South Carolina Statehouse Blog

As you know, South Carolina’s state legislature has just ended its 117th session a couple of weeks ago. Therefore, no new bills will be coming out until the next session starts in January. In order to pass the time, we here at SC Statehouse Blogs have decided to interview some of the legislators about how they felt this past session went. For this article, I was able to interview Representative Paul Agnew and the following is based off of that interview.

The Good

To start the interview, I asked Representative Agnew about which bills he was glad to see become law. One such bill was House Bill 4662 which mainly eliminated the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT). The elimination of the PACT will allow for a new test to take its place “that will give quicker results and useful diagnostic information to help teachers meet the needs of students.”

“Teachers have longed asked us to eliminate the PACT and find a more responsive and useful test,” Agnew continued, “We feel that we accomplished that and responded to their needs.”

Another piece of legislation that Rep Agnew is glad to see pass is House Bill 3496 that tackled DUI enforcement reform. This bill enhances the penalties of driving under the influence while getting rid of a lot of technical requirements that make enforcing this law difficult for police officers.

One of the biggest issues tackled this year by South Carolina’s legislature had to deal with illegal immigration. While there were several bills that came up during this session that dealt with this issue (including Rep Ballentine’s), House Bill 4400 was the main bill that everyone focused on.

Though this bill was a fairly large bill, there was one part in particular that interested everyone and that was the part where this bill required employers to check and see if their employees are here legally. Though many people thought it wouldn’t happen this session, this bill did eventually get signed into law.

Even with H. 4400 successfully becoming law, Rep Agnew believes more needs to be done.

“I’m hopeful that the Federal government will address this issue in the future because it is a growing concern.”

The Bad

During this past session, Rep Agnew also felt that there were several bills that should have become law. One in particular is House Bill 3567, which would have increased the cigarette tax from $.07 to $.57 a pack.

The fact that South Carolina has the lowest cigarette tax in the nation and it hasn’t been changed since 1977 were a couple of the reasons why Rep Agnew supported this tax increase. To give some perspective on the issue, Rep Agnew stated that the national average was about $1.13 a pack.

Representative Agnew continued to explain that half of the revenues from this tax would have gone towards premium assistance for employees of small businesses while the other half would have went towards Medicaid to insure low income families and uninsured children.

“Estimates suggested that we would have insured an additional 200,000 South Carolinians under the plan who cannot afford health insurance,” Agnew stated.

Though this legislation passed both the House and the Senate, Governor Sanford ended up vetoing this bill. The House was unable to get the necessary two-thirds votes to overturn what Agnew described as a “misguided veto.” However, Agnew is hopeful that they will be able to address this problem come next legislative session.

Another bill that Agnew wished would have passed was Senate Bill 398 which dealt with payday lending. Though this bill passed in the Senate, it stalled in a House subcommittee, thus killing the bill for this session. Agnew felt that this bill was needed in South Carolina to protect its citizens.

“Other states have banned outright the practice [of payday lending],” Agnew explained, “I would have liked to seen us take some action to either limit it or ban it outright.”

The Conclusion

Rep Agnew pointed out that even though this was a tight budget year, they were able to get some good things done. For example, the legislature was able to fully fund the Education Finance Act along with giving state employees a 1% pay increase and fully funding their insurance increases.

“We did many good things on limited dollars to better education, increase job opportunities and improve the quality of life for our citizens here,” Agnew explained, “It was a year filled with many successes but also some disappointments in that we did not pass some legislation that we would have liked to see succeed.”

Representative Agnew is running unopposed in the November election and is “honored that [his] constituents have seen fit to send [him] back to continue to represent their interests.”

In order to keep you up to date on the various bills we have covered over the past couple months, here is a list of those bills along with whether they were passed into law or not. Mind you, some of the bills that “Didn’t Pass” were passed in either the House or the Senate but never made it to the Governor’s desk.

Passed:

• S. 970 (Rep. Crawford Speaks About HIV Bill)
• H. 3355 (Senator Kevin Bryant Discusses New Abortion Law)
• H. 3528 (Representative Michael Pitts on House Bill 3528)
• H. 4364 (Rep. Michael Pitts on Handgun Possession)

Didn’t Pass

• H. 4451 (Rep. Ballentine on State Educational Aid for Illegal Immigrants)
• S. 398 (Rep. Haley on Deferred Presentment Act)
• H. 4356 (Representative Nathan Ballentine speaks about Earmark Disclosure)
• H. 4892 (Representative Haley on Energy Efficiency Bill, Bill 4892)

Well the 2nd session of the 117th South Carolina General Assembly has ended and so does our coverage of different bills and legislation happening up at the South Carolina Statehouse. Does this mean we here at SC Statehouse Blog won’t be posting anything until January? Not at all.

In the following weeks, we hope to conduct interviews with several legislators about how they thought this past session went. This will allow them to give us a somewhat “self evaluation” of their actions over these past couple months.

What bill do they wish would have passed? What bill do they wish would have died in committee? What are their plans for next session?

All these questions and more will hopefully be answered. Keep checking back with us to find out all this information.

With the current condition of the economy, many states, including South Carolina, are taking matters into their own hands. Just a couple weeks back, Representative Michael Pitts and Representative Jeff Duncan conducted a trade mission to Germany. The goal of this mission was to meet with several businesses to discuss their future operations in South Carolina. Representative Pitts was willing to talk with me about the trip and the following article is based off our discussion.

This trip was sponsored by South Carolina’s Department of Commerce and, as stated above, its goal was to try to get different foreign companies to either commit to come to South Carolina or commit to continue their current operations in South Carolina.

One company that Representatives Pitts and Duncan met with was Körber, a precision machine producer.

The scheduled 30-minute meeting with one of the owners of Körber ended up stretching into a “couple of hours of good conversation.” During this conversation, the owner described how the Körber company is limited in its physical expansion in Germany so the ability to expand in South Carolina is a huge benefit to them.

Not only will Körber bring more than 75 new jobs to South Carolina, these jobs that they will bring will offer higher salaries.

“The average job pays around twenty to twenty-five dollars an hour with Körber,” Representative Pitts explained.

Another company they met with was Michelin whose North American headquarters is located in Greenville, South Carolina. By the end of this meeting, both Representatives were reassured about Michelin’s commitment to keep their headquarters located in South Carolina.

“The personal contact of an elected official showing that direct personal interest, as opposed to a staffer, had a very visible impact on those owners and I think it will pay positive dividends in the future.”

Representatives Pitts and Duncan were also able to meet with some of the suppliers of these two companies.

“Michelin and Körber were both very willing to contact their suppliers and ask if they would talk with us about locating some of their industry in South Carolina,” Representative Pitts said.

These meetings were also successful and the suppliers are currently looking into the possibility of moving some of their operations to South Carolina. One of the major incentives for relocating to South Carolina would be a cut in transportation costs.

When asked about how successful this trip was, Representative Pitts answered that he believes this trip could have generated billions of dollars in revenue for South Carolina. He elaborated by stating that not only will there be more jobs, but the “products that [these companies] will be producing in South Carolina will be sold and taxed in South Carolina.”

Overall, the most important thing that Representative Pitts learned from this trip is that in the future, “it would be a benefit to South Carolina to make sure that on commerce trips legislators are involved.” The reason for this is that the European companies place such a high value on having personal contact with an elected official. This personal contact is one of the sole reason Pitts believes that the trade mission was such a success.

How to protect our nation’s children from the many dangers of this world is always a topic of significance in the United States. South Carolina is one state that’s addressing this important issue with new legislation that would limit where convicted sex offenders can live. Representative Joan Brady of Richland County is the main proponent of House Bill 3094 that would prohibit sex offenders who have committed serious crimes from living within 1,000 feet of schools and other places where children tend to be. The following article is based off an interview with Representative Brady about this bill.

Rep Brady started off by explaining that she decided to create this bill after reading a note from a mother who discovered that a convicted sex offender lived right next to a sports field where her son practiced. Since the owner of the apartment complex couldn’t legally refuse the offender housing, the state government would have to deal with this issue.

Brady continued by explaining that many local ordinances are already in place around the state that put restrictions on how close an offender can live to certain public places. However, since these ordinances vary from area to area and this issue is important to many parents in South Carolina, Brady decided to create a more unified law that would encompass the whole state.

“With the proliferation of local ordinances, we need some state continuity for efficient enforcement,” Representative Brady explained.

The bill that she proposed would make it so that a sex offender couldn’t live within 1,000 feet of a school, day care center, recreation center, or several other places where kids tend to congregate. However, to ensure that this bill won’t be struck down like a similar bill in Georgia, bus stops are not included in the list.

“In Georgia, their bill was struck down for a variety of reasons, one of which being that you could not live within 1,000 feet of a bus stop,” Representative Brady explained. “When you get into an urbanized area, that is probably a little overly restrictive.”

This bill, which is currently residing in the Senate, has found a lot of support not only inside the statehouse, but outside as well.

“The bill is absolutely bipartisan and we have very strong support from the Sheriff’s Association, from SLED, and local jurisdictions that are anxious to see what we will do on this matter.”

Since this piece of legislation limits the rights of citizens, Rep Brady is paying close attention to the civil liberty ramifications this bill may present.

In the interview, Brady pointed out that this bill isn’t “overly restrictive” because sex offenders already have to register their address with law enforcement. Also, with SLED receiving a federal grant for software that plots the exact distance from any residence to one of the restricted areas, offenders will be able to know exactly where they can and cannot live.

Brady also wanted to emphasize the fact that a grandfather clause will be included in the final version of the bill. This clause will ensure that those already living withing 1,000 feet of one of the areas mentioned in the bill will not forced to move.

“If you have property,” Rep. Brady said, “we certainly don’t want it to be a taking situation.”

However, if the offender does move, the law will then apply to their next housing location.

Some opponents to this bill have argued that it would push offenders into the rural areas, but Brady doesn’t see this happening.

“A thousand feet is not that far, it really is not that far,” Brady said, “Traditionally, apartment complexes and even residential areas are not really right there within 1,000 feet of a school. That still leaves a lot of locations where you can live.”

An example of why there is a need for a state wide law like Brady’s bill occurred last spring in the Upstate when a repeat sex offender from Georgia was arrested.

“They (law enforcement) said, ‘Why are you here in South Carolina?’ and he said, ‘Well, it was getting too difficult to find a place to live in Georgia.’”

Most of the states surrounding South Carolina have laws similar to the one Brady has proposed. Therefore, once passed, this legislation will help to ensure that South Carolina doesn’t become a “welcome center for convicted sex offenders.”

Representative Brady hopes that this piece of legislation will be passed before the end of this year’s legislative session and feels that if this bill can even prevent one such crime, it will be worth it. However, even though Brady is hopeful about the good this bill will do, she knows that it can never be a substitute for a parent’s protection.

“This [bill] in no way is a substitute for parents being vigilant and being sure that their children are in safe situations, but it is just another bit of protection we can give to the youngest of the victims.”

Lastly, since this bill is currently on the Senate’s long list of contested bills, Representative Brady hopes that the people of South Carolina will call their State Senators to voice their support. Brady fears that if the public doesn’t show support, the bill might not pass this session which ends on June 5th.