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The State House Gavel
The State House Gavel shares updates about the South Carolina General Assembly, including legislative actions, debates and discussions. Featuring news and interviews, so you have access to the latest developments in policy and decisions that shape South Carolina’s future.

The State House Gavel: SC's longest-serving gov to deliver final state address to Legislature

South Carolina Public Radio | By Maayan Schechter,
Gavin Jackson
Published January 28, 2026 at 6:01 AM EST
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, center, gives his State of the State speech Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Columbia, S.C.
Jeffrey Collins/AP
/
AP
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, center, gives his State of the State speech Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Columbia, S.C.

Statehouse reporters Gavin Jackson and Maayan Schechter are back at the Capitol reporting what you need to know when lawmakers are in Columbia. They'll post news, important schedules, photos/videos and behind-the-scenes interviews with policymakers.

It's Wednesday, Jan. 28.

We're hoping everyone — homes, roads and power lines included — has thawed out after the surge of winter weather over the weekend. (We won't talk about what the National Weather Service says is incoming this weekend.)

The Senate gavels at in 1 p.m. The House will return at 2 p.m.

You're reading The State House Gavel, your daily reporter notebook by Maayan Schechter and Gavin Jackson that previews and captures what goes on at the South Carolina Statehouse.

Notebook highlights:

  • What to expect in Gov. Henry McMaster's final State of the State address
  • Why the state Department of Commerce wants $150 million included in the state budget
  • With a shortened session week, what's on the Week 3 agenda
Reporters Maayan Schechter and Gavin Jackson, host of This Week in South Carolina and the SC Lede podcast.
Andre Bellamy/SCETV
Reporters Maayan Schechter and Gavin Jackson, host of This Week in South Carolina and the SC Lede podcast.

McMaster to give final state speech

For the ninth and final time in the state's top office, tonight Gov. McMaster will lay out his priorities for the year, touching on his requests to the General Assembly via his executive budget that he rolled out earlier this month.

The governor is likely to mention his request to lawmakers that they spend $1 billion in new money on infrastructure, $150 million to raise the state's starting teacher pay to $50,500 and $8 million to cover free school breakfasts for all K-12 students.

He is also likely to address his requests, building upon years of past spending, to put a resource officer in every school, to further cut the state income tax and to spend millions of dollars more on land conservation.

McMaster's speech is expected be about more than the year ahead, as previewed in a video posted to the governor's social media accounts Tuesday.

The state's longest-serving governor ascended to the job from the lieutenant governor position on Jan. 24, 2017, shortly after the U.S. Senate confirmed then-Gov. Nikki Haley as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.

It was a move largely seen, and repeated by the president even, as a thank you to McMaster's early support of Trump before his first term.

McMaster's remarks tonight are expected to look back on the nearly decade he's spent in the governor's office, and years before that in public office as lieutenant governor and attorney general.

He's also expected to look ahead, laying out his vision for the next decade-plus, and, maybe, even for the next governor.

What do McMaster's past speeches tell us about his remarks tonight?

The governor's past speeches have hit consistent themes and topics, none more central than his “new prosperity” terminology, which he predicated in 2018 by quoting scripture in encouraging the General Assembly to remain vigilant for economic opportunities.

“Be awake, for we know neither the day nor the hour in which the moments of opportunity will come," he said.

What's unclear is if we will get another fight "to the gates of hell" call like in his State of the State speech in 2024, when the normally congenial chief executive harshly criticized labor unions and told the Legislature he planned to fight a dispute with dock workers on the state's coast.

In his tenure, McMaster has overseen:

  • Significant economic development projects, like the expansions of BMW and Volvo and Scout Motors in Blythewood, and record-breaking investment in the state
  • A reduction in the personal income tax rate
  • A rise in starting state teacher pay from well below $40,000 to what will likely be above $50,000 when the Legislature passes the budget that takes effect July 1.
  • A push for a resource officer in every school, an expansion of 4-year-old kindergarten and the establishment of publicly-funded vouchers for low-income students
  • A multi-year state college and university tuition freeze for South Carolina students
  • Passage of a strict abortion ban and an expansion of gun rights
  • The preservation of thousands of acres of land for conservation efforts
  • The state's response to to the COVID-19 pandemic and several natural disasters, including Hurricane Helene in 2024

McMaster has also benefitted from a Republican Party surge in South Carolina, as the party now holds supermajorities in both chambers.

He's also overseen a population boom — a probable discussion point in his speech, as the governor pushes for the state to study the impacts of that growth surge.

The U.S. Census Bureau has even declared South Carolina the fastest-growing state in the country.

McMaster's speech will be followed by the Democratic response, this year given by state Rep. Jermaine Johnson, a Richland County Democrat who is also running for governor.

Gavin Jackson, host of This Week in South Carolina and the SC Lede podcast, will interview legislators following both remarks.

How to tune in:
When: 7 p.m. Today
Where: The State of the State will air on SCETV, SC Public Radio and online at scetv.org

Gov. Henry McMaster delivers his sixth State of the State Address to a joint assembly of lawmakers on Jan. 25, 2023 at the Statehouse in Columbia.
Mark Adams
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SCETV/SC Public Radio
Gov. Henry McMaster delivers his sixth State of the State Address to a joint assembly of lawmakers on Jan. 25, 2023 at the Statehouse in Columbia.

Commerce asks for $150M to cover cost overruns

The state Department of Commerce on Tuesday defended its request to the Legislature this year for $150 million in one-time spending to cover cost overruns associated with the Scout Motors electric vehicle project in Blythewood.

Commerce Secretary Harry Lightsey connected the cost overruns to three main areas: construction delays and inflation, additional environmental mitigation and wetlands protection and infrastructure.

Given the more than $1 billion incentive package that the Legislature approved for the project a few years ago, Lightsey acknowledged the seriousness of the request Tuesday in front of a panel of House budget writers. (The House Ways and Means Committee writes the first draft of the budget each year.)

Lightsey told lawmakers the department has made fixes to avoid a project overrun in the future. That includes, he said, fixing communication with other agencies as project needs become more clear.

He also emphasized the money was not for Scout Motors, rather for the department to pay for the state's obligation for a "pad ready site."

If Commerce does not get all the money this year, Lightsey told lawmakers:

Commerce Secretary Harry Lightsey 1.27.26

It would also, he said, result in shutting down all business recruitment efforts for several years because the department would have to dip into money set aside for other new projects.

Would Lightsey have recommended the project years ago had he known about the overruns, the panel's chair Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, D-Charleston, asked him?

"Absolutely," Lightsey said, calling the project transformational.

Read more:
The State: SC promised to spend $1.3B for Scout. The package got more expensive. Here’s why
SC Daily Gazette: SC is $150M over budget on promises it made to bring Scout Motors to the state

Just shy of its one year announcement anniversary, Scout Motors welcomed partners to Blythewood today to celebrate with a groundbreaking.
Maayan Schechter/X
/
Maaya Schechter/X
Just shy of its one year announcement anniversary, Scout Motors welcomed partners to Blythewood today to celebrate with a groundbreaking.

What's on tap for Week 3?

We're calling it the Statehouse scheduling reshuffle.

Because of the winter weather, we decided to wait until today to sort out what exactly the General Assembly will do given the abbreviated week.

Here's what's on the agenda for Week 3, starting with the Senate.

The Senate will return to its debate over S. 52, DUI legislation filed by Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort. It's the first bill out the gate for the upper chamber, legislation that lingered throughout the debate over tort reform last year. Senate leaders want to strengthen the state's DUI laws, criticized as being too lenient without imposing strict enough penalties.

Other week highlights:

  • This morning, a Senate Education subcommittee will take up their own version of the coined "Student Physical Privacy Act," what many refer to in short as the "bathroom bill." The bill — S. 199 — is filed by Sen. Wes Climer, R-York, and, similar to the House proposal, would require someone to use a restroom, locker room or changing room based on their biological sex at birth. The bill would codify and expand an already passed proviso (budget measure), placing these requirements at both public schools and colleges and universities.
  • In another hearing room at the same time, a Senate Medical Affairs subcommittee will take up three bills that includes S. 717, filed by the subcommittee chair Republican Sen. Billy Garrett of Greenwood County to create the "Office of Health Newborn Ombudsman" under the state health and human services department.
  • Berkeley Republican Sen. Larry Grooms's expansive bill dealing with the state transportation department — S. 831 — is up for debate in a Senate Transportation subcommittee Thursday morning.

Now onto the House, which, politely said, has a more crowded hearing schedule.

The House hasn't yet undergone a contentious floor debate. We're told there's a likelihood that changes today.

The House is expected to start — and perhaps finish — debate on H. 4756, filed by Rep. Tommy Pope, R-York, that is the chamber's own proposal targeting bathroom use by biological sex at birth. While there are other bills on the House's calendar, House leaders have intentionally moved this legislation quickly, putting it on track to be the first socially-conservative proposal passed by the lower chamber in an election year.

What else is on the House agenda?

On Wednesday:

  • The House Ways and Means budget-writing subcommittees continue their work this week, with meetings focused on the State Law Enforcement Division and the Department of Public Safety, the University of South Carolina system and the flag university's neurological hospital and health science campus, the Judicial Department, the Department of Commerce, Santee Cooper, the Ports Authority and the Department of Agriculture. You may also see hearings on provisos, and those are the one-year measures attached to the budget every year.
  • The full House Judiciary Committee will meet at 10 a.m. to debate a packed agenda with 10 bills that include proposals to regulate consumable hemp, legislation that would give the governor all appointment power over membership to the judicial screening panel and a proposal to offer security enhancement grants to groups at special risk of being targets of religious-motivated crimes.
  • A Law Enforcement, Criminal and Civil Justice Subcommittee meets at 10:30 a.m. to continue discussion over the oversight review of SLED's forensics lab.

On Thursday:

  • The Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee (referred to as 3M) will meet at 9 a.m. to, in part, discuss H. 3187, a bill proposed by Rep. Steven Long, R-Spartanburg, that would prohibit barbershops from displaying a barber pole if the shops aren't licensed for barbering.
  • An Education and Public Works Higher Education Subcommittee meets at the same time on four bills that deal with higher education training and campus safety.
  • A House Judiciary subcommittee will meet at 9 a.m. on two bills dealing with magistrate changes and magistrate court.
  • The House Ways and Means economic development subcommittee will meet at the same time to decide whether to advance policy legislation that includes H. 3551, sponsored by Rep. Brandon Newton, R-Lancaster, to exclude money earned by election managers and clerks from state income taxes.
  • A House Judiciary subcommittee also meets at 9 a.m. to discuss three bills, two of which deal with the infant save haven law.

Editor's Note: The meeting schedule and calendar are always subject to change. Don't yell at us. You can keep up with the Statehouse schedule at scstatehouse.gov.

Rep. Micah Caskey, R-Lexington, speaks with House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, in the House chamber at the South Carolina Statehouse on Jan. 22 , 2026.
GAVIN JACKSON
Rep. Micah Caskey, R-Lexington, speaks with House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, in the House chamber at the South Carolina Statehouse on Jan. 22 , 2026.

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  • 7 p.m. — Gov. Henry McMaster delivers his final State of the State address at the Statehouse

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Maayan Schechter
Maayan Schechter (My-yahn Schek-ter) is a news reporter with South Carolina Public Radio and ETV. She worked at South Carolina newspapers for a decade, previously working as a reporter and then editor of The State’s S.C. State House and politics team, and as a reporter at the Aiken Standard and the Greenville News. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Asheville in 2013.
See stories by Maayan Schechter
Gavin Jackson
Gavin Jackson graduated with a visual journalism degree from Kent State University in 2008 and has been in the news industry ever since. He has worked at newspapers in Ohio, Louisiana and most recently in South Carolina at the Florence Morning News and Charleston Post and Courier.
See stories by Gavin Jackson