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

This week we're holding our annual Sine Die recap episode where we talk about what lawmakers accomplished this year, what they didn't accomplish, and some things still to be determined.

To do that, we're joined by several status reporters, including Jeffery Collins of the Associated Press, Joe Bustos with The State Newspaper, and Seanna Adcox who's the editor of the South Carolina Daily Gazette.

Welcome to you all.

We are missing our colleague Maayan Schechter, because she just had her baby boy the Friday before Sine Die, the last week of session, which made everything more interesting around here.

But we're happy that they are doing healthy, that they're doing well and they're happy and healthy right now, so we miss them.

But Jeffrey, let's start off with what's been consuming all of our lives recently and that is redistricting, the congressional maps.

This is geared up ever since that April 29th Supreme Court decision, Louisiana v. Callais, which we all know does not apply to us.

However, that doesn't matter because that's been really the reason we're here and now, talking about new maps potentially for South Carolina Especially because this is something that we didn't expect to talk about this year at all.

I went back and saw what we talked about to the senators, to House speaker Murrell Smith.

At the beginning of session, we asked him, are we doing redistricting this year?

"No, no, no, no, we have other priorities."

Jump to April, jump to the last week of session.

Here we are.

We are now in a special session dealing with this.

What's the latest on this right now?

> Interesting you said "Happy Sine Die."

Gavin> Happy Sine Die, yeah.

> Because, I've been at the Statehouse every day, every weekday since Tuesday.

And I may be at the Statehouse this weekend.

<We> Yeah, we all may, and we may be there on Memorial Day.

We don't know, but, yes, redistricting came like a sudden summer thunderstorm, and it's just disrupted everything.

And I mean, you know, so how we got here is essentially the Supreme Court decision.

But as you mentioned, the Supreme Court found that gerrymanders based on race are not legal.

But South Carolina's sixth district was drawn based on partisanship on Republican versus Democrat.

And so, the Supreme Court found it legal.

So that's why we all kind of thought that they weren't going to change it.

And then, but then that decision got made and pressure was put on South Carolina lawmakers by President Donald Trump, because South Carolina is six to one Republicans.

They want to get that last seat seven-zero.

And as the governor himself pointed out, when he kind of changed his mind that, that extra seat, who knows, could be the difference between a Republican, you know, led House and a Democratic led House.

And then that turns into will there, will the president be impeached?

Will there be hearings?

All this stuff.

So, you know, obviously, the president decided to put a lot of pressure on lawmakers.

I mean, he has called the Senate majority leaders, Shane Massey told us he's gotten at least two personal phone calls from Trump.

Trump called into the Senate Republican caucus meeting and talked to all the senators at one time.

So where we're at right now is they're trying to draw maps very, very quickly.

This was a process that took 20 plus public meetings in, you know, just after the 2020 census.

And we're trying to do it like they started on this process maybe two weeks ago at the most.

I mean, everything is all blended together now.

So, and they've got to finish it.

There's deadlines.

They got to finish it, early voting starts next Tuesday.

The absolute drop dead deadline seems to be June the 5th, because at that point, they don't have enough time to get another special election in August and then also the general election in November together.

So, this is going to dominate our lives for at least the next week, week and a half, maybe, we'll see.

But, you know, it's like the Hotel California we can check out, but we can never leave.

[laughter] At least not until this is over.

Gavin> Seanna, are you an Eagles fan?

Seanna> No.

[laughter] Gavin> Our resident music lover, no Eagles fan there.

But Seanna, pick up on Jeffrey was saying, because we are here in this special session that the governor called, that we did not expect to happen because he was saying "no," just like we heard from House Majority Leader Davey Hiott saying, "No, we're not going to vote cloture."

Things changed on Monday in the House, kinda walk us through the governor's reasoning here and then also what we saw the House do during some extended debate earlier this week.

> Well, the governor said, it's the legislature's decision.

And, you know, they should debate it, they should decide.

And part of that was also because he didn't have the authority.

A lot of people were putting pressure on him to, you must call them back.

Well, state law doesn't give him that authority until the legislature adjourned without a Sine Die Resolution governing the off-session which opened that window and clearly he got some pressure from somewhere, although he says he did not.

He says he did not talk to the president about it.

But all of a sudden, in perhaps 24 hours, it went from the legislature must decide.

The Senate did decide, we're not putting it in the redistricting.

We're not putting in the special session agenda, To, I'm going to call you back.

Gavin> And then we saw what happened with, that was like 40 minutes after Sine Die adjourned on Thursday, May 14th, house lawmakers were back the next day.

The Senate was in perfunctory after that because they wanted to wait to see what the House did.

So kind of talk to us about the house movements there, too, because they had some long debate days that got shut down pretty quick.

Seanna> In terms of getting rid of, I think it was by the time it was all said and done, more than 600 amendments.

They changed the rules to say, all right, well, only one amendment per person and only three minutes per amendment.

And so all of a sudden, instead of perhaps going on indefinitely till who knows when to debate this thing, they could at least see how to get to a vote.

Well, of course, there were concerns that that violated the Freedom of Information Act in terms of the 24 hour notice, a lawsuit was quickly put together and filed on Tuesday and also quickly dispensed with.

So the threat of perhaps things being put on pause, out the window, the judge not only said, "No, I'm not going to give you a pause on this.

I'm not going to grant your temporary restraining order."

But he went a step further to say, "No, actually, these Freedom of Information Act things don't even apply to what you're talking about.

So, this doesn't have any bearing in my court anyway."

So, but I did find it interesting that he said, "Any future litigation will be in my courtroom," so more litigation is absolutely expected.

Gavin> Yeah, that was Circuit Court Judge Daniel Coble.

I was in the courtroom and, it was funny because he's like, "Here's your camera and the courtroom request back," which we have to, you know, have issued to go in there to cover things.

He's like, "I don't need this back."

And I was like, "oh," it's because we will be back at some point.

Joe, to that being said, just kind of pickup on what Seanna was talking about in terms of that debate as well as what we saw play out yesterday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has advanced the measure now to the floor again, more extended debate.

This is one of the three only public input hearings that we've had compared to the, you know, more than two, close to two dozen, well 31 I think actually, meetings that we had in 2021... I mean, we are just condensing this.

And there was a lot of outrage, but we also heard from folks who were speaking in favor of it, this time and they were actually not running for governor either.

> Yeah, I mean, we, the attorney general and the lieutenant governor submitted written testimony, to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

We saw Paul Dans, former Senate candidate, show up.

And we had a few other people speak in favor of redistricting, even though overwhelmingly those who showed up were against redistricting.

I wanna give a little shout out to Bubba Cromer back in the house who read the entire bill on the floor.

It was... If you, if you have a hard time falling asleep, the soothing sound of Bubba Cromer reading numbers for three hours.

<Enthusiastically> Enthusiastically reading.

Gavin> And all the House members had to sit in their seats and listen and couldn't really even be on their phones too, or talk.

It was wild.

Joe> And the only time they really had to stand up, was do a point of order or to give him a standing ovation at the end.

Gavin> They were allowed to go to the bathroom too.

Joe> Yeah, they were allowed to go to the bathroom, but I think Jermaine Johnson did ask for permission.

So, but yeah, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, they only had that one hearing.

They had more than six hours of public testimony, overwhelmingly against redistricting.

Then they decided, all right, we're going to move this out to the floor.

We weren't totally expecting that, but it was a possibility.

And it was a 15-7 vote, mostly along party lines.

Only Chip Campsen was the only Republican to vote with the six Democrats on the committee to stop it.

Interesting enough, Senator Massey had a prior engagement, so he couldn't be there to vote.

Still would not have changed the outcome, but it's going to start, debate on the floor is going to start Thursday.

And it could go to Friday.

Seanna> Today.

[laughter] Joe> Yeah, today, Friday.

They've been told to be prepared to be there on Saturday and be there on Monday.

So they've canceled, it looks like everyone's been canceling some Memorial Day weekend plans.

Gavin> Yes, indeed.

And I mean, to his credit, you know, of course people had plans like, you know, prior engagements make sense.

But it's interesting too, to hear from the Election Commission Director Conway Belangia, who's also said that, you know, again, kind of echoing the concerns, the red flags that keep waving amid this entire debate.

Just one part of the red flags we're seeing here is that, the tight turnaround for these election workers, the confusion that's happening, the 1600 or so ballots, absentee ballots that are already been cast and returned, how military members overseas are gonna get new ballots issued.

I mean, it just sounds like a lot, a lot of things spinning and not a lot of answers from anyone, really.

Joe> And not everyone's following this as closely as possible, like we are.

And if you're a military overseas voter, you're probably not watching this every day.

You might hear about it once a week, would be my guess.

So you might be a little confused when you get a second ballot for an August election.

Like, wait, I thought I voted in the, for the congressional primary already.

So those, with early voting starting Tuesday, you're going to see the congressional primaries on your ballot and those votes they'll be cast.

They probably won't be counted.

They definitely, we're not expecting them to be reported out.

So we don't know how people performed in those areas.

And then if you don't come back to vote in August, the complaint from opponents of this is those voters are going to be disenfranchised.

Gavin> Yeah, Jeffery, and to that effect, I mean, we're, it's a weird time to kind of talk about this, especially as we barrel down towards, you know, the primaries, June 9th and early in-person voting starts on the 26th of May.

But people still need to cast their ballot.

I mean, what do you think the ramifications this will be.

I mean, people need to know that they can still everything else will be counted.

But if everything goes according to plan, as they think it will be, we'll be having these primaries, congressional primaries in August.

So, I mean, what's the message that needs to get out to people at this point?

Jeffery> Every time you unpeel a little of this, you find out something else that public hearing yesterday was, where was several things that we found that I hadn't thought about before and then they got said.

Sobering was, I was trying to figure out the election director and the best way to kind of characterize what he had to say yesterday.

I think sobering is a pretty good word, because that's, it's a lot of work to put on a statewide election, and they're going to have to do it three times in five months.

And he was putting out warnings.

He says, you know, I think what he said, "It would be overwhelming but not impossible."

I mean, there's words like <Monumental> Yeah, monumental was used.

So there are election workers that are going to be, and poll workers that are going to be working very hard.

I mean, there would be some days that they would be working 24 hours around the clock to try to get all this done.

So there's that component.

There's the component that there's very little room for error.

And so it's not just the election, you know, agency, but it's also their vendors that have very little room for error.

So there's that situation.

There are candidates who have been running for well over a year in a district that may end up somewhere else.

A very good example given by the Mount Pleasant mayor yesterday is Mark Smith, who's running for that open first district seat.

Among the two dozen candidates that are running, he has a huge billboard at the foot of the Ravenel Bridge in Charleston, says, "Vote for me."

These new maps, that's not in the district anymore.

So, you know.

Gavin> And he paid for that.

That's campaign money that people gave him to raise and to use for advertising for these races that are now, well, maybe you're not in this district anymore.

Jeffery> There was a guy who, running as an independent, I believe, was in the second or sixth district, but he was in the district that includes like Chesterfield and that area and, he has to get signatures, thousands of signatures to get on the ballot.

So he's been running around and he has to get them in the district he's running.

So he's been running around.

He said he got chased by dogs, had to stand on top of his car sometimes, getting these signatures.

Well, a bunch of them become invalid because suddenly the map got redrawn and all those, all that work goes out the window.

So I mean, it's just, and ultimately there's just voter confusion.

There's no money right now in the bill to inform voters.

So like if my, more than likely my district's going to change, I'm not going to get a postcard in the mail that says, you know, Joe Wilson is no longer in your district, or you're no longer in Joe Wilson's district or the second district.

I'm going to be told probably, I'm in this different district, but I won't even get like a postcard that tells me that, I'll just have to discover it.

Or as the officials have said, pointing to us and said, "You in the media can let people know," but there's only so much- Gavin> Or the candidates, right?

Like they're at the blast, but again, fundraising because of the way, and these are ramifications like you're talking about that independent candidate.

I mean, you heard from senators on the panel say, "Oh, we didn't think about that."

And you're like, this is just one ramification that, you know, we haven't seen being debated.

We also heard that the cost of this has gone up too, it's roughly six million dollars.

I mean, the commission director said at the first hearing, that House judiciary constitutional subcommittee, constitutional law subcommittee, he's like, yeah, I just kind of, I wasn't prepared to testify.

I didn't have numbers.

I mean, even they didn't give him a heads up about all this stuff.

I know he's been on the job for two months.

We had him on the show.

He's a great guy.

He's been doing this for four years in Greenville.

But like, you know, like they are also doing this somewhat by the seat of their pants here.

Jeffery> And just, I'd be a little skeptical about that six million dollar number sitting in that place.

I mean, like I kind of look at this, this is sort of like an emergency situation.

It's like when you, you know, your air conditioner conks out or the plumbing breaks, they give you an estimate and then they discover it just takes more money.

I mean, I think having to put on this election in such a short time frame, it's just going to end up costing more money.

I just that's almost seems inevitable to me that they won't quite have the cost there.

Seanna> Well, and I also want to assert that does not include county costs.

You know, that's just state costs.

What it costs the counties is a whole other ball of wax.

Plus they may need to offer more money to poll workers who aren't paid very much to be able to get them to come back out again.

Gavin> And then also, I mean, we did see what some of the revisions to the the estimate for revenues to go up.

So maybe they'll take some of the additional revenue to to help out with this one time.

Jeffrey> They may need to.

Gavin> Yeah.

And then also lawsuits.

I mean, we already saw that for that one lawsuit filed and- Seanna> So the House put in a million dollars for each side on the Senate and the House.

But whether that's enough to cover it, who knows?

Jeffrey> There will be losses, many, many losses.

> Well, this has dominated the first half of the show like it has dominated most of the last session.

But so many of the things did happen this session.

Seanna in cleaning the transgender bathroom bill, that's something that, has had quite the arc.

When we look at covering that, we've been covering this for ten years it seems like, back in... Back in, what, 2016, yeah.

When it was first talked about, when we saw it happen in North Carolina, the major ramifications in North Carolina.

And now, you know, it's been in proviso form.

It's been in the budget.

It's been temporarily, enforced somewhat.

But now we have it codified I mean, we've come such a long way and tell us about that journey for this bill and then also what this bill does as law.

Seanna> It's a long journey.

[laughter] So, you know, back in 2016, we actually had Nikki Haley and the Chamber of Commerce go, "Hey, guys, we don't need to do this.

It's unnecessary.

It's bad for business."

And it shut it down pretty quickly.

And the chief sponsor of that bill was in a big primary that year and actually got ousted.

Well, he happens to now be back.

Gavin> Senator Lee Bright.

Seanna> Yes, but two years ago, they put it in as, like you said, the proviso, which I hate calling it the proviso.

Budget clause.

Gavin> One year law.

Seanna> Yeah.

Well, it took, like, a temporary supposedly "one year law."

But those things roll over and roll over and roll over forever.

So when, and that applied only to K-12.

So when they had this big to-do on what, the second day of session this year, of we're going to make this law and we're going to codify it, and it needs to be done to make it permanent, so we don't have to deal with it again, was kind of a bunch of hooey because they don't actually deal with provisos on a yearly basis, anyway.

But it is a different political climate.

It's gotten a lot more attention.

It's honestly low hanging fruit because it can pretty easily pass and they can check that one off.

And it did ended up getting bipartisan support in both chambers.

And the biggest, the biggest difference, you know it largely mimics what's already state law through proviso, is that it now applies to colleges, public colleges.

And it adds an enforcement method of allowing people, if they "encounter" someone of the opposite sex in a bathroom to sue.

With the caveat that to do that, you have to prove that the school didn't take "reasonable steps" to prevent that.

Gavin> Yeah, because that also extends not only to the schools but also the facilities like you know, Williams-Brice- Seanna> Colonial Life, yeah.

Gavin> And you hear a lot of people talk against it saying like they've fully transitioned.

They look like a woman at this point that they're actually biologically on their birth certificate, sex assigned at birth as man.

So it's gonna cause a lot of confusion going forward for something that they say is not really been a big issue.

But I know proponents say it's more of a safety security issue in their opinion.

Seanna> And to that point in the two years we've had it in state law, no one can point to a point to anywhere in public school system where it's been a problem, where there's actually been any pull of state funding.

There has been a lawsuit that was filed in November of 2024, that's still sort of on pause.

Gavin> Going for appeal, so we'll see how that shakes out.

Joe, speaking of provisos and budgets, talk to us about the budget.

What's going on with that?

It's supposed to be finalized, but there's some similarities between the House and the Senate versions that we can point to is, as some, I guess, wins or some knowns at this point.

What's that looking like?

> So some of the big ticket items that get a lot of attention teacher pay, the starting teacher pay will go up to 50,500, that's the same in both budgets.

State employee pay, 2 percent raise across the board, that's the same in both budgets.

Farmer assistance, there's 35 million dollars in each budget to help farmers dealing with the drought, dealing with increased costs.

Money for tuition mitigation is the same in each budget.

How they... how the distributor, how colleges have to react and use it and cut back on programs that don't do so well, or at least unprofitable.

That's a little different.

So that's gonna have to be worked out.

We do have differences on whether to give money to cover the Scout site overruns.

<Right> Commerce asked for 150 million.

Instead, they are getting a review by, by, the inspector general and the Legislative Audit Council They're, the House put in money or at least allowed, allowed DNR and DOT to, like, help review some of those bills and give them permission to pay some of those bills.

But commerce won't be allowed to, say yes, we need to pay that bill.

And I think there's also some differences, how much to spend on transportation projects.

They're close.

It's large dollars, but really not that far off.

So those are some of the key differences.

We'll have a conference committee after redistricting is resolved, at least on the legislative floor.

And that might be after the primaries.

Gavin> I was wondering about, like, I'm thinking, especially when you talk about that Scout money, which we know has been a point of contention, at least in the gubernatorial, Republican gubernatorial primary campaign right now.

So it'll be interesting to see if that comes up after, like, so many other things, which we'll talk about, Jeffrey, in a moment.

But, DOT modernization bill, just changes some things and changes the structure of DOT somewhat, leadership structure there in an effort to streamline things.

Doesn't really change anyway, no immediate fee increases, but we might see some revenue increase as a result of this.

What's going on with that bill?

Jeffrey> Well, start with the boring part first.

Gavin> Yes, please.

[laughter] Jeffrey> It eliminates the DOT commission Gavin> Right, that's a big one.

> And it also has the DOT, the director of the DOT will be appointed by the governor, approved by the Senate.

That starts January 1st when we will have a new governor.

So that'll be an interesting part.

That's the boring part.

The part that actually may change people's lives and everything is that idea that there can be public-private partnerships when they expand roads.

And that also includes toll choice lanes where the left lane becomes your toll lane, and you pay extra money.

The price of the lane increases as congestion increases.

So it becomes a more attractive option.

That's a pretty huge deal.

That's going to be, you know, 10, 15 years from now, that's gonna be the way that they redo 526 in Charleston and that, there won't be any new free lanes, but that one or who knows how many, probably one toll lane will make a huge difference.

And you know, it will change the way people commute.

The tolling idea has worked in Atlanta.

They have some in Charlotte, so it'll and Greenville also will probably contribute to that because they're looking at, you know, 85 congestion and things like that.

The toll lane won't, that idea isn't coming to 26 like any projects currently going on.

Gavin> Maybe the fourth lane not the fith, Jeffrey> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gavin> Spoiler alert.

[laughter] Jeffrey> But it's not going to come to that project to expand 26 to three lanes between Columbia and Charleston and other projects that are right now going on.

The other kicker that is interesting, hasn't gotten a lot of attention, is that DOT is now required to have a pothole app.

<Yes> So if you see a pothole, you report it.

Gavin> Say something.

See something, say something.

15 million dollars to fill those potholes.

Jeffrey> Poke it away on your little app, and they're supposed to have it filled in less than a week.

Seanna> I don't see that happening.

[laughter] Jeffrey> I'm talking aspirationally.

Gavin> If Justin Powell can get that done, than he might run for governor, right.

If anyone's to run for governor.

Seanna> I see them getting a bit "overwhelmed" on that one.

Gavin> Yeah, we'll see how that... I mean, yeah, trying to replicate New York City there, too, but I'm sure, speaking of New York City, a lot of folks who are transplants to this state, like myself, I mean, they have those choice lanes, you know, you can pay for them, so- Seanna> And I will add, there are a lot of people who don't like that.

Gain> Oh, absolutely not.

Seanna> And complain immensely about the Charlotte, the "choice lane" in Charlotte.

Gavin> Everyone wants to fix infrastructure, but no one wants to pay to fix infrastructure.

Seanna, we have less than five minutes left.

Talk to me about charter schools and greater oversight for them.

This has been an ongoing debate ever since we've seen the school voucher program really pick up steam and get some funding behind it.

Seanna> Well, yeah.

So part of the contention has been that, there's been a lack of accountability and that schools that weren't doing so well were just kind of shopping and hopping from one, sponsor to the other.

Well that, the concern over that ramped up when Limestone kind of ceased to exist and they were sponsoring, what, 17 schools and those had to go somewhere.

So, and then you had this inspector general report that said there's some serious issues going on here.

So they put some accountability in there.

You can't hop and shop.

You have to have... you have to have the permission basically from both the existing sponsor and the sponsor you want to go to to try to rein that in.

And it put some, some, authority over at the Department of Education, which previously didn't have any real right to do anything with them.

They just said, "Okay, yep.

We recognize you."

That was pretty much the extent.

So- Gavin> So yeah, some greater oversight there that needs to happen, to make these to work as they want to.

I do wanna say, we have like less than three minutes, I want to mention some bills that also, moved and were signed into law, including an eviction records bill.

So people that have evictions on their rental records will be, those will be removed after seven years.

It's a big move.

Advocates will say, it'll literally open doors for some folks.

The ivermectin bill moved, so you can get that over the counter in tablet form.

A lot of people use it for off label uses.

Besides, you know, for the anti-parasitic benefits of that.

But, Jeffrey, I want to ask you really quick about some bills that are in limbo, including the THC, hemp-derived THC debate.

This was a huge debate this session.

It's still very much stuck between how to regulate these drinks and these gummies.

Again, might happen after the primaries.

What does this bill do?

Where is it right now?

What's the status of this?

Jeffrey> Typically in the legislature you have two options: a House option and a Senate option.

Now we have three because the House gave us two different options.

In the end so the Senate bill would it would put THC drinks, the strongest drinks would have to be sold in liquor stores.

Less potent drinks would have to be sold, could be sold anywhere that has a beer and liquor license, beer and wine license.

So it could be a convenient store.

The house has two different versions.

One would, ban hemp drinks for people under 21.

A second would ban everything.

So with three options, it becomes a lot harder to get a majority.

So right now they're trying to work it out in conference committee.

They got time because obviously we're just doing redistricting right now.

But I think the fate of that bill is uncertain.

And that bothers people because there are no regulations right now.

Gavin> Yeah, a complete ban or 21 or- Jeffrey> Or wild west.

I should say that's the fourth option.

Nothing and the wild west.

[laughter] Gavin> Where we are right now.

Joe, there's a DUI bill that's also in limbo, but we don't have time to talk about that as well as the Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act.

Some bills that didn't move, the Ten Commandments being required to be displayed in all schools in the state, the abortion inducing drug bill also failed, as well as abortion movements this session despite a last minute push, and then also data center regulation also failed.

But we did see that those internet service providers do get a tax break on their sales tax for equipment they purchase.

However, that bill prohibits it being applied to data centers.

So we're going to see a lot more movement on data centers I think going forward, as a lot of people talk about that, too, We don't have time to talk about the election.

But I'm not going to ask you for predictions either, because that's not our job.

Everyone's like thank you for that.

We're more worried about redistricting.

We'll probably be talking about that when we see you guys next.

That's Jeffrey Collins of the AP, Seanna Adcox with SC Daily Gazette, and Joe Bustos with The State Newspaper.

Thank you guys so much.

And thank you for tuning in this week.

I'm Gavin Jackson for SCETV.

Be well South Carolina.

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