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

This week, the 2025 legislative session is over.

And we have assembled an all-star cast to talk about what passed, what's in limbo and what is still being finalized.

And to do that, I have Jeffrey Collins with the Associated Press.

Mary Green with WIS-TV.

And Maayan Schechter with South Carolina Public Radio.

And Joe Bustos from The State Newspaper .

Welcome back, gang.

We did it.

Maayan> We're here.

Mary> Finally.

(laughter) Jeffrey> Super friends.

Gavin> Jeffrey, I want to start with you with the most seniority at this roundtable.

Tort reform was the sexiest topic that everyone wants to talk about.

But a lot of folks were learning about tort reform for the first time this year.

It's the top of the mind for a lot of folks, especially in the Senate, where it really dominated several weeks of coverage over there.

Kick us off with what happened with that compromise bill that is now going to the Governor and what it might mean for bar and restaurant owners.

> If money equals sexy, then it was by far the sexiest topic at the statehouse.

It was a lot of money poured into that sucker this year.

So what they did is, you know, we started the session with grand plans, at least among some people, to do a massive overhaul of the civil lawsuit system in South Carolina.

What we ended up getting is we got a pretty substantial change in what's called "liquor liability."

And that's, you know, restaurants and bars that serve alcohol after 5 p.m. have to have a million dollars worth of insurance.

And, you know, since that law has been put in place several years ago, insurance rates have skyrocketed.

Restaurants and bars are having to close.

So the deal that got struck, is that you still have to have the million dollars, but you can cut that down that, that minimum, that floor, by doing things like having server, alcohol server training.

IDs to scan, you know, scanners for IDs if you close before midnight, if you only serve, if 40 percent or less of your, sales are in alcohol.

So that will hopefully, the, supporters say that will reduce the insurance rates.

And that was the big cry out.

Now on the other side, there is, talk about how and they did also make some changes in the way that, you know, lawsuits, settlements and judgments are paid out.

So judgments especially.

So, what, you know, South Carolina, there's a system where if you're in any way responsible, even in the smallest amount, you could be responsible for the entire award.

If not everybody can pay.

So if you sue like a restaurant, but you, then you sue an individual who declares bankruptcy or another out of... bankrupt business.

In the end, you could be responsible for the entire amount.

Even if a jury says you're only one, two, three percent responsible, they've shifted that back.

So I you know, I have no law degree, I only watched L.A. Law.

But they did shift it back to where, where you aren't going to be on the hook for the whole bill if you do have only a small amount of responsibility.

Gavin> Kind of like a bar that serves you know, someone who's been drinking and driving goes to different bars, has different drinks, and they all get dinged with the same amount versus one that really probably overserved the person in the first place.

Jeffrey> Exactly, right.

And you know, they didn't get everything they wanted.

Medical malpractice is still out there, you know, to reform those rules and some other lawsuit rules.

But the House says it's done.

They said they're fine.

They feel like they handled tort reform.

The Senate's not so sure.

So we'll be back talking about this again next- Gavin> And it's interesting too, because we did see the House come out swinging with just that aspect of liquor liability.

Passed that unanimously to really help bring relief to those bar and restaurant owners early on and pressure the Senate.

And then, we actually got a compromise and that was something to see.

Jeffrey> They managed to compromise after, you know, the Senate spent several weeks on this.

It was the, by far the dominant feature of their session.

Gavin> Yeah.

So Maayan let's go from a big bill to the biggest bill, the budget bill.

14 billion dollar bill, which is still being debated right now.

It's gonna be a conference committee with House and Senate lawmakers.

We got rid of Crossover Day this year.

Sad to see it go.

It's kind of an arbitrary deadline the month before the end of session.

And they also got rid of conference committees after sine die, the last day of session.

So folks aren't drawing out this session because sometimes bills get pushed and they say, well, we can do it afterwards in a conference committee.

But one bill like we're saying is the budget.

So talk to us about what's in the budget, what folks are looking to do with it.

And I know there's some additional money that should be coming as well.

> Yeah, I can't tell if I miss or love the fact that we got rid of the crossover deadline.

There were parts of it that I definitely would have appreciated perhaps, this week.

But, right, so the budget is really the last thing, and in large part because the Board of Economic Advisors, the budget forecasters or revenue forecasters for the state won't meet until May 20th.

And that's when they release new revenue projections.

And obviously, that's important when you're putting together a budget that takes effect July 1st.

So they'll be back May 20th, and then the legislature is expected to come back the week of May 28th.

So just some of the similarities between the House and the Senate.

And these are obviously kind of the big headlines.

Teacher pay, both agreed to raise starting pay to 48,500 dollars.

Joe, you reported this week a little bit about the health insurance premiums for state employees.

They'll cover that.

School resource... school resource officers, this became a big deal.

The Governor has been really pushing this, and he got very active on social media over the last several months about trying to get more money in the budget.

The House initially puts substantially less, and part of that was because they were still figuring out the school districts that were paying for these SROs on their own.

So that the state wasn't necessarily providing the entire, cost amount.

But in the end, it sounds like the House and the Senate have come to an agreement over that.

And they've also agreed already, and this is locked in the capital reserve fund, which pays for big capital projects.

That is on the Governor's desk, and he should be signing that any day.

And that pays for, capital projects like the USC Neurological Hospital.

That's a, that's a big deal.

There are definitely some disagreements.

And if you look at the spending plan, I mean, this is really granular.

But when you look at the state spending plan, you can see ones everywhere.

And that of course, that was explained the other day, but that just means that it's kind of a holding place to say, here are the areas where we definitely need to, kind of negotiate, how much we want to spend.

And that includes tuition mitigation, which lawmakers have been over the past several years, really big on putting more money toward colleges and universities to keep in-state tuition low.

Provisos, those little pesky little one year budget attachments we all love to cover.

Money for bridges, DOT.

House put in more than the Senate did.

Disaster relief is another one.

And debt service.

I think that's probably going to be one of the biggest, pots that we're going to see a lot of activity and a lot of conversation over.

Gavin> Yeah, and they have had strong revenues coming in, and we expect to see more too like you said on May 20th.

But, a strong year compared to, you know, questionable economic outlooks going on.

Maayan> Yeah.

I mean, I think everybody has said we're not in that kind of pandemic era where we were just seeing a flood of money come in from the federal government.

So we are probably plateauing a little bit more.

But of course, you know, a lot of lawmakers will talk about the fact that the budget is growing.

But, of course, I think it's important to mention that the state of South Carolina is also growing alongside that.

Gavin> You can see that on the roads, you're talking about.

But really quickly, Maayan, before I go to Mary... No earmarks.

Maayan> No earmarks.

Gavin> Pork.

Maayan> Pork, community investments, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah, that was sort of a last minute surprise.

That was really publicized first by the Senate Budget Chair, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler.

And then, of course, we saw that joint letter between him and Bruce Bannister, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

I think there is a bipartisan frustration, at least, that we heard on the House floor this week, from lawmakers who are upset because, of course, you know, a lot of this money, yes, there are projects that, these dollars would go toward that were probably a bit questionable.

You weren't really sure if it was actually performing the duties in which it said, but a lot of the money was going to law enforcement, to road projects.

You know, Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto was telling reporters the other day a homeless shelter.

So there's a lot of frustration, particularly from lawmakers who represent poor, low income rural areas.

Where that money was super important because they just don't have the tax base to keep up with it.

Gavin> And then also when we talk about funding, which we'll talk about federal funding in a minute, like we don't exactly know how that could affect these programs and initiatives at the local level, too.

So, Mary, you want to talk about the major education bill that we saw pass.

There's a lot of big education bills that happened this year.

We talked to House Education Committee Chairwoman Shannon Erickson about a lot of this, too.

But, tell us about that final bill.

What happened with the vouchers, or should I say "education scholarship trust fund."

And what that means for students in the state?

> Well, the name really depends on who you ask.

Cause that is, like you said, the proper name is the Education Scholarship Trust Fund Program.

It's what a lot of folks refer to as the private school voucher program.

So this is a program that last September, the State Supreme Court struck down.

It essentially would give certain families below certain income thresholds, state dollars, public dollars that they could use on a variety of expenses.

But the big intention is so they could afford private school tuition.

State Supreme Court says "No."

"This violates the State Constitution's ban on public dollars directly benefiting private and religious schools."

They didn't strike down the entire program, but they struck down that provision, which really, again, was the key element, the reason for the program.

So a major priority of Republicans coming into this session is figuring out a way to get around that ruling and reinstitute this program and specifically that allowance on private school tuition.

So there are a few different ideas floated around throughout the session.

The Senate first, you know, was up to bat, and they passed a bill that would have funded it through lottery revenues.

It went over to the House.

The House said, "No, we're not going to do that.

We think that's maybe not the best way."

So ultimately they compromise.

The funding mechanism is what the House had put into its version of the bill, which is saying there is no funding mechanism that is specifically outlined in the bill.

Every year, it's going to be up to the General Assembly to decide how to pay for it.

Right now, to Maayan's point, still working out the budget.

And the House and Senate have different funding mechanisms included in the budget for how they'll go about it.

But it does definitely leave the door open to the possibility that, once again, we will see a voucher program that is funded with money from the general fund, i.e.

taxpayer dollars, which is what the State Supreme Court just struck down several months ago.

So the Governor signed that into law.

Just earlier this week on Tuesday, the final week of the session.

They did include another, you know, significant change depending on how you look at it, that they think will work around the ruling last year.

And they instituted this new position that they're calling "the trustee."

It's a person outside of state government who would be appointed by the State Superintendent of Education to essentially manage the funding.

They... House Education and Public Works Committee Chair Shannon Erickson essentially came up with it and said, this is something that Chief Justice John Kittredge referenced in his dissenting opinion on that ruling that they think addresses the constitutionality question.

We are waiting, inevitably, this will be hit with another lawsuit.

<Yes> See where this goes and will all, in all likelihood, be back before the State Supreme Court to figure it out.

<Yeah> Is this constitutional?

Gavin> So we'll see if it even goes into effect at the beginning of next school year.

If it even works- Mary> That's the goal of it.

Gavin> Joe, we had a historic moment this year during session in the Senate where, Senators voted 33 to 8 to remove State Treasurer Curtis Loftis over that 1.8 billion dollar accounting error boondoggle.

However, you want to describe it.

They made that case in the Senate Chamber, like, you know, a hearing that, we saw that one Monday.

It was very fascinating to see play out, because that is also something afforded in the State Constitution that they can do to remove him if they think that he's not fulfilling his duties of his job.

So, but we saw that play out in the Senate, and it was toward the end of session, but we didn't see the House do anything with that.

So any word from House leadership if they're just going to leave it hanging like that?

> Yeah.

So when the Senate passed it, it was with three weeks left in the session.

It went over to the House.

The House said, "We have other issues that we want to get done."

And it turned out that the calendar for at least this year was Curtis Loftis' biggest ally for keeping his job in 2025.

And then yesterday, at the end of the session press conference, Murrell Smith, the House Speaker, said "We have no appetite to take it up at all."

So, the resolutions probably just going to send it to Ways and Means, and nothing is going to happen with it unless, we'll see what happens with the SEC investigation that's out there or the Inspector General investigation that's out there.

But Murrell Smith said, "It's going to be up to the voters on whether Curtis Loftis keeps his job after 2026."

So, we'll see if anyone else runs for the Treasurer job.

Gavin> Yeah.

It makes it sound like they're going to try and get someone in that primary too.

The way we hear from those lawmakers.

Joe> We need to know.

That's the other question, like who will step up in the Republican primary to challenge Curtis Loftis, who has deep pockets who is willing to spend a lot of money to stay in that office?

Even though he said a few years ago "He wasn't going to run."

He wants to protect his legacy.

So he's back in the race.

And I didn't think that Treasurer's race would be a big, big race to be following into 2026.

Maybe it will be.

> Yeah, that's one more thing to watch.

I know, Weston Newton, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman asked us, "What are you guys gonna do in the off session?"

It's like, we got campaigns... (laughter) like, we're going to have plenty to do.

Jeffrey, a big thing that is heated up too is energy reform.

We're talking about that.

That's been a big issue as well.

We saw that die on the vine last session, 2024.

Came out swinging in 2025.

But that bill got passed this past week as well last week in session.

What does that bill do?

What is that going to mean for maybe the average electric consumer in the state?

> It's, you know, some of the consumer protections ended up getting stripped out at the end.

So, or some of the things that, that the folks that follow consumers wanted out of it, so.

But the key that it does, and probably the most important thing for South Carolina's future is it allows Dominion Energy, which is privately held, and the public Santee Cooper folks, to join forces and build a 2000 megawatt power plant in Colleton County.

That's something that the utilities have said they need because, you know, South Carolina is running out of power as it continues to grow.

Data centers come around in everything.

So, you know, the supporters said that was the key part of that bill.

You know, there's also some things that got stripped out of it talking about on the consumer side of things.

There's some people wanted protections.

So like if utilities need to come in with eminent domain and take your land, that you get some more warning about that, that was taken out.

There's also a program where, the, the utilities can charge, instead of charging one big rate increase or one, relatively speaking, after four or five years, they can charge you each year a smaller amount.

Kind of like they do with your power bill.

Like if, you know, you can pay a flat amount, but your power bill and then eventually it settles out.

Well, that would be what they want to do.

Some people say that's just going to allow the utilities to just charge a bigger, bigger rate increase ultimately at the end, because they can do several smaller ones.

And the House was fully back to this, you know, they, they supported it.

They probably drove the train on this and everything Senators, and again citing my senior status here, Senators still remember the whole V.C.

Summer nuclear debacle and they, you know, they're nervous about Dominion getting together with Santee Cooper.

They're nervous about some of these other little programs.

They're nervous about ceding any more power, so to speak, to the utilities.

So, I think there will be a very watchful eye on all of this, but we'll just see how it shakes out.

Gavin> And we're still waiting to see the future of V.C.

Summer 2.

Something we would never thought we'd be talking about back in 2017, that 9 billion dollar boondoggle.

But again, going back to the need for electricity and energy in the country, and the state.

We're talking about, you know, big data centers too, that consume so much.

It's almost like a chicken and egg situation, too.

Jeffrey> And yes, and so, you know, the state's taking offers for someone to come and take over V.C.

Summers and, you know, restore, you know, start the process again, you know, and build the thing.

And so, there's a lot of steps between here and there.

So we'll have to see how all that shakes out.

But just the fact that we're talking about it is pretty interesting.

And you know, you mentioned data centers, and that was part of the key to this too.

You know, the Senate wanted some sort of limits on data centers.

Maybe they need to pay for their own, more for their own power.

Maybe they need to be limited in where they can, you know, build right now.

The House didn't go for that.

So it's not in the bill.

That's another thing that's giving Senators a little worry.

Gavin> And that's really what's driving a lot of this demand for the energy, too.

Jeffrey> Very much so.

I mean, yes, South Carolina is growing fast but those data centers take up I mean, you're talking like the huge like Carolina Forest subdivision's amount of power used by a data center.

Gavin> Yeah.

Maayan, We have about ten minutes left here.

I want to ask you about another big topic.

And that was, lowering the state income tax.

We saw a huge, big rollout, big, beautiful rollout of lawmakers, the Governor, both House and Senate Chambers, and everyone's talking about lowering the rates for income taxes, trying to get it really down lower to be more competitive with our neighbors.

But that seemed to have fizzled out.

What, what happened there?

And was there anything that got salvaged from all that?

Maayan> And I'm going to invoke my seniority and say, I remember covering Tommy Pope's tax policy subcommittee... Jeffrey> Which one?

(laughter) > So, yeah, no, this was actually kind of interesting.

Obviously, so the House really wanted to go after the income tax, which provides about 44 to 45 percent of the revenue to the state general fund, which is a pretty big deal.

And they came out with a pretty big plan, which would have dropped the top rate down to that 3.99 percent.

They wanted to create a flat tax.

The argument being so many people in South Carolina, so many filers are not paying any income tax.

And it's unfair, and it's unfair to everyone at every single socioeconomic, economic level.

They wanted to flatten it, make it more fair.

But what it turned out was that state estimates said that that would probably raise taxes on nearly 60 percent of filers.

And as you can imagine, as we all saw from so many lawmakers across political aisles, that was just not going to happen.

And the criticism was so loud, so powerful and aggressive that the House Ways and Means Committee really went back to the drawing board to figure out, all right, what is a way that we can achieve our goal to make it flat, to make it more fair, but also do it in a way where we're not increasing taxes for, people in South Carolina who are truly, just really struggling right now with both inflation and other, you know, federal costs and state costs.

And so they go back to the drawing board and what they ultimately decided to do was to create this progressive flat, then zero tax.

It was kind of interesting.

So by lowering the top rate down to that 5.39 percent.

So if you have an income of 30,000 dollars or more, you would pay that top rate.

If you have, if you, sorry, filers with taxable income less than 30,000 dollars, you would pay that 1.99 percent.

And then eventually if income revenues are still pretty solid, it would get down to zero.

The argument being that, you know, they all want to eliminate the income tax altogether.

But if you do it too fast, that means you really have to cut the budget.

And as we all know, again, as I mentioned, the income tax revenue is about 44, 45 percent of the state general fund.

Most general fund money pays for health care costs and K through 12 education costs.

So, when you're talking about completely eliminating that huge pot of money, you're talking about deep budget cuts, and you have to figure out which pot do you want to pull that from?

So the House passed this new bill, in the last week of session and very late at night.

And now it'll be the Senate's turn.

And as Joe likes to remind us all the time, and Senator Harvey Peeler, he's never seen a budget cut or, excuse me, a tax cut that he can't find a way to go even, go even lower.

So we do definitely expect the Senate if they do take this up next year, as Senator Peeler has indicated, that it will, it will be lower.

But it's interesting.

It'll be interesting to see if they do get down to zero which I'm not entirely sure, I don't think anyone's been able to give us a projection of how long that would take.

Joe> It may take a minute.

Maayan> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gavin> A "Senate minute."

Maayan> Yeah.

And, so...

Right, a "Senate minute."

So what does that look like for the other revenues.

And I think Ways and Means Chair Bruce Bannister has kind of been clear that they probably need to start looking at, you know, sales tax among others if they're going to completely eliminate this, huge pot of money for them.

Gavin> And again, we are, this is the first year of the two year session.

So bills that didn't move this year are still alive.

And we'll revisit them in January.

Like that tax plan we're talking about.

But Mary, one big bill that did get through was another education bill.

And that was the Educator Assistance Act.

It's kind of wonky, but it's supposed to really help, teachers, with retention and recruitment.

Tell us about that.

What's in that?

> This was the key priority this year for our educator assistance groups across the state.

And it is essentially the baby legislation of House Education and Public Works Chair Shannon Erickson.

She has been wanting to get this to the Governor's desk for years.

It kept getting hung up in the Senate, but finally, just this week did get to the Governor's desk.

He signed it into law, and it will go into effect some parts of it this July, other parts of it next July.

But it's a big win for teachers.

Essentially, to give some background on how this whole process works in South Carolina, public school teachers sign their contracts in mid-May, but as opposed to pretty much every other profession, they have no idea when they sign their contracts, how much they'll make, where they'll be working, specifically at what school, even the subject matter they'll be teaching.

And that can be assigned during the, reassigned during the school year.

So they might, which we saw in Richland County the other year, that teachers are reassigned in the middle of the school year from one school to the other, and there's nothing they can do about it.

If teachers break their contracts, they could see their license suspended for a year.

Which is obviously a huge issue to try to find another teaching job.

So what this does is it reform...

It reduces a lot of the burdensome paperwork that they were saying was really bogging them down to help with that recruitment and retention.

But it also reforms the contract process.

So essentially, when teachers are still signing their contracts in mid-May, districts don't know how much their budgets will be because as has been mentioned, the state budgets not finalized and that's a huge portion of their funding.

But when teachers would sign their contracts going forward, it would have a general estimate of here's how much you'll be making.

It is subject to change, but they have at least an idea.

And then it also would require that districts give teachers notification at least 14 days before the school year begins on what their assignment is.

As far as the school where they'll be working, the subject they'll be teaching.

So they have that going into it, and it makes the process a little tougher for them to get reassigned in the middle of the school year.

Gavin> And gives a little bit more trust in teachers.

We have less than five minutes.

Mary, I want to stick with you for another bill.

A big one, that was S.2 was dealing with, restructuring some of our health care agencies in the state.

This bill died last year over some contentious political happenings.

Those were put aside this year for different reasons.

But tell us about S.2 and what agencies are being consolidated, restructured and what some folks might be seeing out there.

Mary> Well, it's definitely a massive restructuring of state agencies.

It has really kind of slid under the radar.

But again, signed into law by the Governor a few weeks ago, it's in effect now.

It essentially combines three existing state agencies into one.

It's called the new Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.

I'm still getting the hang of what this apartment is, but it combines the departments of Mental Health, the Department of Disability and Special Needs, and Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services, DAODAS.

These are agencies that have a lot of crossover between the folks they're serving, but had been really serving folks in silos and not communicating with each other to best serve South Carolinians.

A study a few years ago found the state has the most fractured health care delivery system in the entire country.

Several agencies doing the work that in other states just one department is doing.

The other big thing is that under this new agency, the director would be appointed by the Governor to essentially give a little bit more control if it's heading in a direction that folks don't like.

The Governor obviously is elected.

And, they'll let the Governor know, if they don't feel that this person is doing a good job.

Gavin> Oversight there, too.

Joe, I want to go to you about a bill that I think a lot of folks need to know about, will know about when they get pulled over.

If they're holding their cell phone while driving, we passed that, you know, no texting and driving law a couple of years ago, but that was never really easy to enforce because if a cop showed up, you're like, "well, I wasn't texting," but you were holding your phone.

Now that's being phased in now to get rid of people from being distracted while driving.

So hopefully, also lowering some insurance rates too.

> So basically it says don't hold your phone while driving.

Gavin> Stop.

Joe> Stop doing it.

Get a bracket.

I have a bracket in my car for my phone.

It will go into... if it's signed by the Governor, which it probably will be go into effect September 1st.

And then there's six months worth of warnings that you'll get to put your phone down.

And then the first fine is 100 bucks and the second fine is 200 or 250 dollars or 200 dollars.

My favorite thing about this bill, it says don't... you can't look at motion pictures or moving pictures.

So please stop doing your zoom calls while driving.

Gavin> Or watching a video while driving.

<Yeah> Mary> Shouldn't be doing that in the first place.

<Yeah> Gavin> Jeffrey, we have less than two minutes left.

I want to ask you just about, overall, the vibe of the session.

When we talk about the House specifically, we've seen a lot of, some infighting some differences of opinions.

But how would you sum up the session, thus far?

Especially when we look at House Speaker Murrell Smith, what he has to deal with, with all those members in that chamber.

Jeffrey> I mean, you know, the composition of the House didn't change that much as far as the groups go.

I mean, there's the same amount of Freedom Caucus people, same amount of Republicans, same amount of Democrats.

So so there was a similar vibe to last year, but it just seems like things are, get a little more testy as time goes on.

Because everybody finds their points and kind of like an old married couple their annoyances just get bigger and bigger because they're always there.

And so, I mean, they did, you know, Murrell Smith, the Speaker would tell you that they did accomplish some things and they did pass some bills, but in part because the Republican majority outside of the Freedom Caucus is large enough, they can still do whatever they want.

So it'll be interesting to see as long as this keeps going.

I mean, it's a different vibe in the House than it was under Jay Lucas when they were still dealing with Bobby Harrell's, you know, being indicted and things like that.

It was a happier time.

Now, you know, they're at the point where I think everybody's just kind of there's a power vacuum in, not a vacuum, but a struggle.

So yeah, it's just it's a different vibe.

Gavin> But also still, I mean, a pretty successful year, I would say in some of these major wins for the caucus.

Jeffrey> The caucus will show you, they showed us a sheet of paper yesterday with a bunch of green checks, because they feel like they accomplished what they were looking to do.

Gavin> Things that they can use when they run for reelection next year.

We'll see how that plays out.

Well, that's all the time we have.

What?

Something else?

Jeffrey> 2026, big election year.

Gavin> Stay tuned folks.

Oh my gosh.

Stay tuned.

Thank you Jeffrey Collins with the Associated Press.

Mary Green with WIS. Maayan Schechter with South Carolina Public Radio and Joe Bustos with The State Newspaper .

And thank y'all for watching for South Carolina ETV I'm Gavin Jackson, be well South Carolina.

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