♪ opening music ♪ ♪ Gavin>> Welcome to This Week in South Carolina.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

The filing deadline for candidates seeking office ended this week, with the primaries being held in June.

The State's Maayan Schechter joins us to break down who was running for what and if there were any surprises, and Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto discusses the Democrats agenda for the remaining weeks of session, but first more from this week.

(choir singing) It was a festive Sunday in Columbia, where more than 500 people attended the South Carolina Democratic Party Black Caucus, his inaugural Sunday dinner event to honor the legacy of Black activists like Reverend Jesse Jackson and others serving their communities.

Folks also heard from the two top Democrats running for Governor, former Congressman Joe Cunningham and state senator Mia McLeod.

>> As I travel across this state, I'm...re-energized by the hope and the vision we all share on the issues, but I'm also tired of seeing the things that I see as I go across the stage.

I'm tired of seeing our rural hospitals closed and Dollar Generals opened up in their place.

(applause) I'm tired of politics politicians not expanding Medicaid in South Carolina when they should be expanding it.

I'm sick and tired of our teachers leaving in droves because there's disrespected so much.

>> We'll never have a Democratic governor again, if we only support candidates who run like Republicans.

If Republicans want to vote for a candidate, they want a real Republican, they don't want a fake Republican, and we hear a lot of dog whistles.

Don't we?

About electability?

...and who can win?

Well, I'm here to remind you, I won every single election I've run in.

Gavin>> In Washington on Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-lynching bill into law.

The legislation was co-authored by South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott who did not attend the Rose Garden ceremony.

Biden>> It's the law.

(applause) >> In Columbia, dignitaries including two former South Carolina governors, Jim Hodges, and David Beasley, gathered to appeal to wealthy Americans and companies to donate to the World Food Program, which Beasley heads as the Russian war in Ukraine compounds global food insecurity problems.

>> If this war continues, just for another 60 days, we will see a 30 more million people go into severe acute food insecurity.

If it lasts for four more months, it's 50 more million, and the reason I say that, before Ukraine War, we were already billions short of what we needed, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and I could go on and on.

So, this Ukrainian economic analysis is going to impact I think probably more than anything we've seen since World War Two.

>> House Bill 4608 is Save Women's Sports Act.

Gavin>> and both the House and Senate advanced bills banning transgender student athletes from participating on sports teams that don't correspond to the sex assigned to them at birth.

Both bills are expected to be debated next week, with crossover day set for Thursday, marking one month left in session.

Joining me now to discuss recent activity in the state senate is Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, Senator Hutto, thanks for joining us.

>> Glad to be here.

Gavin>> So I had the Republican counterpart on last week and wanted to extend the same invitation to you.

So again, thank you for joining us.

But in the state senate, sir, you know this, you're the Minority Leader.

There are 30 Republicans and 16 Democrats, which makes it difficult for Democrats to really get any agenda items that they want pushed through leading to a lot of compromises, and sometimes long floor debates like we recently saw on this education scholarship accounts bill that passed late Wednesday.

Talk to us about that bill, and what made it so difficult or complicated, I guess problematic for Democrats?

Sen. Hutto>> Well, we've got hundreds of 750 800,000 students in the public school system, and for us to focus the debate on a maximum of 5000 children seems like just misplaced time when we've got tremendous issues facing our students in public school.

We've got issues with teachers leaving the classroom during the pandemic and have not returned and therefore teacher vacancies.

So ideas are issues around teacher pay, teacher recruitment, teacher retention persist.

Children, because of the pandemic and the separation that they had a lot more mental health problems showing up among children that need to be discussed, and it just seems to us that the focus on a voucher program that's going to maybe impact a few 100 children is an opportunity to talk about education that's misplaced.

I mean, we should be talking about the big picture.

Yes, there are going to be a few children that are potentially helped by this system.

But...in the scheme of things, and those children are important, so don't get me wrong...so it's a worthy discussion to have.

Just to have the main focus of the first education debate that we have in the Senate, be focused on a very narrow slice of problem was problematic.

The second part of it was, we do not believe until we fully fund the public school system and fix the known problems in the public school system, that we should be diverting public money to a voucher plan.

In fact, that was tried by the governor recently, went all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court said you can't do that.

So here we are Supreme Court telling us we can't do it, and we're going to spend the week and a half debating it anyway.

Gavin>> ...That was - we talked to the Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey about that.

He made it sound like it was an advantage for these children, disabled children, lower income children to use this program to be able to go to a school of their choice or a private school, but it sounds like there are some issues with Democrats about discrimination issues involving this bill.

Sen. Hutto>> Well, there are first of all, the bill allows schools to discriminate against children with disabilities, the very thing that might qualify a child to use the program that they have some particular learning need.

Maybe they have ADHD, autism, dyslexia.

The school could just say no, you know, we're not going to deal with that, and so I don't know why when you're using public dollars, you would not put in a clause that says you can't discriminate against a child with disability.

But beyond that, in a lot of areas of South Carolina, there is no private school.

There is no where for a person to receive this education savings account and then use it.

Right now.

The children we're focused on have transportation to school on school bus.

They get meals at school, usually two meals at school.

If they go to a private school, they're not going to have transportation or meals, and many private schools you can't get into for $6,000.

So it just...seems like not the best fit for trying to help the children they want to help.

Maybe we should put more money into special needs in public school classes, rather than try and create another system where we get those children to leave the public schools.

Gavin>> Senator, I want to keep with education for a minute and talk about another controversial bill, which is the so called Save Women's Sports Act that's dealing with transgender high school students who are participating in sports and the Senate bill also includes collegiate athletes too.

That's going to be it's on the Senate calendar.

It should be up for debate pretty soon.

That's my understanding.

How big of a debate will this be, especially as we approach crossover next week, in terms of getting a bill over to another chamber before we finish the session?

Sen. Hutto>> It's a solution seeking a problem, right?

There is no problem.

Right now in the entire system of public schools in South Carolina.

There have been four petitions, two have been granted.

Two have not been granted.

No controversy around any of the...athletes that were involved in the current situation.

So we don't have an ongoing problem, and we do have a process that resolves this.

Once you move this to the collegiate arena, the issue becomes much more problematic for South Carolina.

We remember when we had the Confederate flag on the dome, how many times we missed out on tournaments and other things that we posted here in South Carolina.

Coming off of the successful hosting in Greenville of Final Four games in women's and men's basketball that we're going to be potentially blocked from hosting, blocked from baseball regionals, why pick this fight when there is not a problem?

You know, they say one swimmer somewhere in something in Connecticut, like...the sky's falling.

It's not, and so again, here, we are going to take two or three days of legislative debate, potentially put our colleges and universities and the cities that host these events in economic peril over something that's not really an issue.

Gavin>> ...Senator, do you fear for students' safety as well at this point?

You've heard from advocates saying that it increases bullying and increases potential suicides for these transgender individuals.

What are your thoughts on those ramifications?

Sen. Hutto>> I couldn't agree more.

I mean, -look, all of our children, all of our young athletes were created by the same God.

Okay.

They were all created to be who they are, and that's what we want to let people be the person that they are and compete at the level that they're qualified to compete at, and so right now, the way it's handled is if there is some competitive advantage gained, you don't get to play.

But if the... examination has been had the tests been done, whatever, that's the way the high school does it.

There's no competitive advantage you get to play in the sport that you're asking to play in.

So, you know, again, it's not currently a problem.

It's...an issue on the right.

It's an issue that they want to make an issue, but it's not an issue.

I haven't gotten a single call, or any athlete or parent ever about this issue.

It's an issue, they're make it up.

Gavin>> ...when we talk about other controversial issues, we saw the Fetal Heartbeat Bill, the so called bill pass last year into law.

That's part of our two year session.

So it's a big bill that passed in this session.

What about other potential bills dealing with abortion?

You said on the Medical Affairs Committee, there's been a brouhaha about some bills over there.

Talk about what's going on with those potential abortion bills, as well.

Sen. Hutto>> Right now, I don't know that any will pass this year.

We have a dedicated pipeline from South Carolina to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, where we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars sending these bills up paying lawyers to defend them, and we lose every one of them.

...so we you mentioned Fetal Heartbeat, I think we spent two or $300,000 dollars on that.

We've lost.

We can pass bills this year, they go up we're going to lose until and unless the Supreme Court changes a law.

We don't need to be passing laws in South Carolina and creating legal bills for the citizens of South Carolina.

Again, it's a social issue that with primaries coming up in a election year, there's always going to -Look, we can hardly get past a session without debating guns or abortion rights.

This just comes up every time.

Not that...the law will ever change.

The Second Amendment is still the Second Amendment, Roe vs. Wade, is still Roe vs. Wade.

So, nothing has changed.

It's just that I guess some of my colleagues think they get political advantage out of bringing the bills up for debate.

Gavin>> ...sir, we have about two minutes left.

I want to ask you about some other bills, including bills that have already made it over to the Senate, have crossed over - using that term there.

including the broad bipartisan supported Hate crimes bill that is on the Senate calendar made it out of Senate judiciary.

It's being blocked by several Senate Republicans.

I asked Senate Majority Leader, Shane Massey about this.

He says it's not as ...big of a deal as some people are making it out to be.

What are your thoughts on this Hate Crimes bill that is in the Senate right now.

Sen. Hutto>> It ought to pass.

We passed a bipartisan Hate Crimes bill in 1998, in the Senate.

Did not pass the House.

Now the House has passed one.

Nothing really has changed other than we've had a colleague of ours assassinated in a hate crimes act of violence.

If anybody should pass a hate crimes bill, it should be the South Carolina Senate.

It is a big deal.

We have...right now, we have the potential to lose business investment in South Carolina.

We're one of only two states that doesn't have a hate crimes bill.

Our own Republican Senator Tim Scott just got the Anti-lynching bill through the US Congress.

We can't get a simple Hate Crimes bill through the South Carolina Senate.

It's really a shame.

Gavin>> ...senator, about 30 seconds left, anything you see big moving through, obviously the Senate supposed to take up the budget this month, next month, but any other bills we should be watching out for?

Sen. Hutto>> I hope we can get paid family leave through this year, but big picture, I would still focus back on the public school system, increase teacher pay teacher retention, teacher recruitment, and also the issues around surrounding mental health with our youngest children in the school system.

Gavin>>...A lot of that is being dealt with in the budget is my understanding.

>> Yes.

All of that will be in the budget.

>> We'll be watching.

Thank you so much.

That's >> - Thank you for the opportunity.

>> - Senate Minority Leader, Brad Hutto of Orangeburg.

Thank you, sir.

Sen. Hutto>> Okay.

Take care.

Gavin>> Now joining us is Maayan Schechter.

She's the politics editor at the State newspaper.

She has the latest Statehouse activity from this week, and a look at the upcoming June primaries.

Maayan, thanks for joining us.

Maayan>> Thanks so much for having me, Gavin.

Gavin>> So let's start off with the buzz-iest news this week, what everyone's been watching, and that's filing, candidate filing closed on Wednesday.

We're looking at the June primary, specifically right now, because that's the first upcoming election ahead of the November elections.

So let's start with our seven congressional districts.

What did you see in those filings?

What stood out to you?

Maayan>> Well, as you mentioned before, I mean, most of the congressional races here in South Carolina are going to be decided in the primary.

...So what I saw going back through the filings this morning is most candidates, most incumbents do have challengers.

We've talked a lot about the 1st district and the 7th district.

Of course, the 1st district is between incumbent Nancy Mace and Katie Arrington, who is backed by former President Donald Trump.

That race will be interesting in the primary but then there's Annie Andrews, who is the only Democrat running.

So that will be a interesting race to watch back in November, down the road in November.

The 7th district is one of those races that definitely I think will be decided in the primary.

Your two top candidates are state representative Russell Fry, and of course incumbent Tom Rice, Fry being endorsed by Trump.

What I took away is most of the other congressional races also have challengers.

The only incumbent who appears to not have the challenge is Jeff Duncan.

Laurens' Republican but Upstate Congressman William Timmons has challengers coming from the right.

Even House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn has a challengers coming ...from the left.

But still those incumbents.

It's very tough to beat incumbents in this state.

So I think, you know, Jim Clyburn, for instance, is probably very safe in his race.

I think one of the races to watch, though, that we haven't probably paid as much attention to is what happens in the upstate.

There's just several Republicans who are running against William Timmons.

So, that'll definitely be, I think, a race to watch, as well.

Gavin>> Yeah.

I mean, when you're talking about Jim Clyburn, they're in the 6th congressional district, what he's running for his 16th term here?

I mean, it's interesting to see people willing to jump into the fray on these races, but of course, that's their prerogative, and of course, William Timmons running for his third term.

How does that name ID - having that war chest ready to go to as well, which a lot of incumbents have on their side, like we're talking about in the 7th and the 1st, when we're talking about these these top challenges, because in the 7th district race, there are a multitude of challengers against Tom Rice, but when we...look at this, you're talking about the Trump endorsed candidate Russell Fry.

You're talking about Nancy Mace and Katie Arrington, who's up backhanded down there, too.

Those are the ones that really stand out, because of fundraising at this point.

Maayan>> Right, and of course, I didn't mention Tim Scott, who has got a few democratic challengers, including a House member here in the Statehouse, but he is one of the top fundraisers in DC.

So, it's likely he's going to be pretty okay.

Gavin>> ...So we're talking about statewide races right there, Maayan you're talking about the Senate.

What about other races, like the governor's race and some of these constitutional officers?

What's standing out?

Who filed for those?

Maayan>> Yeah, so I think most of the attention will be paid to the governor's race and I think the superintendent's race and I was trying to do some last minute counting on the governor's race.

It looks like five Democrats have filed the two high profile of course, are state senator Mia McLeod and former Congressman Joe Cunningham.

There's about three Republicans.

Of course, Henry McMaster being the incumbent is one of them.

You have a Libertarian candidate, and you have two Independent candidates.

So that'll be a race, definitely, at least on the Democratic side to watch in the primary.

...then of course, we'll watch that down the road in November.

But the superintendent's race is going to be I think, one of the more interesting races, statewide races that South Carolina has to offer.

That is, of course, after Molly Spearman decided last year that she would not run for re-election in 2022, and so that opened up that seat to just a crowd of candidates.

You have eight Republicans running for superintendent, you have three Democrats.

Those Republicans include names like Ellen Weaver, who ran the Palmetto Promise Institute, and also chaired a one point education oversight committee.

You have Kathy Maness, who is the head of the Palmetto State Teachers Association, one of the largest in the state.

On the Democratic side, you have Lisa Ellis who founded and runs SC for ED, that large teachers' grassroots group that obviously, of course, led that big protests that we saw on the Statehouse grounds a few years ago, and then State Representative Jerry Govan, who was elected in 92, has served three decades in the House, but this year was redistricted, with his district was merged with another House member's and he has decided not to run for his House seat and instead run for superintendent again.

This will be his second time running.

So that'll definitely be a race to watch.

There are, of course other statewide officers who are facing challengers, including Hugh Weathers, for agriculture.

I know, the Secretary of State has some challengers.

I know the treasurer has I think a general election challenger.

I believe the only incumbent statewide who does not have a challenger is Richard Eckstrom, the comptroller general and I don't know if that's because no one knows...quite sure what the comptroller general does, but he does not have a challenger, this election.

Gavin>> Well, I see his name on my paycheck.

So I know one thing he does, but Maayan, yeah, you bring up a good point when we're talking about constitutional officers, and the Republicans' State SC GOP made an interesting point in their email recently about who filed and how big of a turnout they've had for this midterm year, and they note that I think four of the seven statewide races don't even have a Democrat involved in this.

...That's because Democrats haven't won a statewide race since 2006, with Jim Rex, as superintendent of education.

So, it's definitely an uphill battle for these Democrats who are looking to win statewide.

Maayan>> Yes, I think you said it as clear as day.

Yeah.

Gavin>> ...then you were talking about Jerry Govan and he was a House member, and we're seeing a lot of House retirements now because it's just a transition, it looks like.

There are 124 State House members that are up for re-election this year.

We've already seen some seismic shifts with leadership announcements, retirements there.

What's going on in the Statehouse?

What have you seen in that filing?

Maayan>> Right.

So you mentioned the two big retirements and that's House Majority Leader Gary Simrill, and then House Speaker, Jay Lucas, both Republicans who announced pretty close to one another this month that they would not be seeking re-election.

Added with Jerry Govan, they make up a group of 13, 13 House incumbents who are not going to be running for re-election and will be retiring.

Now that number does not include the House members Tommy Stringer, Mandy Kimmons, who vacated their seats early, opening those up to special elections.

It does not include incumbents who are going to be facing other incumbents because their districts were merged together.

So we definitely could see more of a turnover.

Something that I think we're kind of been used to after 2020 when we saw a slew of new candidates come in, including two Statehouse seats that have flipped.

Which has been an interesting takeaway, and I know we've discussed this is that you're seeing a lot of incumbents who are facing challengers from even more to the right or even more to the left.

I thought one of the more interesting ones was Stewart Jones, Laurens' Republican who is facing I think, a couple of Republicans who are hitting him from even more to the right, you're seeing in the race, the new district between Wendy Brawley and Jermaine Johnson, I think there are a couple of other Democrats who have decided to file for that...race.

I don't know what the big theme takeaway is.

But it's clear that a lot of people see themselves as potential lawmakers.

They want to run for that race.

They want to see some kind of difference go on in the General Assembly.

So, I think there are a lot of people who feel like the House is going to have a very different look in the next year, and of course, that doesn't include the fact that we're going to have a new speaker.

We're going to have a new majority leader, we're going to have likely a potential new budget chairman, and so there's going to be a huge domino effect in leadership.

So, a huge change in that and then possibly a huge change in the makeup of just who is in the House, next year.

Gavin>> Yeah, you're talking about 13 people not running for re-election and when you're talking about these Republican and Democratic primary challengers.

My count, it's 15 Republicans looks like are being challenged, including chair people like Rita Allison and Chris Murphy, Education Judiciary Chairman right there, and then 12 Democrats, you know, I mean, you're talking about a lot going on.

But I want to get to some other...hot news this week that you are covering.

It's a different kind of election of sorts.

It's the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees who are elected by lawmakers.

A lot of news, a lot of hot stuff came out of those hearings that you were watching this week.

What's the state of play here, catch people up on that?

Maayan>> Well, I think the overall takeaway is that clearly, lawmakers are fed up with the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees, and they're ready to see new members are ready for it to be shaken up.

This is an issue that has been brewing for some time, but I think really spilled over after the 2019 presidential search, when the Board decided to name Bob Caslen as the president of the university.

So what happened this week was a two day hearing in which the panel of House and Senate members decided to, quote carry over five incumbents.

So what that means is they basically sit on their candidacies.

They did approve Alex English, who is the newest member to the USC board.

So, his candidacy will be voted on by the General Assembly coming up in May.

There were also six newcomers, three of which on either side are looking to fill seats in the Upstate, the 7th and 13th judicial circuits, I believe, and so their... candidacies were also forwarded over to the General Assembly who will decide who winds up getting those spots.

But yeah, I mean, I think the big takeaway is that lawmakers are waiting on to see whether any of these incumbent board trustees that were held over will decide not to seek another term, whether anybody else raises their hand.

You know, the main issues that they were focused on Monday and Tuesday was questions over diversity, was questions about the pricey buyouts for the former football coach, Will Muschamp and former men's basketball coach, Frank Martin.

There was also questions about blow ups between members and mega donors, Lou Kennedy and even Darla Moore at one point, and then really a lot of the conversations focused on the presidential searches that named Bob Caslen, and then obviously now we have a president elect Michael Amiridis.

Gavin>> Safe to say a pretty hot mess going on over there.

Looking for stability in the flagship university is still a work in progress.

We'll see what happens there, but Maayan, we have about less than a minute left, and I want to ask you about the crossover day.

We're approaching April 7th next Thursday.

That's when bills need to make it out of one chamber to the other just to have the possibility of making it to the governor's desk in time for sine die, which is the last day of session which is second Thursday in May.

What's standing out to you right now?

This morning, we're talking Thursday morning, the Medical Marijuana bills that was passed by the Senate.

It's actually having a hearing in the House in a subcommittee.

That bill, we're talking about critical race theory.

What do you see happening in the House as we approach this crossover day and going forward?

Maayan>> Right.

Well, we've obviously seen a ton of bills get kicked out of committees in both the House and the Senate this week.

...We'll see that beginning of next week, and that's by no accident, because lawmakers want to see their bills get across to the other chamber before crossover.

The critical race theory, compromise bill, although I don't think Democrats will agree that it's a compromise bill appears to be...up for debate coming up next week.

So it looks like that bill will make it over to the Senate chamber before crossover, where it goes from there is not really clear, but it'll pass the House.

We saw the House also pass the Boozy Popsicle bill yesterday, and then of course, we may see the Senate take up the transgender sports bill, which came out of the Education Committee, in which the education chairman was not particularly pleased with that outcome.

So we could see a floor debate on that, but clearly, we're going to see, you know, a flurry of activity coming up in these next few days.

It'll be a very busy week.

Gavin>> Yeah, that and then also the Senate jumping on the budget later in April, too.

So a lot to be watching for, a lot to be reading about which we'll be doing in the State newspaper, where you're the politics...editor.

That's Maayan Schechter with the State newspaper.

Thanks, Maayan.

Maayan>> Thanks so much, Gavin.

Gavin>> For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina ♪