♪ opening music ♪ Welcome to "This Week in South Carolina," I'm Gavin Jackson.

This week we're talking about the Statehouse.

The legislative session is more than halfway over.

The House has passed its version of the budget, and there's still plenty of bills in play that we'll be talking about and filing for state House seats.

The governor, constitutional officers, U.S.

House, U.S.

Senate and more have also opened up.

So there's a lot to talk about.

So for updates and analysis on all of this, I'm joined by one of our favorite panels around our trapezoid.

[laughs] It's not a round table.

A colleague Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press.

Joe Bustos with "The State Newspaper" and Maayan Schechter here with S.C.E.T.V.

Welcome back guys.

Good to see you.

<Thanks for having us> It's been since January the last time we all caught up, late January.

A lot has changed since then, Jeffrey.

Especially as we're past that midway point in session as we approach May 14th, sine die, the last day of this two year session.

A lot needs to get done, but we've already seen some action, like I was saying, including, a bit of a surprise when it came to the N.I.L.

Bill that the governor just recently vetoed.

This bill would keep those contracts says revenue sharing deals between athletes, teams and universities and colleges secret, not foible.

There are some concerns about this.

We've being kind of zipped through the House or some good debate in the Senate, but then again, we saw the governor veto it.

What was the message there?

What was his problem with this bill?

Jeffrey Collins> So we'll open with Jeffrey, with sports.

[laughs] It's a complex issue because in part college sports is just a mess.

There's the rules are ever changing.

There's all sorts of things going on.

Whatever they pass this year, they're probably have to come back next year and do something else in the year after that, maybe to do something else until there is some federal solution on this.

But what's going on right now in South Carolina is the payments to student athletes.

They are secret, not just on the athlete level, but the schools also want them secret as far as how much money they pay each team.

So they don't want you to know they're paying the football team 18 million and the women's basketball team, 2 million.

They don't want their other schools to know that.

They don't want the competitors to know that.

So they've asked the legislature to pass a law so it would be exempt from public records law.

Like you said, it zipped through the House.

The Senate, there was a little bit of a snag because there was some question about whether or not the written testimony from athletic directors were, was complete enough.

So we did hear from athletic directors right before they had a vote.

The vote was 30 to 13, which isn't, you know, which is pretty good.

We'll get to why that's important.

Just a second.

So it goes to the governor.

The governor is concerned about sunshine and openness.

He doesn't want the individual athletic contracts.

Like, you know, how much each person gets paid to be public, even if they redact the names and things like that.

But he thinks that the amounts they get paid to each team should be out there, that, you know, if you're a fan of South Carolina, you should know how much they're paying the softball team versus, you know, the basketball team, basketball team.

So, he kicks it back and the, it pass the House, there's only two votes against it in the House.

So it's going to get through that.

They're going to override the veto without a problem.

The Senate is a little trickier proposition like says 30-13 vote.

You need two thirds in the Senate to override.

And so you got to get to 31.

There are three people out.

I mean, like I think, you know, if you asked me to put a bet on it, I would think it probably gets through the Senate.

But if it doesn't, it doesn't mean the end of the world for these colleges either, that say that, because what prompted all this is a lawsuit.

You know, somebody, a businessman, you know, that's kind of a open records person.

He filed a lawsuit asking for this information.

So it just gets kicked back to the court, which has to determine under South Carolina's FOIA statue if it can be released.

So, this was just kind of a protective measure to keep it from happening.

Gavin Jackson> And Jeffrey the concern really is just concerns about taxpayer dollars, excuse me, taxpayer dollars as well as private dollars and any co-mingling.

That's really like the root of a lot of this too.

Jeffrey Collins> Right.

And that's and that's because all of a sudden there's all this influx of money that's coming to college sports.

Like, you know, you didn't used to pay athletes, and now you have to pay them.

There's money that comes in from, you know, there's 20 plus million dollars that comes in that you can share, but then there's extra money that comes involved with adding scholarships and things like that.

And so, you know, schools are having to dip into different funds.

And so that's what concern the senators is, are you dipping into, you know, public money that comes in to pay this stuff.

And, you know, in Clemson's case Clemson made the point.

Well, yes.

But you know, like we're just trying to juggle all these pots of money.

So every once in a while we might have to pull from something.

We're not doing on the regular basis.

And we're not paying athletes with this.

It's just a matter of trying to get all the money together in one place, when suddenly it was just a completely different atmosphere.

Gavin Jackson> Yeah.

So we'll see.

The House is out this week, so we'll see what happens when they come back and things start moving again.

And if they have the votes and maybe they might reconsider that too, because now that there's a different lens on this that could be a different vote.

Jeffrey Collins> Could easily be.

Yes.

March Madness coming.

Gavin Jackson> Oh, there it is.

Thank you, Jeffrey.

Maayan, speaking of money and revenue, we saw that the House did pass its 15.4 billion dollar budget.

That's why they're on furlough this week.

They take that week off typically after they pass the budget.

You cover very closely, as well as Joe.

What were some of the highlights from this spending plan?

And again, maybe what stood out to you, some of the amendments, some of that elongated debate, if anything really changed the meat of the budget, really change it all.

Maayan Schechter> Right And, you know, it is rare and it doesn't, I will never say it never happens because we have seen dollars change on the floor.

But, I mean, very rarely, especially the last few years.

Do we see the budget really take an overhaul approach on the floor from the Ways and Means Committee to what they do in the House.

As you mentioned, this is a roughly 15.2, 15.4 billion dollar state spending plan that includes what the governors, a lot of the governor's wish list maybe not fully to the amount of what he wanted, but especially the 150 million dollars to raise the starting teacher, pay that 50,500 dollar amount.

And that is a significant increase from when the governor first took office, when it was below 40,000 dollars.

We saw money about half a million or, excuse me, half a billion dollars for the state Department of Transportation.

A lot of that money for bridge modernization interstate.

We saw money for tax relief, money for the medical university so that they can build a new cancer hospital money for the Captain Sam's Spit settlement.

That had a lot of debate on the floor, especially with the, hard line House Freedom Caucus.

Millions and millions and millions of dollars for health care related initiatives, whether it's at the University of South Carolina or covering, certain Medicaid costs or going toward events, money for SNAP, dealing with some of the federal cuts coming down the road.

So this was a pretty typical budget.

Now, as you mentioned, it's going over to the Senate.

And as we're talking about changes and what those changes could look like, that's really where I think some of the tougher debate is going to happen.

Of course, right after the House passed their budget, which included, enough money to lower the top state income tax rate from the 6 percent to, what was it, 5.39 percent?

They passed another income tax bill, lowering it even more to the 5.21 percent.

And of course, they passed the tax conformity legislation, all of which is not funded through the state budget.

So now the Senate is going to have to deal with exactly how they're going to pay for those two bills, especially considering now it appears that tax conformity legislation is going to go through, so that'll be an interesting debate over in the Senate.

But going back to some of the changes, again, we did not see a whole lot of changes occur on the floor.

We saw the Freedom Caucus put up a lot of very, expected measures, going after Clemson University, going after the salaries of some of the agency directors that they're not big fans of, like Doctor Edward Summer, who's the interim public health director.

We also saw them go after certain agencies, their budgets total.

We also saw them going after programs.

Again, most of those, except for, I think, one proviso, maybe that the Freedom Caucus proposal actually wound up sticking.

We did see some provisos get attached dealing with the oversight of the South Carolina High School League.

Again, kind of getting around if that bill, that stand alone bill, does not pass, but not a whole lot of changes from what we saw coming out of the Ways and Means Committee.

Gavin Jackson> Yeah, and Joe, a lot of times people use the budget as this way to advance in policy initiatives, and proviso form or through funding in some sense, even though it never seems to actually take root, to try and advance some things that they can't get done through typical bills during those provisos, those one-year laws that we've seen take effect, especially when it comes to the bathroom bill, which we'll talk about in a moment.

But, did anything else jump out to you in this budget debate that you were covering as well?

Joe Bustos> I didn't think, one thing about the budget debate is anyone can talk about anything and everything they want to know, and it's campaign season.

So we saw some attempts on campaigning.

On the floor, Jermaine Johnson tried to get the expand Medicaid proviso that was quickly shot down on a germaneness issue ironically enough.

But back to the Captain Sam Spit issue.

supporters of Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette's campaign for governor to use that as an opportunity to go after Allen Wilson.

And it was kind of like an audition tape to be on the on Evette's tickets.

It was called out by Bruce Bannister, who also happens to be an Evette supporter.

Obviously, that 32 million dollar state in the budget with no issue.

Gavin Jackson> Yeah.

And then we also saw I guess, they fund the school, breakfast, breakfast Maayan Schechter> That was out of the Ways and Means Committee, as well.

Joe Bustos> Free breakfast made it in, lottery vending machines were knocked out.

Gavin Jackson> Okay.

Well, we'll see what the Senate does again.

That's over in the Senate now.

And they're debating that too.

But, Joe, we're taping this episode on Wednesday.

We typically do this on Thursdays.

So we have a little bit better idea what happens on Wednesdays, because they're always sort of big legislative days.

But we're seeing that debate continuing in the Senate right now with the Hemp Derived Consumable, Consumable Bills, Hemp Derived Consumable Bill H-3924, which deals with like Delta 9 drinks.

There's debate over gummies and regulations of all these things because right now it's not regulated.

This is legal under the 2018 Farm Bill.

What's going on with that right now?

It's expected to be a long day this Wednesday, so I'm going to ask you to tell me what happened, because we don't know yet.

But, where do things stand right now with that bill?

Joe Bustos> So the bill would restrict the drinks, the T.H.C.

drinks to anyone 21 over.

It would also restrict where they could be sold some lower doses in grocery stores and convenience stores, some of the higher doses and liquor stores.

There was attempts to outright ban them.

Those votes failed.

It's going to be a long debate.

I think gummies will not be allowed.

So I think, we'll see what happens with it and also have to get through the House chamber again as well.

Gavin Jackson> Yeah, that's the thing.

This came over from the House.

It was pretty loosely regulated in that original version, just dealing with folks 21 and under not being able to purchase or consume these consumables, which are pretty popular right now.

And that's why it's also pretty difficult too, when you see statements coming out from the S.C.

G.O.P.

saying that this is not on our party platform, but they also have some Republicans were like, well, actually, a lot of my constituents enjoy these.

So, I wonder if it's going to be somewhat of a election issue as well for these House members?

Joe Bustos> Well, we'll see.

I mean, especially when the S.C.G.O.P.

has come out with repeated press releases on this particular bill.

And then we saw what happened with the hemp bill in the House, on the House side.

And there's some disagreement with how to move forward with that one.

Gavin Jackson> Yeah.

Because if nothing happens and nothing's going to continue to happen when it comes to regulation on this.

So, a little bit of incentive there.

But Jeffrey, I'm going to stick with you for another surprise.

This legislative session that came with, the state Supreme Court election in that race for Justice John Cannon Few's seat.

He was up for reelection.

The usually a rubber stamp process for these folks using incumbents, unless there's a major concern that's been brought up via the vetting process.

And this year, it appears to be the case.

There's also been a lot of, intense pressure on the entire judicial selection process, which, of course, our lawmakers, all 107 of them, choose the judges in the state compared to other states, for instance, popular election and different ways.

But walk us through this, this situation, the politics of this race and what happened there.

You know, judicial elections are surprising, have a surprising amount of drama in South Carolina.

You know, even the ones that we don't hear about have a surprising amount of drama.

This had, this was by far the most interesting judicial race that I can recall.

So, Justice John Few, he's on the court right now, associate justice.

He was running for reelection.

What ended up happening is he cast the deciding vote on the first abortion ruling, the one that overturned the first law that was passed.

Three two vote, like I said, he was the swing vote.

And when he wrote his opinion piece, he was very careful to say, if you do the following things, legislature, I will be able to vote in favor of it if it comes back around to me.

And sure enough, he did.

He gave him a road map and he did that.

But that, as you can imagine, ticked off a number of lawmakers.

And in this world too, you know, sometimes and, you know, John Few has an interesting personality that might be a way of putting it.

And, you know, sometimes when somebody ticks you off like that, then suddenly you start concentrating on their personality and they start getting bothered, you know.

So he started to get less and less support.

So the race came down to four candidates, Few, you know, Blake Hewitt, Ralph Anderson and former speaker Jay Lucas.

So that became interesting.

Jay Lucas is a lawyer.

He hasn't practiced a whole lot because he's been doing legislative stuff and everything Hasn't been a judge, certainly he was a judge in Hartsville for like a year, a city judge.

So, controversy became, can we elevate somebody with that limited amount of judicial experience to be a Supreme Court justice?

And so, you know, the House supports Jay Lucas because obviously he was in most of the House, I should say, because he was their leader.

And so and they've got 124 votes compared to 46 for the Senate.

So they've got a massive numerical advantage.

Well, a lot of the, some very powerful people in the Senate did think that's a bad idea.

Don't think that you should elevate somebody with no judicial experience to the one of the top judicial jobs in the state.

You know, Shane Massey took the Senate floor to speak out against it, which was another like, Gavin Jackson> It's very vintage Massey, in my opinion.

Jeffrey Collins> Yeah.

It was like, let's go back to 2008 and watch him throw bombs.

It was very interesting.

Gavin Jackson> Because he was talking about the perception of, favoritism and this perception of corruption that continues to be discussed, and then to have that revolving door, in a sense, kind of gives that idea.

So but then what happened after that?

Jeffrey Collins> Well, what got missed in that too, is that, Luke Rankin wrote a note, wrote a letter that basically said the same things Massey did.

It just, you know, didn't get quite as much attention because it was in the middle of a massive report.

So what ended up happening is we got one day before the election and few decided to drop out.

Typically, most judicial elections.

That happens quite frequently, like if you have three candidates, the two that realize they aren't going to get votes drop out.

So there's not, so, you know, it just ends in a very happy kind of way, right?

<Everyone gets along> Yeah.

Everybody's happy we're all getting along.

But because Few's an incumbent, that completely voided that race, it's not, it didn't take place.

No elections took place.

They're going to have to go all the way back to the screening process, which in like typically takes six months.

So, you know, they made no effort to start screening.

So there's not going to be a new justice elected this session, it doesn't look like.

So we're going to be running all the way through the end of this year without that justice.

Gavin Jackson> Yeah, because this term is up this summer.

And then of course the going to restart everything.

And it would have changed if he dropped out the day of, versus the day before.

But we love the drama and we certainly got it.

Jeffrey Collins> And it just throws a complete bomb into that race.

I mean anybody, the candidates, anybody can run again.

So we had four candidates this time.

We could have eight next time.

If we have eight, then the Judicial Merit Screening Commission, which does the screening, they have to cool that off by a few.

So suddenly they're going to may have to make a decision.

Well, this candidate cannot be in the legislative race.

Last but not least, Jay Lucas is you know, there's a limit to when judges have to retire.

Jay Lucas is close to that.

He'll be even closer a year from now.

He says he's going to blow right past it.

He says it doesn't apply to me because I'm not taking a pension.

So it's going to be an interesting mess.

Gavin Jackson> And then you really start looking at experience.

If you don't even have judicial experience, and do you make the cut in the first place?

<And that may be more> Sure there's a lot of machinations.

Jeffrey Collins> Oh, just wait until next year when we do all the screening again.

Gavin Jackson> Something to look forward to, Jeffrey.

<Of course> Maayan, you were talking about taxes a minute ago.

When we talk about the budget, and some of it not being fully fund, but kind of drill down a little bit further on what we're seeing with the movement when it comes to taxes.

We're seeing that personal income tax bill, making its way to the governor's desk.

There were changes made by the Senate that the the House was kind of surprised by, but went along with.

Anyway.

So, tell us about that.

Possibly homestead exemption.

And if you really want to get wonky, you can talk about tax conformity.

<Yeah> There's so many things going on this year when it comes to taxes Another bit of a surprise that happened this legislative cycle.

Yeah.

So the income tax legislation is going to the governor's desk.

It's on the governor's desk.

He is likely to sign it.

He's obviously been very, very supportive of any kind of tax cut legislation.

Right.

And this is a bill that not only at least attempts to kind of level the playing field with all taxpayers in South Carolina, but it also has the end goal.

Now, this could take years or decades to completely phase the income tax out.

And as we've noted previously and repeatedly, and I do think it's a very important point, is that the income tax revenue makes up a sizable portion of the state budget every year.

So without that revenue, it'll be interesting to see what that budget looks like and how the budget debates go.

So that is one bill.

You then have the homestead exemption property tax expansion bill.

That is a bill that was pushed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler.

That bill is really, I think, up in question right now.

The House has not done anything with it.

There has been some comments made by the House Ways and Means Committee Chair Bruce Bannister that sort of puts that legislation in question.

Of course, that's a bill for those who are 65 years and older.

There has been a lot of concern about that bill, particularly given the fact that South Carolina is such a growing state and it's growing in one particular age range.

Gavin Jackson> Easy, some of our viewers might be affected by this.

Maayan Schechter> That happens to be a lot of folks who are coming to South Carolina to retire, in part because of the tax structure here in the state.

So, again, you never want to say that you can't be surprised by the legislature because I move on to tax conformity, which we were all told by the House budget chair that they wouldn't probably discuss this bill until after the April 15th deadline.

And then Senate G.O.P.

leaders essentially said, I think, on the record repeatedly, that they didn't have any intention of taking up tax conformity.

And then look where we are.

The House passes tax conformity.

I will mention that that occurred right before they did go on furlough, correct.

But also right before the March filing began.

So they go on furlough.

They pass that bill and then the Senate Finance Committee has now advanced that bill to the floor.

Senator Peeler did say that there are likely to be amendments, so it could very well go back to the House.

But again, it's becoming kind of clear that there perhaps has been some obvious outside pressure, not just from the C.P.A.s, which we've heard a lot about, but also taxpayers themselves who want to see the state, who want to reap the benefits of what the federal tax code changes did under President Trump, so-called one big, beautiful bill.

I think tax policy legislation, which, you know, Maayan at the start of her statehouse career would have said absolutely no way are we going to see this legislation go through.

I remember sitting in every tax policy, ad hoc committee makeup you could think of.

Now we're at the point where these are bills and debates that are really dominating the conversation.

And I should mention they are not cheap, which again, going back to the budget is going to be something where the House and Senate are going to have to figure out what exactly they want to cut.

It also could, you know, potentially impact the want to give out earmarks.

We heard from both chairs that they were going to do earmarks this year.

Well certainly that could have some impact on that.

So the amount of dollars both annual and one time are starting to get much, much, much smaller.

Gavin Jackson> Yeah.

And of course, like we've been talking about, too, on "State House Today" Like we've seen these revenues starting to kind of taper off, too like since the sugar high of the Covid federal stimulus money.

And then of course, with all the growth coming in the state, but things are kind of slowing down a little bit as they've been predicting to happen eventually.

Now we're kind of there.

Of course, this House happens to be the year when they want to do all these tax cuts, which reduces the revenue coming in, too.

So, but of course, it's also an election year where we have on the gubernatorial campaign trail, folks talk about the tax rates we have.

You have folks in this data set up for the election.

You also talk about property versus income taxes, and that's where you're talking about the homestead exemption.

So, it will be interesting to see what actually makes it through.

But of course we know that that personal income tax cut is on the governor's desk.

Homestead might be something for next session.

T.B.D.

<In question> Don't want to say anything, but Joe, let's talk about some of those controversial bills that we were dealing with early in the session from the House.

Talking about the Ten Commandments having to be displayed in every classroom, the abortion inducing pill bill.

And then, of course, where am I going with this, the bathroom bill, too for all public schools and colleges.

This all passed the House again up for reelection this year, but, during the Senate, do we have any idea about where those bills are going and what might be their future?

Yes.

Those are good primary bills for Republican, Republican lawmakers.

The Ten Commandments bill, it's in committee.

I think the Senate majority leader told us that previous iterations of this bill have come through, had a hard time gaining traction or even being enforced.

The bathroom bill, that one pass of, a Senate committee is on the calendar.

It probably will come up after the T.H.C.

bill.

So I think that one will be interesting to watch.

And then you have the the abortion pill, I think, before session started, Majority Leader, Shane Massey said, dealing with mail order abortion pills and trying to restrict those would be something that could be of some interest in the Senate, because they passed a six week law.

They didn't want to deal too much with abortion after that.

But they want to get around this, loophole that they they seen formed.

Gavin Jackson> Yeah.

And reclassifying those, abortion inducing pills like Mifepristone to Schedule IV controlled substance, which is the crux of it.

Then, we'll see some of those other, bills going through because they haven't challenged, too in other states and even within our own state when it comes to the bathroom bill, too.

So a lot to go with that.

We have about five minutes left, and I haven't talked about elections yet, even though we've been alluding to them.

But Maayan really quick, I want to ask you about, charter school oversight.

That was supposed to be a big deal this year, but we also, I guess we're talking about tax dollars being used, for private things, potentially, especially when it comes to charter schools, school choice, education, scholarship, trust funds, whatever you want to call it.

But there was a pretty contentious hearing earlier this session dealing with the state superintendent education when it came to how some of those funds were going to homeschool children.

So, walk us through that.

And what's the latest with that?

Maayan Schechter> So let me just quickly mention the charter school authorization because it really, there is a, there is legislation that is moving through the legislature that really would provide greater oversight, transparency over charter school Authorizers.

That bill passed the Senate, that bill is now in the House.

And we have seen particularly the House Ways Committee, House Ways and Means Committee, and also the education chairwoman, Shannon Erickson, really go at Authorizers, particularly Erskine, one of the biggest ones in the state.

So I would expect, given the fact that you have both chambers that seem pretty intent on, putting a bit more guardrails over the charter school authorizers to see that move through.

Now as it relates to the Education Scholarship Trust fund.

Yeah.

So senators became aware, so did House members.

But senators have taken particular interest in this became aware of the fact that students who were, essentially being schooled at home, were also receiving these stipends, taxpayer dollars through the Education Scholarship Trust Fund law.

Lawmakers have been pretty clear throughout the debate that this money was never intended to go to students who were learning at home.

Now, the Education Department has created this term for this classification of students called "unbundlers."

Senators will argue that you can call it whatever you want.

These are homeschooled students who are taking advantage of these public tax dollars.

When a lot of home school parents, during the debate over this law, specifically said that they did not want the money because they saw that as potentially a road to greater state government oversight, and they don't want that in their child's education.

Senator, Senate Education Chairman Greg Hembree has a bill that will largely deal with this issue.

Remove these so-called unbundlers from the program.

But he has also acknowledged that this bill is probably going to have a hard time getting through, not so much the Senate, because I think the Senate seems pretty unified over the fact that they feel like they were tricked or lied to, but having a serious issue getting through the House.

So Senator Greg Hembree has said on multiple occasions that perhaps the way that they deal with this issue is going through the state budget.

So, for example, the Education Department had asked for, I think it was somewhere in the 60 million dollar range to go over the 15,000 student cap for this program.

The House did not find that.

They only put about 23 million dollars in.

So they can go to that 15,000, excuse me, 15,000, student cap.

But Senator Hembree said in a meeting that perhaps we should not even allow that cap to go there.

So maybe we need to keep the student population, enrollment, population as is right now.

So I think where we're going to see the debate is through the budget.

Now, does that stick when they start negotiating with the House?

A little tricky.

But I mean, I think, you know, the Senate seems very, very unified over the fact that they are not very happy with the education department.

Gavin Jackson> A lot to watch there and Jeffrey, Of course, we've run out of time, but with a minute left, anything that you're, thinking might also be dead for the session?

We talked about in January that some big bills that are dead for the session, but also maybe, some sage wisdom as we enter this election season, what folks should be looking for?

Jeffrey Collins> Well, you know, you mentioned medical marijuana as being a dead bill, but it may come back in the hemp debate.

Let's wait and see what happens.

You know, could be and, you know, election season.

The one thing I'd say about South Carolina is if you're an incumbent, get 50 percent because you don't want to end up in a runoff.

That would be my advice, because you get in a runoff and you got 40 percent, that means 60 percent of the people didn't like you.

So, get to that 50 percent.

Gavin Jackson> Words of wisdom there.

Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press.

Joe Bustos with "The State Newspaper."

Maayan Schechter with S.C.E.T.V.

I'm Gavin Jackson for South Carolina E.T.V.

be well South Carolina.

♪ closing music ♪