♪ Gavin> Welcome to This Week In South Carolina , I'm Gavin Jackson.

This week we're previewing the 2025 legislative session with House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford and Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, who joins me in studio right now.

Sir, welcome, happy New Year.

Happy session.

Sen. Massey> Yeah, man.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Gavin> And we didn't have to separate you two it's just a scheduling conflict.

Sen. Massey> I understand.

Gavin> But, Senator Massey, I want to, talk about the legislative session, some priorities for the, the Senate Chamber and what we're going to kick off, what we're going to see happen next week.

Including this school voucher bill that is primed and ready to go.

Tell us about that bill and how you see that moving right out of the gate.

Sen. Massey> Well, you know, just a few years ago, this is one of the top issues for us in the Senate, especially the Senate Republicans.

Because we've been hearing, especially after Covid, a lot of input from parents all over the state about wanting more school choice options.

And so a couple of years ago, we decided to move forward with, creating education scholarship accounts.

We target it primarily to poorer children.

And really, those are the only people who could qualify.

You had to be in public school.

You had to be lower income in order to qualify.

We, we did a lot of work on that a couple of years ago, spent a lot of time looking at other states that had targeted it.

We got it done.

And then we had some setbacks with the court, of course.

So, we've been looking at the Supreme Court opinion and spending some time on it and think we got a fix now.

So we're going to try to come out of the gate with that.

Gavin> Yeah.

That's what we were talking about.

We saw the Supreme Court in September make their second ruling when it comes to using, public dollars for private education.

They found that unconstitutional with our state constitution.

How would using the state educational lottery funds be different than taxpayer dollars, which is what's proposed in this forthcoming legislation.

Sen. Massey> Yes I think the, the effort right now is going to be to mirror the process that we use for our college scholarships, for our Life and Palmetto Fellowship Project, which have been very popular across the state, for the last, really about 25 years.

So we're going to mirror that program that has worked well, has not been challenged.

And if it works for colleges, we think it'll work for K-12 as well.

Gavin> So it's gonna withstand a challenge, in your opinion.

Do you think there's going to be speed bumps when it comes to amendments or changes to it?

Or what's it gonna look like when it comes to floor debate?

Sen. Massey> Well, I expect we'll have a pretty rigorous debate in the Senate.

We always do on, on things like that.

But we had some committee conversation about it and, you know, we're coming out of the gate with it.

It's the first thing, we have a lot of new Senators coming in.

I expect we'll have a good bit of debate.

They'll probably be plenty of amendments for us to consider as we go as long, go along as well.

But, but I'm, I'm optimistic that the Senate will get something passed on that.

Gavin> And when the House sees the Senate working, some would say, as faster than the House, they must maybe take that, some heed to that.

I mean, there's money in the budget already for the past education scholarship trust fund.

There's $30 million or so.

So it's been funded in a sense.

And that... that money will obviously be moved around, I guess, because that's no longer there.

But, will the House take notice, are you working with the House?

Are they aware of the speed that you guys are trying to get this done and the need for this?

Sen. Massey> Yeah.

So I have a very good relationship with the speaker.

We talk regularly.

We try to communicate about what, what's the House going to be doing this week?

What's the Senate going to be doing this week?

Make sure we're not over, overstepping each other.

But also, it's good just to know where, where each side is headed.

But we have a great working relationship.

They know we're going to be taking these things up.

And so, they're taking a little bit of a different approach first, letting us go with this issue right off the bat.

Gavin> Has that always been the case?

Working like... communicating.

I mean, is this new?

It sounds like, you know, it makes the most sense to, to people when you see both chambers with these supermajorities Republicans.

But I'm sensing it's not.

Sen. Massey> I don't know that it's always been that way.

I've tried very hard to, to create that type of relationship.

Speaker Smith has, has really tried to create that relationship as well.

I know he speaks with President Thomas Alexander a good bit too.

So there is a very good relationship, I think right now between the House leadership and Senate leadership.

We talk regularly and we have very honest and candid conversations.

So that's good.

Gavin> And, Senator, when you look at that relationship within the State House, the Governor's obviously a great, team player when it comes to a lot of things too compared to some previous, governors that we've had when it comes to working with the state legislature.

When you factor all that in here at the state level, when you look at what's going on at the federal level with Congress, with the Senate, now with the White House.

How do you see some of that trickling down when it comes to impacting South Carolina and the role that we'll be playing and how we fit into all that?

Sen. Massey> Well, I, you used a good word.

I use the word trickle down sometimes as well, because I have seen that happen during my service in the Senate, that the, the Washington political environment does trickle down to, to South Carolina.

But, you know, and I tell people this a lot back home, South Carolina is not Washington.

Columbia is not Washington, D.C., ...what you see on television, on the national news and the, just the rancor and the vitriol that you see out of the US Congress, is not what happens here.

As you know, I mean, Senator Nikki Setzler, who is a former minority leader in the Senate, he and I used to do joint press conferences at times.

We get along really well.

We don't always agree, sometimes we have some pretty spirited debates.

But we get along really well here.

And I tell people lots of times, South Carolina's too small to hate people, especially ones that you're going to see, pretty regularly.

So we work well together.

We have our fights, but we come back together.

And that has allowed us to have some good communication to move things forward.

Gavin> I guess besides that, you know, the, the political nature of that new, situation in Washington.

But what about, what kind of benefits do you think we can see as a state when it comes to, you know, Senate, Senator Lindsey Graham being over the Budget Committee and talking about reconciliation with them, trying to move a lot of President elect Donald Trump's priorities forward.

How do you see the role South Carolina plays in, in Washington going forward and how it could benefit us?

Sen. Massey> I think South Carolina has always played a, I mean, we've always punched above our weight class, really.

You know, we've always had some very strong representation up there.

And if you look back before Senator Graham and Senator Scott, when we had Senator Thurmond and Senator Hollings, who had been there for a long time, everyone knew who South Carolina's representatives were, and we had an influence.

And I think we're at that point now as well, where both Senator Graham and Senator Scott are having significant influence on the Senate side.

Our congressional delegation on the House side has significant influence.

We definitely are more influential in South Carolina than what a lot of other larger, more populated states are.

And it's because of the guys that we have and ladies that we have there, and we have some great quality representatives.

Gavin> And I should also mention that Tim Scott is also the Banking Committee Chairman too.

So that's important.

But let's get back to Columbia and talk about what other issues you want to see move forward in the chamber after school, the school voucher bill go through.

Sen. Massey> So we're going to start off with education of course.

But then after that we're going to be dealing with some criminal justice and just some public safety issues.

There were a few things that got hung up last year that we just didn't quite get across the finish line.

Things like... preventing retail crimes, dealing with gang activity.

We hear about this a lot from law enforcement across the state, but local law enforcement and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division about gang activity.

We want try to stiffen the penalties there, give law enforcement more tools.

And then additionally, this is something we've been dealing with for a number of years, and we're still we're still struggling with it, but that's fentanyl.

And the impacts it has on South Carolinians, all races, all classes, all, you know, all socioeconomic classes.

It knows no particular, victim.

It's open to everybody.

So we're trying hard to get at that, we're going to take some more efforts there to be stronger, with that.

Then, we do have a big effort underway to try to address some of our tort laws.

We hear a lot about liquor liability, but the issue is much bigger than that.

This is something we've been hearing about from our business and industry for a number of years.

And I think we're in a position now, especially on the Senate side, to be able to take up those issues, address them.

And of course, energy is hanging out there.

<Yeah> That's going to be a big conversation.

I think we're going to still continue to do a lot of committee work in January.

Hopefully we'll have something out on the floor in the first half of the session that we can we can take this up.

But that's a big issue as well.

And and with these issues right here, we're into at least mid-February.

Gavin> Sure.

And when you're talking about that retail crime law, organized crime, we did see that bill move out of both chambers to, to a conference committee at the end there.

But it never really got beyond that.

So is that going to be something that we can see some differences be resolved here?

Sen. Massey> I hope so.

There were, there really were just a few small issues that held that up.

I think we can resolve those.

And then also, you know, elections tend to have consequences.

And some of the issues were resolved by elections.

So I think we'll be able to take a stronger effort there because, look, you know what you've seen around the country in some places is some organized smash and grab, people breaking into stores or even coming in when the stores are open and stealing stuff and walking out.

<Yeah> And we need to have stronger penalties there, and I think we can get that done.

Gavin> We have about three minutes left, and I have a couple things to ask you, including energy.

We're talking about this, this never ending need for more electricity in the state.

And when we look at what happened at the V.C.

Summer boondoggle, that $9 billion, nuclear expansion that never really took off, but ratepayers are still paying for.

How do you mesh that with the needs for energy in our state?

We're talking about data centers, advanced manufacturing as well as just trying to keep up with it and with the legislation that's been proposed that got stuck in the Senate that passed the House last year.

Where does that bill go going forward?

Because there has been a lot of work in the off-session, offseason, dealing with this, this situation.

Sen. Massey> You're right about that.

We did a lot of work in the fall on the issue.

This is a hard one.

It really is, this is a hard issue to deal with, because it is very consequential no matter which decision you make.

But you're right.

We're dealing with all those things that you mentioned that there is more demand for energy because South Carolina's growing.

We're growing not only with people, but also with business and industry.

And we're getting more data centers, as you, as you referenced and they use a lot of energy.

On the other hand, especially for Dominion and South and Santee Cooper customers, co-op customers, we're paying for V.C.

Summer, for the next 15 years or so, and we're not getting anything out of it.

So you've got to try to balance that.

One of my big concerns is I don't want those customers to have to pay any more, than they have to pay.

I want to make sure they have the power they need, but I don't want them to pay more than what they what they have to pay.

So you try to balance all those things out.

It makes it very difficult.

We did a lot of work in the offseason.

We're going to continue working on it.

I'm optimistic we'll be able to move something on that this year.

Gavin> Yeah, it's gonna be a big lift too but something that everyone wants to see.

You did mention that, you know, there have been some, consequences as a result of the elections.

We have seen your chamber get more conservative.

There's also 13 new members.

That's not just Republicans, but that's across everyone.

So we'll see some changes happening there.

With that being said, do you see some more conservative legislation moving through the chamber, social legislation when it comes to abortion, for example?

We are at a six week abortion ban right now on the books.

Do you think we could see that come back up again now that you have maybe stronger numbers and a supermajority in the chamber?

Sen. Massey> Well, I'll just say, you know, we went through the priorities and you heard what our, our top priorities are.

We were really focusing on a number of the criminal justice, public safety, financial issues, educational issues, things that we hear about the most.

I don't know that I can tell you that social issues won't come up, but I do think that there is a real effort this year to get at some more of the bread and butter issues, financial issues that we hear about from South Carolinians all over the state.

Gavin> Is that, been a message that you've sent to your your caucus as well, saying, "hey, let's get through some of these bigger issues first before..." Sen. Massey> It's really a message that the caucus, each Senator has sent to each of us collectively.

It's not really a leadership driven, top down approach, which is not really how we operate in the Senate either.

But, I think there's a real consensus in the, in the Senate to move those priority issues that we have.

And then, you know, we'll see what comes up.

Something's always going to happen that we have to react to.

<Yeah> But those are the issues we're going to start with.

Gavin> Yeah, a lot, a lot to look at.

We'll be talking throughout this session that ends in May.

So a lot to come.

That's, House, Senate, sorry... Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, thank you so much.

Sen. Massey> Thanks, Gavin.

Gavin> Joining me now is House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford of Columbia.

Todd, thanks for joining me.

Rep. Rutherford> Thank you for having me.

Gavin> So Todd, we just spoke with the Senate Majority Leader, Shane Massey, about what the Senate Republicans top priorities are and plans for the new legislation, new legislative session.

What are Democrats looking to do in the House, where Republicans have had a supermajority and Democrats only hold 36 of the 124 seats.

Rep. Rutherford> What Democrats are looking to do is what we're always looking to do, which is take care of the people of South Carolina.

And what that looks like is making sure that education is across the board.

It is for everyone, not just for those that are attending private school, but for public school students as well.

It is to make sure that businesses can continue to come to South Carolina so that South Carolina can continue to grow.

And by that I mean that we've got to take care of our energy generation.

We've got a big, huge, partially finished nuclear plant that we need to look at, at fixing up to get it to the point where we can start producing electricity from it.

That's the only way we're going to get our electricity rates to a point where we can bring in new business and also have the generation that we need, to supply that new business.

So we've got across the board looks at things.

We're going to make sure that people are taken care of, because that's what Democrats do.

Gavin> Todd when you talk about energy, we're talking about that big bill that the House Speaker was pushing through last year, made it through the House, got stuck in the Senate at the end of the session.

Sounds like they're going to pick up the ball this year and work on that, possibly moving that forward later this year, I guess maybe in February.

But when you talk about- Rep. Rutherford> Not possibly, I can guarantee you the House is going to move that forward.

I've got a companion bill that does similar things, except it doesn't change the PSC commission down to five, which his bill does.

But that is something that all leadership agrees is necessary.

We know because we try and recruit businesses to South Carolina.

And in doing so, one of the things they talk about is energy, the need and keeping it cheap.

Gavin> How do you do that with V.C.

Summer though, that $9 billion boondoggle that ratepayers are still paying for?

Do you have to get someone in here like a Google or a major corporation, to pick up the costs and, and cover those costs in terms of revamping that those nuclear reactors that went nowhere.

Rep. Rutherford> It's complicated.

But the complication is met by our our desire to make this work.

And we are now in a time where you've got data centers that need energy.

You've got Three Mile Island coming back online because of the desire by Microsoft, Google, to make sure that they have the energy they need in order to work.

South Carolina has the wind at our back.

We've got Scout Motors, which is going to be right up near that area.

They need energy.

As we continue to recruit people to South Carolina, businesses to South Carolina, we've got something that is going to turn out, I believe, to be an asset, and that is this nuclear plant.

I don't know how much it would cost to fix it, but there are multiple parties interested in looking at it because they know how much, how much desire there is for the power that it could generate.

Gavin> I was at the South Carolina Economic Development Summit today.

The Governor spoke there, and he was also talking about this need for energy.

Everyone's talking about that, of course, with advanced manufacturing in the state your talking about data centers in the state, huge plans.

He even briefly mentioned coal.

And I know we've been seeing a lot of coal plants go offline.

Do you think there's a need to bring back coal at this stage?

Rep. Rutherford> I don't think there's a need to bring back coal.

I think natural gas would be the next step down from nuclear, if we're not going to do nuclear.

We're going to do the math and we're going to make sure that the math works.

Democrats are going to make sure that we don't have a baseload, act part two.

But we also are going to make sure that the people of South Carolina have their energy needs met.

We've had, we've got industry looking at South Carolina, we've got industry looking at building plants here, but we know that we can't service them with our current electric, set up.

We can fix that, I believe, with looking at that nuclear plant and also looking at things like natural gas.

Gavin> And Todd kind of keeping with politics before we get into some more of this policy.

At times it seems like Democrats and Republicans in both chambers are cordial enough to each other.

But of course, there's also frosty debates at times on the floor.

Do you see a lot of cooperation?

Are these some of the areas that we're talking about where there could be cooperation, bipartisanship when it comes to energy and reforms like that?

Rep. Rutherford> You know, I continue to tell people that this is not Washington.

We are not here to fight with one another.

We are not here, to try and play gotcha politics.

We are all here to make South Carolina a better place.

And in looking at our progress in the past, I believe we've done exactly that.

There are going to be those things that we disagree on, like vouchers.

They're going to be things that we disagree on, like some of our tax cuts.

We believe I think that tax cuts should be done with property taxes, not just income taxes.

We are carefully stepping into the future, making sure that not just Democrats are taken care of, but Republicans as well.

Not just private school students, but public school students as well.

And we think that with a meeting of the minds and some disagreement, we can get things done.

Gavin> Then the House Republican leadership, you know, I know you're talking about not trying to be Washington.

They continue to say that they're not trying to be Washington, but there are, fractures in that caucus when it comes to Republicans and the House Freedom Caucus.

Do you feel like that caucus is affecting things to the point where we are becoming Washington from your Democratic point of view?

Rep. Rutherford> No, I don't think that the Freedom Caucus is going to drag us into being Washington as hard as they may try.

And it's interesting when you look at the things that they talk about, they talk about freedom.

They're not interested in freedom.

They're not interested in doing anything other than shining for themselves and standing out so that they get all the acclaim if it comes.

If you want to talk about freedom, then talk about things like I bring up where "stingrays," license plate readers, they don't, they don't care about anything like that.

They could care less about South Carolina.

They only care about themselves and trying to shine the light on them.

And that's why they don't tend to last long.

Gavin> Todd you prefiled about 80, 81 bills, I believe, so far, ahead of the session, starts on Tuesday.

A lot of them have to do with criminal justice reforms as well, like you're talking about right there.

Do we need to see more of that?

I feel like there was a lot of momentum after George Floyd died in 2020.

We did see some changes when it came to the Criminal Justice Academy.

But do you think that that momentum is kind of, waned in a sense?

Do you think it needs to come back?

Do you think there are some things that need to be done this legislative session, even including things like asset forfeiture, which had a lot of momentum years ago, but then just kind of disappeared?

Rep. Rutherford> Gavin, I think that South Carolina and I know that we were on track to do sentencing reform and other things like that prior to George Floyd.

I think some of George Floyd kind of derailed that because you see some push back now in terms of some of the progress that we had made.

The reality is right now in South Carolina, it cost us about $32,000 a year to house an inmate in the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

That is, in my estimation, is not money well spent on a lot of the drug offenders that we have in there.

You have jails around this state which are overcrowded, and the Richland County Detention Center, where in the capital city in South Carolina, someone died of acute dehydration.

We can do better.

We're going to have to do better, because what is not calculated into that risk are the lawsuits that come along with that.

When we don't treat people the way that they're supposed to be treated.

We have got to look at criminal justice reform.

And in doing so, we can look at DJJ, which on any given day, I believe, supposed to house about 70 of our children and their housing 140, 144.

They are well over capacity and it is a time bomb waiting to happen.

And so if we don't look at criminal justice reform, all we're going to do is continue to battle lawsuits Gavin> And Representative, when we're talking about that, we're talking about, you mentioned sentencing reform.

We did see that happen at the federal level under President Donald Trump.

It did not happen here in South Carolina, though it was moving.

So when we talk about what's happening at the federal level with President elect Donald Trump going up there, we see the trifecta going on in the legislative branch, the executive branch, our state's been a Republican state too.

Do you think that we're going to see some sort of changes at the state level now that everything's kind of in play for Republicans?

Does that worry Democrats?

What can you guys do in the future, especially after this tough election cycle?

Rep. Rutherford> I don't think it worries us.

I think we've got to look at where the citizens... the citizenry of South Carolina wants us to go, and that's our that's our first mission.

That, to a great degree is our only mission.

And that's why we are talking about tax cuts.

We're talking about things that apply more freedom to South Carolinians, like medical marijuana, like gambling, those things that people tell us overwhelmingly that they want and that this state needs to provide.

We also talk about things like sentencing reform because we recognize that you can't just keep money coming in the front door if all you're doing is shuttling right out the back, paying off lawsuits and paying for things that you shouldn't be taking care of.

And so Democrats are on top of this, we're going to make sure that South Carolinians get treated the way that they should.

Gavin> And then when we talk about some policy here, we're going to see the Senate fast track a school voucher bill, right at the start of the session here.

And this comes after a second State Supreme Court ruling finding voucher laws that have passed before unconstitutional.

The Senate Education Committee is proposing using South Carolina education lottery funds as a workaround here.

Do you think that will skirt the Constitution enough?

Is it legal?

Should this be a referendum if people really want school choices this badly?

Rep. Rutherford> Because the lottery money is not actual taxpayer money, it's kind of a volunteer tax.

They may actually skirt the Constitution with that.

But I don't know that they will skirt public opinion.

Public opinion suggests that we should not be taking government money and giving it to private schools and simply giving it to parents that send their kids to private school.

If that's where you want to send your child, you should pay for it.

We have public school demands and needs that we have to meet, and I believe that if we're going to spend lottery money, it needs to be in public schools.

And so how they choose to give that money to rich people, sending their kids to private schools, I don't know what they're going to come up with, but it is disappointing to see that money go out the door when it needs to go to our public school system.

Gavin> Yeah, last year was about the tune of $30 million, and that's set to grow too based on how that law is going to phase and depending on what their law looks like.

So, but when you talk about that Todd, when you talk about the needs and we're talking about tax cuts.

How do you balance these needs from agency requests you're talking about education needs as well, How do you balance that with also the strong budget revenues that we've been seeing from the growth in the state and calls for income tax, property tax relief?

Where do you think those calls are going to go this session?

Rep. Rutherford> So those calls are going to be met and they have to be met.

Because when you look at our neighbors to the north, North Carolina, when you look at our neighbor to the west, Georgia and Florida, they have a tax plan that looks better than ours.

And it is hard to recruit industry when people are able to sit back, look at, look at the surrounding territory and say, "hey, I'd rather go to Georgia because I can save money by going there.

My executives can save money by going there."

And so we are going to be competitive.

And part of the way to be competitive is with a competitive tax rate.

So it's not just that we just want to give money back.

It's not just that we don't believe that that money is needed.

It's that if we want to keep growing, if we want to keep the wind at our back, we have to be competitive with our neighboring states.

Gavin> So what's the speed bump there?

Because we always talk about this, and we have seen our income taxes go down by a point, you know, a tenth of a percent every year because we've had such strong growth.

But what... what's blocking more from being done?

I mean, obviously you're in the minority here, but if you also support a lot of this, then what's what's the speed bump here?

Rep. Rutherford> The speed bump gets to be that we need the revenue.

You'll see a Freedom Caucus proposal, I believe that do away with all the income tax.

Well, in South Carolina that provides us with about $9 billion in revenue.

And we use that money to take care of things like schools and prisons and roads.

So you can't just get rid of it.

It's something that we would not have to do if you did not see the competition from other states.

But with that competition, we're going to have to meet that.

We're going to have to deal with it so that we can continue to be competitive.

The speed bump continues to be that revenue could be used for, say DJJ, it could be used for the Department of Corrections, it could be used for the Department of Mental Health.

So it's not that we don't need the money.

It's not that we're so good that we can give money away.

It's that in order to continue to grow, we've got to recognize that and meet that where it is.

Gavin> Todd, we've about two minutes left.

I want to ask you a couple more questions, including one on medical marijuana.

You've prefiled a bill about this.

We've also seen, Beaufort Republican Senator Tom Davis really make this his charge over the past few years, trying to get this bill across the line.

He got it out of the Senate in 2022, but it died in the House on a technicality.

It doesn't seem like there's as much momentum, in his court, in his chamber to get this back over to the House.

What, what makes this such a heavy lift?

What do you think could happen this year when it comes to medical marijuana?

Rep. Rutherford> I'm embarrassed to be in the South Carolina House of Representatives not having passed a medical marijuana bill.

This is something that almost every state in the country has recognized is necessary for people's freedom of their health care.

Not only that, the number of veterans that we have in this state that suffer from PTSD that could possibly benefit from access to medical marijuana.

And as I tell people all the time, if you're not interested, don't use it.

But if you believe that, it may help you, if a doctor believes it may help you, the fact that they can't prescribe it, but they can prescribe an opioid which is nothing but synthetic heroin, makes absolutely no sense to me.

And about 70% of the South Carolina electorate.

However, we haven't done it.

We need to.

It's hard to say kind of where the will of the body is going to be with so many new members in both the House and the Senate.

So we'll get a chance to see that a little bit later on when we put our finger in the air.

But right now it's still something that we absolutely, desperately need.

Gavin> And talking about other states that have passed laws are on the books that are not on South Carolina books.

We're talking about hate crimes law, the Senate, there's a bipartisan bill that the the House has passed that the Senate has blocked multiple times over the years dealing with hate crimes.

It's named after Senator Clementa Pinckney, who was one of nine murdered ten years ago, coming up this summer, at Mother Emanuel AME Church.

Senate Republicans who are blocking it, say there is no need for additional laws when it comes to this and also that it could infringe on free speech, which as the way it was written last year, could not.

Now the ten year anniversary of that horrible tragedy, is in June.

Will we see this pass?

Does this hate crime bill need to pass?

Rep. Rutherford> This hate crimes bill absolutely needs to pass.

And if they don't feel like it's necessary, then let's see after we pass it.

And if we don't feel like it's necessary, then, then we can get rid of it.

But what we know is that in Charleston, South Carolina, the catalyst for a number of these states to do exactly that, to pass a hate crimes bill happened right here.

And it happened because, as you mentioned, nine people got killed in a church, one of them a member of that body.

For that body to continue to act like hate does not exist.

For that body to continue to act like other states are wrong in passing hate crimes law and passing a hate crimes law.

It's, it's disheartening.

It's embarrassing.

It's something that we need to get around and make happen.

Gavin> We'll have to leave it there with House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford.

Todd, thanks so much.

Rep. Rutherford> Thank you.

Gavin> And thank you all as well for joining us.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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