STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 22.18 | May 5, 2023
NEWS: Abortion ban is back on the legislative agenda next week
NEWS BRIEFS: School voucher bill becomes $90 million law
LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Plastics
COMMENTARY, Brack: Disappointing session brought on by radical gerrymandering
SPOTLIGHT: ACLU of South Carolina
FEEDBACK: Distinctive building
MYSTERY PHOTO: Send us your thoughts
Abortion ban is back on the legislative agenda next week
By Andy Brack | Next week is supposed to be the last week of the 2023 legislative session, full of pell-mell rushing about the budget and a few bills that have almost made it over the finish line.
But House Republicans next week are expected to upset the political apple cart by again pushing for a six-week abortion ban similar to one ruled unconstitutional earlier this year, Statehouse Report confirmed Friday.
“The male-dominated legislature is hellbent on controlling the decisions of women, going as far as to ram through an abortion ban in the final days of the legislative session,” said Planned Parenthood’s Vicki Ringer when asked about the new development on the continuing debate on abortion. “Lawmakers are scheming behind closed doors without informing the public because they know what they’re doing is deeply unpopular and wrong for South Carolina.”
Ringer warned that fiddling with women’s reproductive health choices would lead to “substandard health care, higher rates of maternal and infant mortality, and more people forced to carry a pregnancy and give birth against their will.
“Politicians in Columbia know the people of South Carolina don’t want this in our state — which is exactly why they refuse to let voters have a say through a ballot referendum and instead resort to shameful political games.”
Backing off a near-total ban
Two sources inside the General Assembly, one Democratic and one Republican, say House Republicans will consider a six-week abortion ban that passed the Senate earlier in the session. To date, hard-right leaders in the House have rejected it in favor of their own near-total abortion ban passed earlier in the session.
But the sources, both of whom asked for anonymity, said those pushing for something more conservative on abortion than the status quo caved to the Senate’s position.
If all goes as expected, the pro-life House backers will push the Senate bill through a Hoiuse Judiciary subcommittee and the full committee Tuesday, and then take it to the floor for consideration by Wednesday.
The session is supposed to end 5 p.m. Thursday. If the abortion bill hasn’t passed by then, there’s talk about pro-life Gov. Henry McMaster calling lawmakers back into session to get it done.
The impact on the General Assembly is expected to be chaotic because of the usual frenzy left with trying to get next year’s budget passed before 5 p.m. Thursday.
The year of ping-ponging bills
Differing versions of abortion bans have ping-ponged between S.C. House and Senate since last year. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that protected abortion across the country. That decision opened South Carolina to enable a six-week abortion ban passed in 2021 by the General Assembly. But South Carolina courts temporarily blocked that ban and the S.C. Supreme Court eventually permanently struck it down saying the six-week ban was unconstitutional for violating the state’s right to privacy. In the meantime, the House twice pushed through a tougher, near-total ban, which was smacked down in the Senate.
Then earlier this year, the House tried again, sending another near-total ban to the Senate (H. 3774). It calls for abortion to be banned at conception, with exceptions for rape or incest through the first trimester, fatal fetal anomalies confirmed by two physicians, and to save a patient’s life or health. Meanwhile, the Senate sent a proposal (S. 474) banning abortion about six weeks after conception to the House.
If the House ends up approving the Senate’s six-week abortion ban soon, look for abortion rights advocates to again sue that the measure invades privacy and is unconstitutional.
- Have a comment? Send to feedback@statehousereport.com
School voucher bill becomes $90 million law
Staff reports | Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill into law Thursday that would eventually allow up to 15,000 students in the state to use public money for private schools, capping a 20-year Republican effort that will reduce money for public education.
“I pushed the notion that parents ought to the the drivers of their education – that education shouldn’t be divided up over who lives in the best ZIP code and who doesn’t,” Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley, said in an Associated Press story.
Vouchers, called “education scholarship accounts” will be available next fall to allow parents and guardians to get up to $6,000 a year in public money to pay for tuition, transportation, supplies or technology at private schools or public schools outside of their district. When fully implemented, the measure is expected to cost the stat up to $90 million a year.
In other recent headlines:
Senate sends bill to governor on lethal injections. The S.C. Senate sent a bill to Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk May 4 that would expand the state’s so-called “shield law” by granting secrecy to the suppliers of the lethal drugs used in executions.
Carolina Squat bill heads to governor. A popular vehicle modification that’s seen across the Grand Strand and Pee Dee, known at the Carolina Squat, is closer to being banned in the state, heading now to McMaster’s desk to be signed into law.
Former governor triumphantly returns to Statehouse. Former S.C. Gov. David Beasley, fresh off a stint as head of the U.N. World Food Program where he helped to raise $55 billion to fight hunger, told state legislators that he took South Carolina values across the world to help people. And in a triumphant address to lawmakers, he pushed hope.
Charleston is coronation celebration site for King Charles III. The City of Charleston is hosting a special Saturday celebration to mark the coronation of the United Kingdom’s King Charles III and the Queen Consort, a ceremony that has been decades in the planning and replanning. The celebration, announced Thursday as the official Southeastern observance, will be held at the Old Exchange Building, 122 East Bay St., with Rachel Galloway, British consul general to the Southeastern United States.
Tickets for IAAM opening week now available. Reservations can be made ahead of the International African American Museum’s June 27 opening through the IAAM’s website. General admission tickets are set at $19.95 with discounted youth (age 6-16), senior (62+) and military tickets available for $9.95.
Plastics
Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate was told the future was in plastics. Seems as if it was something of a dystopian future if you consider what’s going on environmentally today. Cartoonist Robert Arial, always creative and entertaining, offers this take. Love the cartoon? Hate it? What do you think: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Disappointing session brought on by radical gerrymandering
By Andy Brack | It’s been a fairly disappointing legislative session for many because it’s been all about controlling people or extending privilege, not working collaboratively to benefit all South Carolinians.
But that was fairly predictable after years of gerrymandering finally resulted in a super-majority in the South Carolina House and a Senate chamber that is more partisan and divided than ever in recent memory.
Instead of getting out of the cellar of states (Wyoming and us) without a hate crimes bill, lawmakers focused on making South Carolina less safe by pushing forward on permitless carry of guns. Most law enforcement leaders say it’s a bad idea, but the National Rifle Association and pro-gun advocates have their hooks in state lawmakers so deep that logic and reason flies out of Statehouse windows.
“It is puzzling when we are one of only two states without enhanced penalties for hate crimes,” observed Lynn Teague of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. “Are those objecting to this bill afraid that their allies might commit a violent criminal offense that a judge would find was fueled by hatred of a group?”
Instead of protecting LGBTQ+ kids, they pick on them to score political points and marginalize opponents. Instead of treating women with respect, white male Republicans salivate to control them by pushing, pushing, pushing to ban abortion and take away vital reproductive health care services. And do you think they make things easier for unborn children after they’re born? Nope. That’s not in the talking points.
Instead of working to help tens of thousands of South Carolina’s hungry children get free or reduced-cost breakfasts or lunches, Republicans pushed through vouchers for private schools, a pearl they’ve wanted for 20 years to deemphasize public education again.
“My biggest disappointment is not passing the school meals bill,” Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, told us this week. “South Carolina, along with the money already supplied by the federal government, has the funds to feed children in this state. Children learn better when they are not hungry.”
The late U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., proved that in his 1970 book The Case Against Hunger, which led to the development of the federal government’s wildly successful Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. Millions of children have gotten a leg up to economic success because they were able to learn with food in their bellies.
The legislature of 2023 is far different from the legislature of 20 years ago when the GOP had recent control of the House and fresh control of the state Senate. Back then, there were enough moderates in both parties in both chambers to keep the state on a more moderate course.
But gerrymandering after the 2010 and 2020 censuses got rid of many White moderate Democrats and pitted mainstream, country club Republicans against hard-right zealots, who threw the red meat of fear, division, abortion, guns and race at a sleeping electorate too busy to pay attention. The result by this year was a Republican House factionalized by battles between what once would have been considered a pretty conservative group that now faces the hard right Freedom Caucus, whose cry-babying over issues leads to stagnation, capitulation and a weaker chamber where real leadership to represent everyone is becoming little more than a dream.
Teague noted: “Our legislature is behaving just as a heavily gerrymandered body would be expected to act — their priorities are often those of the small segment of the electorate that turns out for partisan primaries.”
In other words, those in the legislature want to control girls and women. They want trans kids and LGBTQ+ taxpayers to suffer. They want to increase control of teachers in public schools, she said.
“This is out of step with every reputable poll of what South Carolinians as a whole want. This is why the General Assembly refuses to send some issues to a public vote in a referendum — they know that the people of South Carolina don’t want what some of them are selling.”
The old phrase is “power to the people.” We need more of that than authoritarian “power to the General Assembly.”
Andy Brack, recognized in 2022 as the best columnist in South Carolina, is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@charlestoncitypaper.com.
ACLU of South Carolina
The ACLU of South Carolina is dedicated to preserving and advancing the civil liberties and civil rights enshrined in the United States and South Carolina Constitutions. Working in the courts, legislature, and communities, we fight for racial justice, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ equality, voting rights, criminal legal reform, and much more. The ACLU stands up for these rights even when the cause is unpopular, and sometimes when nobody else will.
- More: www.aclusc.org
Parents face forced decisions on schooling
By Arnold Hillman, special to Statehouse Report | In life, we tend to make choices that are in our best interests. Most times these choices turn out to be positive. I am not talking about taking drugs, alcohol or smoking. Take a look at your own life and you will see that you have made some pretty good decisions.
Recently, there have been some forced choices relating to education. The choicemasters want to force you to make choices about the schooling that your children are getting in local school districts. The choices that they are giving you is to send your children to a private or parochial school and have your tuition paid by the state.
Most of the private schools have tuition rates that are much larger than the dollars that the state would provide. The parochial schools are a different story. The is no real information about what tuition would be if the “vouchers” were in effect. In fact, these schools do not have to accept your child. [Editor’s Note: Gov. Henry McMaster signed a voucher bill into law this week.]
Let us say that funding is not the only fly in the ointment. Distance is also a problem. How will students, who are leaving their local schools to go to a private or parochial school, get there? Will some business start up to transport the children?
Even more interesting is a new proposal to allow students to go to any public school in your state. There are so many questions about this proposal. The one thing that strikes me as a former coach and athletic director is that now we will be able to poach players from another school district. Wouldn’t that be great?
What about other extra-curricular activities? How about the band director who needs a trombone player. He/she knows one of those kinds of students in a neighboring school district. How about a Quiz Bowl or spelling bee champion? What about poaching students with very high
SAT/ACT scores to enhance your school’s standing across the state. I am sure you could find even more “things” that could be borrowed from another school district.
The students could now offer themselves to school districts that might house them at the home of a booster or even a coach. I wonder how the state athletic associations or even all of the other state associations, would handle that. It certainly would inspire some really interesting business adventures.
So what does this all mean for you as a parent or citizen or just plain folks? What does choice really mean? Can we also have choices in other areas of life? How about in politics? What happens if I don’t like what my state senator or my local representative is doing? Would I then be able to vote for another person in another district. Isn’t this a choice?
Why is it that we are listening to the definitions of choice in education and not in other parts of state government? In a recent school board election snafu, a person ran in one district and actually lived in another district. He really did not know he lived in the wrong district. So what! It was his choice to run in the other district. As foolish as that seems, isn’t that his choice?
There are many choices that we make in life that may not seem OK to others, but are fine with you. So, the above suggestions make as much sense to me, as to allowing any student to go to any school district in the state. By the way, who is going to pay for transportation? This would certainly be a Black Swan event.
NOTE: A black swan event is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight
Dr. Arnold Hillman of Bluffton is a founder of the S.C. Organization of Rural Schools. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Send us your thoughts
We encourage you to send in your thoughts about policy and politics impacting South Carolina. We’ve gotten some letters in the last few weeks – some positive, others nasty. We print non-defamatory comments, but unless you provide your contact information – name and hometown, plus a phone number used only by us for verification – we can’t publish your thoughts.
Have a comment? Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com. Make sure to provide your contact details (name, hometown and phone number for verification. Letters are limited to 150 words.
Distinctive building
A reader sent in this pretty distinctive building somewhere in South Carolina. What is it and where is it? Send us your guess – as well as your name and hometown – to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Last week’s photo – “Green monster” – showed an outstanding, world-renowned topiary garden by Pearl Fryar in Bishopville.
Jacie Godfrey of Florence tells us: “When Fryar and his wife were looking for a house, they faced racial discrimination. Residents of the neighborhood worried that a black couple wouldn’t keep up their yard. After they bought a house, Fryar was determined to be the first black man to win the coveted “Yard of the Month” award from the local gardener’s club.”
Congrats to everyone who identified the photo, including Jay Altman, Elizabeth Jones and John Hart, all of Columbia; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; Mark Partin of Sumter; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Frank Bouknight of Summerville; Bill Segars of Hartsville; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Faith Line of Anderson; Pat Keadle of Wagener; Don Clark of Hartsville; and Wayne Beam of Clemson.
>> Send us a mystery picture. If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
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