South Carolina General Assembly

The Republican controlled legislature’s conservative agenda was front and center at the Statehouse this week. Lawmakers advanced new, but not so new abortion bills, a bill that would restrict what teachers can teach in their classrooms, and elected a new Supreme Court justice that will leave the court without a female justice for the first time in 35 years.

A federal appeals court has denied South Carolina Republicans' motion for a stay in the ongoing challenge over the state's congressional district map. Leading GOP lawmakers will now take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court in attempt to avoid redrawing the map that a three-judge federal panel last month deemed unconstitutional. According to an early January ruling, the boundaries passed last year by the Republican-dominated state Legislature mark an intentional splitting of Black voters in South Carolina's 1st District. In their Feb. 4 order, the judges postponed the date by which new maps may be presented.

Last week the SC Supreme Court ruled the state’s six-week Fetal Heartbeat Law unconstitutional stating that it violated a woman’s right to privacy as provided by the state constitution. That left the previous 20-week abortion law in effect. The court’s decision didn’t sit well with the state’s conservative Republican leadership opening the door for another abortion debate, and lawmakers signaling they may also begin something they have long avoided, closer scrutiny of the judicial philosophy of potential Supreme Court justices.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster wants to increase 2022's record amount of capital investment and offset shortages across workforces like education and law enforcement. That's according to the governor's budget request released Friday. The proposal is just a first step. Lawmakers will now begin writing and approving a spending plan when the General Assembly reconvenes next week.

A federal court has ruled South Carolina lawmakers illegally used race as the basis to redraw the boundaries of one of its U.S. House districts. A three-judge panel wrote Friday that the General Assembly diluted Black voting power when it remade the boundaries of the 1st District — the only U.S. House district flipped by South Carolina Democrats in more than 30 years. The ruling requires the state to redraw the map by the end of March and prohibits any elections before a new map is approved.

A federal trial to determine whether South Carolina's congressional maps are legal is closing with arguments over whether the state Legislature diluted Black voting power. The NAACP says the General Assembly removed Black voters from the coastal 1st District to make it easier for Republicans to win and dilute African American votes. The General Assembly says it drew maps fairly to deal with 10% population growth concentrated along the coast. A panel of three federal judges will hear closing arguments in the case Tuesday morning in Charleston. A ruling is expected later.

In Grenville and other counties in South Carolina, an acrimonious public debate is is growing over whether LGBTQ+-themes materials belong near the children's sections of public libraries.

National advocacy groups and hundreds of demonstrators have descended on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse grounds to testify before lawmakers considering new abortion-related measures after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. A 21-year-old college student speaking against abortion access Thursday shared the story of her own birth, when doctors advised her parents to get an abortion after an ultrasound showed a severely underdeveloped leg and a cyst on her brain. In his testimony against additional restrictions, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Joe Cunningham noted the story of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who recently traveled out-of-state for an abortion.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month it stated that it was time to return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives, meaning state or federal lawmakers. Surveys by news organizations indicate that about half of the states are now expected to restrict or enact laws making abortion illegal. South Carolina is among them, and later today in Columbia the legislative process to do that will begin with a public hearing by a special State House of Representatives Committee.

The South Carolina General Assembly has overturned many of Gov. Henry McMasters budget vetoes. But they did agree with the biggest one, taking $25 million out of the $13.8 billion spending plan to try to help bring a super computer to Columbia. The money was set aside for what supporters called a quantum computing operation and set up a nonprofit to rent time on the machine to researchers and others. Both the House and Senate continued Tuesday afternoon to consider the 73 vetoes issued by the governor, taking about $53 million from from the nearly $14 billion budget set to start July 1.