SC Legislators must still return in coming weeks to finalize state budget
By Jessica Holdman
SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — South Carolina legislators wrapped up a pair of bills in the final days of the legislative session that, a week before, seemed doubtful of becoming law this year. Without agreements reached on insurance relief for restaurants and a sweeping energy package that paves the way for a power plant in the Lowcountry, accomplishments for the 2025 could have been short.
Instead, the chambers’ ruling Republicans touted Thursday getting most of their goals accomplished, when including this week’s deals with last week’s compromise on state aid for private K-12 tuition, and stiffer penalties for professional shoplifters, which passed in March.
“You measure your success on the substance of bills that pass, and we really concentrated on big-ticket items,” House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, told reporters.
“There are certain things that we had to get done, and we addressed those things,” said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield.
Meanwhile, a House GOP priority to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs across state government and private contractors passed that chamber but got nowhere in the Senate. And a Senate initiative to remove State Treasurer Curtis Loftis from office for his role in a $1.8 billion accounting error was never addressed by the House.
While mainstream GOP leadership took a victory lap at the session’s conclusion, Democratic leadership and members of the ultra-right House Freedom Caucus referred to the 2025 session as “uneventful.”
The next court challenge
“In the big picture, we did not do any momentous legislation that’s going to be remembered long after this year,” said Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto.
That is, unless the voucher bill survives an expected court challenge, which the Orangeburg Democrat told reporters he doesn’t believe will happen.
“We don’t think that that should be in the future in this state, and certainly don’t believe the bill is constitutional,” he said.
Massey, however, said “I feel much better this time” about the new scholarship program’s chances before the state Supreme Court. “I think we corrected those things” that led to the high court’s ruling last fall that ended private tuition payments as unconstitutional.
Gov. Henry McMaster signed the latest private school choice program into law Wednesday. A lawsuit is considered imminent.
Rep. Jordan Pace, R-Goose Creek, who leads the Freedom Caucus, said he thought the Legislature didn’t go far enough to address conservative priorities, calling it a year of “wasted opportunities.”
The budget
Legislators must still return in the coming weeks to finalize the state budget that takes effect July 1.
The House and Senate so far agree on raises for teachers and funding for more police officers in schools. Plus, state employees won’t be asked to pay more for health insurance. Differences the chambers must sort out include the use of debit cards for the purchase of lottery tickets, whether or not to allow colleges to raise tuition on an incremental basis, and a possible pay raise for legislators.
House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford called continued increases for teachers a bright spot of the session.
The budget includes an additional $112 million to raise the minimum salaries for all K-12 public school teachers by $1,500. That means first-year teachers in the coming school year can make no less than $48,500, marking a 72% increase since 2017.
“People always act like education is not important in South Carolina and I disagree,” said Rutherford, D-Columbia, who sits on the House budget-writing committee. “It’s obvious where we put our money, and that is toward education.”
One big change from previous state budgets: This year’s package won’t include any spending requested by legislators for local projects, or what’s called earmarks.
The decision comes two years after total earmarks soared to $713 million. While last year’s tally was smaller, at $435 million, Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler called for a one-year hiatus in an effort to reign in the unvetted spending. Some pushed back, arguing the freeze leaves small and rural districts behind.
Peeler said the spending could be decided through a competitive grant process in the future. Hutto said he’s fine with that, as long as there is a process to fund community needs. Massey, who helped lead the charge for transparency in earmarks, called the lack of such local funding “a huge win.”
What passed?
Among legislation that McMaster’s already signed into law is a bill merging three health agencies that provide services for people with mental health issues, disabilities, and drug and alcohol addictions.
Passage comes a year after a larger merger attempt, which involved three additional agencies, was successfully blocked by the Freedom Caucus in a chaotic close to the 2024 session.
Other signed bills include legislation upping the number of family court judges in the state, stiffer penalties for professional shoplifters, and an educator-endorsed bill pledging increased teacher pay transparency, job stability as well as more planning time.
Bills passed in the waning days of session that await the governor’s signature include a hands-free driving law to deter scrolling behind the wheel. Without passage of some kind of hands-free law, South Carolina risked losing $40 million to $80 million in annual federal highway funding.
Legislators also passed bills setting rules for South Carolinians who rent out their personal cars to earn extra cash, requiring labeling of lab-grown meat, and a final-day compromise on a measure to criminalize the use of technology to morph children’s photos into pornographic images.
And in a flurry of last-day confirmations, the Senate appointed a new head for the state’s child welfare agency. Tony Catone, acting director of the state Department of Social Services, will now move into the role permanently.
“I have full confidence that (Catone) is the right person to build on the agency’s critical work to strengthen families and protect our most vulnerable children and adults,” McMaster said in a statement following the confirmation.
Still, senators have refused to confirm McMaster’s pick to head the state Department of Public Health. However, Dr. Edward Simmer of Beaufort remains the agency’s acting head indefinitely, unless the governor nominates a replacement.
When it comes to legislation, the governor has no plans to veto any bills sent to his desk, according to spokesman Brandon Charochak.
He did send a warning, however, ahead of the chambers’ budget negotiations: If they send him a budget with the House’s proposal loosening strings attached to additional state funding for universities that freeze in-state tuition rates, the governor will use his line-item veto powers to strike that, Charochak said.
McMaster has said he will not support any measure that raises tuition for South Carolina college students who choose to attend one of the state’s public higher education institutions.
What’s next?
As the first year of a two-year session, any legislation that did not pass both chambers can still be taken up in the new year.
The 2026 session will likely start with work on a GOP plan to restructure state income taxes.
This year started with House GOP leadership putting a “historic” tax cut as their top priority.
Following major pushback on an initial plan that would have actually raised taxes for nearly 60% of tax filers, House leaders advanced a revamped plan. It would cut taxes for more filers than would see an increase in the first year while calling for continued cuts to flatten and eventually eliminate income taxes at some point in the future.
The House sent that over to the Senate this week.
The 64-47 vote was closer than most in the GOP supermajority chamber, as members of the arch conservative Freedom Caucus joined with Democrats in opposing the bill. Members of both caucuses said the plan didn’t go nearly far enough in cutting income taxes, which account for nearly 45% of the state’s general fund revenue.
Rutherford, a longtime proponent of legalizing gambling and marijuana, told reporters Thursday he believes doing both would generate enough revenue to slash income and property taxes.
As for senators’ priorities for January, Massey hopes to take up stiffer penalties for drunken driving.
“Our DUI walls are really weak,” he said after session ended. “There are a lot of people being hurt and killed because of them.
And an effort remains to allow a casino near the southern shore of Lake Marion.
While the proposal is likely to face fierce opposition, particularly in the Senate and from the governor, its advancement to the House floor shows a new willingness by Republicans to consider legalized gaming in a state that has historically resisted any change to anti-gambling laws.
Rutherford said he’s “wholly disappointed” that nothing related to gambling passed this year.
Beyond the casino bill, other proposals that stay alive for next year would legalize online sports betting and, more narrowly, allow betting specifically on horse racing through an app.
Also, as part of compromises on energy and liquor insurance, legislators agreed to continue work in the off-season to develop new, stand-alone legislation to address those provisions excluded from the bills passed this week.
That includes how South Carolina plans to address energy-intensive data centers that are driving the need for more power generation in the Palmetto State.
S.C. Daily Gazette reporters Skylar Laird and Shaun Chornobroff contributed to this article.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the S.C. Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier. S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
