companies or vendors that had DEI programs. The fiscal impact of the bill was projected to be in the millions — a combination in part of lost grant funding and extra workload.
The amendment passed Wednesday is more narrowly focused and closely mirrors a provision that lawmakers initially attached to the House budget plan but was removed by Democrats on a procedural move.
What was the vote: The bill advanced to the floor on a 13-4 vote, with the votes falling on party lines. Democratic Reps. Terry Alexander of Florence, Kambrell Garvin and Hamilton Grant of Richland, and Michael Rivers of Beaufort all opposed the bill. All four are also the only Black members who serve on the committee.
Here's freshman Rep. Grant:
Highlights of what the bill does:
- The bill covers higher education institutions, state and quasi-state agencies (for example, the Ports Authority), local school districts, including charter, and local governments.
- The bill prohibits DEI offices/units/divisions and hiring practices, and it does not require someone to be a part of a program that "encourages preferential or differential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation."
- The bill does not require faculty or employees of a higher education institution to participate in mandatory training or other education programs dealing with DEI.
- Supporters say the bill will not effect Black History Month and Holocaust education, for example.
- The bill no longer targets private businesses that do business with the state— one of the major sections of concern.
Horry Republican Rep. Tim McGinnis, who shepherded the changes on Wednesday, told reporters he would not have included the contracting provision of the bill.
While many parts of the bill were "well intended," McGinnis said. "I don't think it was necessarily practical," particularly the measures dealing with private contractors.
Early in the multi-hour hearing, McGinnis told the audience, "We listened to you. We went back and reworked this bill to where we essentially threw out the bill we were considering. ... I think that it improves it."
He noted, however, some will likely disagree.
The House, off this week, returns to the floor next week.
Tort reform timeout
Fresh off a breakthrough compromise over tort reform legislation late into the night Tuesday, the debate again came to an abrupt stop on the floor.
Not because of any policy disagreement, but because S. 244's main sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, was absent from session Wednesday and Thursday.
What's left: York Republican Sen. Michael Johnson's strike-and-insert amendment changed most sections of Massey's bill, getting support from at least one of the original bill's critics — Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, R-Georgetown.
Still on the table is one big issue: joint and several liability, which determines how much to allocate responsibility among parties that cause harm to a victim.
“I think everybody understands generally what the (Johnson's) amendment does, and now that they have that understanding, we're in a much better position, so I feel pretty good about it," Massey told reporters late Tuesday.
Back to Goldfinch: Gavin Jackson spoke Wednesday to the senator — whose amendment last week (that Massey argued would have gutted the bill) led to lengthy out-of-chambers discussions — who elaborated on the turning point for him.
Here's what he said:
“I’ve been in a number of prolonged debates over my tenure in the General Assembly, and you sort of get a gut feeling when everyone is tired and ready for a deal. Early in those debates the policy drives the votes. But as you get further along in very prolonged debate, the votes tend to drive the policy," Goldfinch said. "It was fairly obvious when that tipping point has occurred. I started making motions to adjourn, (and I) made a motion to prevent us from going into recess and all test votes I’m testing everyone’s resolve. I asked for three or four different test votes and as the night went on it was clear to me we were at a point people were ready for a deal.”
Goldfinch added, “If I stand up and do anything other than accept the deal I’m an obstructionist. But I feel like I’ve successfully slowed it down, extracted concessions and made it better.”
There are at least 10 or so amendments on the desk.
“We’re spilling a lot of blood on the Senate floor, and I have a real belief the House will not take it up," Goldfinch said.
How SC's school cellphone ban is doing
Starting in January, South Carolina school districts were required to enforce cellphone bans in schools — a move 92% of teachers supported according to state officials.
A thorough survey of schools by the Department of Education on how this policy is working will happen in late April.
Anecdotally, however, state schools Superintendent Ellen Weaver told a Senate budget panel Wednesday the benefits are clear.
“The overwhelming feedback that I have gotten is that it is changing classroom culture and school culture for the better,” Weaver said. “Even the students will honestly acknowledge that they have an addiction to their technology."
The most encouraging comment Weaver’s heard? “A teacher up in a big high school in Greenville shared that at lunch time kids are bringing in Legos and board games to play. She said the noise in the lunchroom is the loudest, happiest noise she has ever heard. Instead of kids just being zombies on their phone.”
Other potential benefits? “I also believe that we are going to see a real impact on discipline data, because while there may be an uptick in terms of compliance for the phone policy, I think in terms of actual, serious, significant violence, kids staging fights and filming them and some of the other things that I have heard in our districts, we are going to see a dramatic decrease in that.”
Biggest complaint? “It adds an extra layer of complication with like, communicating about after school sports practices or just pickup times and things like that.”
Daily planner (3/20)
SC House
- 1:30 p.m. — Blatt 215 — House Legislative Ethics Committee
Agenda Available
SC Senate
- 9 a.m. — Gressette 209 — Senate Corrections Committee
Agenda Available
Live Broadcast
Live Broadcast - Audio Only - 9 a.m. — Gressette 408 — Senate Education Subcommittee on S.454
Agenda Available - 10 a.m. — Gressette 207 — Family & Veterans Services — Child Welfare Subcommittee on Regulations 5303,5308,5313,5314,5315 and on H.3654
Agenda Available
Live Broadcast
Live Broadcast - Audio Only - 10 a.m. — Gressette 308 — Senate Medical Affairs Committee
Agenda Available
Live Broadcast
Live Broadcast - Audio Only - 11 a.m. — Senate in session
Live Broadcast
Live Broadcast - Audio Only
Clips from around the state
- SC could expand legal protections for Confederate monuments unrelated to war (Post and Courier)
- SC anti-DEI bill advances without requirement on private contractors (SC Daily Gazette)
- SC lawmakers want to dismantle Greenville Co. trash collection. Local leaders are angry. (Post and Courier)
- Irmo man accused of threatening Trump earned $100,000 a year at V.C. Summer nuclear project (The State)
- Leading Savannah River Site official accepts Donald Trump's deferred resignation offer (Post and Courier)
- An arts center, a college, a sheriff’s office. SC cities find new uses for old federal buildings. (SC Daily Gazette)
- SC lawmakers considering ban on owning venomous reptiles (WIS)
