- BIG STORY: Lawmakers open with attention to abortion measures
- MORE NEWS: McMaster’s budget calls for tax cuts, teacher raises
- ISSUE TRACKER: The latest on 10 top issues in S.C. (NEW)
- LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Highly contagious
- BRACK: America’s tumultuous year
- MY TURN, Street: Hunger, access to health care remain U.S. threats
- MYSTERY PHOTO: Obscured old house
- FEEDBACK: Send us your thoughts
Lawmakers open with attention to abortion measures
By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau | For the second time in two months, Republicans in the state legislature have blocked legislation that would treat abortion as homicide and ban the procedure from conception, without exceptions for rape, incest or fetal anomalies.
But in keeping with past sessions that used the cultural issue as a wedge, they also introduced a relatively new facet of the debate with a bill to further regulate abortion drugs.
As members of a S.C. House Judiciary subcommittee effectively killed the proposal to treat abortion as homicide on Jan. 14, the GOP majority also voted to move forward with a bill that would place strict new access restrictions on the “medication abortion” pills used in 84% of S.C. abortions according to state statistics.
A spokesman for Gov. Henry McMaster on Jan. 15 confirmed that the governor continues to believe the state is in “a good place” with its current ban on abortion after six weeks, while noting that McMaster hasn’t yet commented on the bill restricting medication abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol.
Doctors raise concerns
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Wes Newton, R-Beaufort, sponsored the legislation restricting access to two abortion medications. It would reclassify both as Schedule IV drugs, making possession illegal without a prescription. Current S.C. law defines Schedule IV drugs as those with a legitimate medical use, but that “may cause physical or psychological dependence,” such as Ativan or Xanax.
Supporters argue the bill will help state officials enforce the six-week ban, which they say some other states are working to undermine by shielding doctors and pharmacies that send the drugs through the mail.
But critics, including doctors like Columbia-area OB-GYN Patricia Seal, warned committee members that both medications are life-saving drugs in emergency rooms and doctors’ offices when pregnancies go wrong — and that rescheduling them would limit doctors’ quick access when women’s lives are at stake.
For instance, Seal said, she would normally have immediate access to misoprostol when needed to treat heavy bleeding after a delivery, but that under the bill, she would have to wait 10 to 15 minutes to have it delivered to the operating room as a Schedule IV controlled substance.
“During that time,” she noted, “the patient would be continuing to bleed.”
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic’s Vicki Ringer echoed those concerns in a Jan. 15 interview, pointing to a New Orleans Health Department study which found that a similar 2024 law in Louisiana made “misoprostol and mifepristone difficult to access for routine, legal and medically necessary use.”
“This bill slows down doctors’ ability to provide care,” Ringer said.
A stricter ban?
Despite the governor’s opposition, some pro-life Republican lawmakers told Statehouse Report this week that they will continue to push for a complete ban on abortion from conception, reflecting their view that the fetus is an unborn human life.
“Life begins at conception,” said Rep. Jordan Pace, chairman of the hard-right S.C. Freedom Caucus, in an interview. “And from a constitutional perspective, the 14th amendment should apply to everyone, regardless of their age or location — in the womb, out of the womb, wherever.”
In contrast, the ACLU of South Carolina’s Courtney Thomas argued that in her view, the moves to ban all abortions arise primarily from religious convictions about when life begins.
“A lot of the fervor for these bans is coming from the Christian right,” she said in a Jan. 16 interview. “We’re seeing the intrusion of the church into what should be decisions based on good science and policy.”
While that debate is likely to continue in committee rooms throughout the session, most Statehouse observers say a stricter ban is unlikely to reach the floor of either chamber this year.
What’s more, at least one influential GOP senator says he’s prepared to use the filibuster if necessary to stop any bill to shorten the current six-week ban.
“My opinion is we’ve already gone too far,” Beaufort Sen. Tom Davis said in an interview. “I’m of the opinion it should be first trimester, with exceptions for rape, incest, fetal anomalies and the health and life of the mother.”
He added, “I am diametrically opposed to anything that would make it more stringent. I would do whatever I could do procedurally to prevent it from passing.”
The bill rescheduling mifepristone and misoprostol will next go to the full House Judiciary Committee, where it’s expected to pass before heading to the House floor.
- HAVE A COMMENT? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
McMaster’s budget calls for tax cuts, teacher raises
By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau | S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster released his final, $16 billion executive budget on Jan. 12, recommending more income tax cuts, higher teacher pay and major investments in roads and 4-year-old kindergarten — issues he’s focused on during his decade in the state’s highest office.
“By thinking big, by being bold, and by making these transformative investments,” the term-limited McMaster wrote in an accompanying letter to state lawmakers, “I believe we will set our state on a course that will provide the opportunity for prosperity, success, and happiness for generations of South Carolinians.”
In addition to cutting the state’s top tax rate from 6% to 5.9% and raising minimum teacher pay statewide to $50,500 per year, the proposed 2026-27 budget would spend an additional $1 billion on roads projects while providing free school breakfast to all students.
Also a winner in the budget: The Medical University of South Carolina, which would receive $115 million for its planned National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Hospital in Charleston.
“With this important designation, MUSC will be able to deliver best-in-class cancer care and cutting-edge clinical trials for all South Carolinians, including those in rural and underserved communities,” McMaster said.
Released every January, the governor’s executive budget is a recommendation to the state legislature. House and Senate leaders will consider McMaster’s priorities, along with their own, as they move forward with their budget processes.
In other recent news
Beasley, former governor, pushes more talk, less technology. Former Gov. David Beasley, 68, says guests at his modern-day version of Camp David help people come together and better understand each others’ perspectives. Read this interesting story in the Charleston City Paper that explores Beasley’s past, present and future.
2026: Evette dominates Q4 campaign finance. The latest transparency reports show Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette leading the gubernatorial fundraising race with nearly $1 million in cash donations during the fourth quarter of last year.
Booker joins S.C. Democrats for weekend tour in the Lowcountry. U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, is joining a weekend tour with the South Carolina Democratic Party that looks to hold conversations with South Carolinians about the issues impacting the state.
S.C. lawmakers return with a few new faces. The first day of the 2026 session — the start of the second year of the two-year legislative cycle — started with routine decorum as House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, swore in four new members.
- More protections for Confederate monuments, memorials get consideration from Statehouse
- Senators make bill strengthening S.C.’s DUI laws a priority
- State GOP lawmakers pushing to restrict transgender students’ bathroom use
- S.C. House revives controversial casino bill
- State lawmakers push for highway department structural reform
May sentenced to prison. Former Republican state Rep. R.J. May was sentenced to 17.5 years on five counts of distributing child sexual abuse material.
Measles outbreak continues to explode with 124 new cases; more than 430 infected. South Carolina has logged 434 cases in an outbreak centered in Spartanburg County. The outbreak has rapidly grown in the last month to one of the worst in the nation.
- Health officials report measles exposure in Columbia
- North Carolina launches measles dashboard, confirms 2 cases linked to S.C.
The latest on 10 top issues in S.C.
By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau | In our 2026 legislative preview, we highlighted the 10 issues below as ones to watch in the current session. With our new Statehouse Report Issue Tracker, we’ll update you each week on where they and other emerging issues stand until lawmakers adjourn in May.
1. Income tax cuts: An income tax cut bill passed last year in the S.C. House is being considered by the S.C. Senate Budget Committee. The bill would set rates at 5.39% and 1.99% based on income — lower than the current rates, but taxing more people due to changes in income exemptions and exclusions.
2. Rolling back affirmative action and DEI: Several bills are currently awaiting consideration, including one to codify Gov. Henry McMaster’s executive order ending affirmative action in state contracting.
3. Juvenile justice: A special committee created by House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, is meeting throughout the session to advance reforms to the state’s juvenile justice system.
4. Highway reform: The House Ad Hoc SCDOT Modernization Committee met this week to begin finalizing recommendations to send to the full House.
5. Fix the pay raise: When the S.C. Supreme Court last year struck down an increase in lawmakers’ “in-district expenses” stipend, the decision also incidentally killed the $1,000 a month that legislators were already receiving. This week, lawmakers made it clear that when they retroactively restore those payments, former Rep. R.J. May, who was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison on Jan 14, would not benefit.
6. Judicial selection: A bill with the support of leaders in both chambers would give the governor more power in selecting state judges. It’s currently awaiting action in the House Judiciary Committee.
7. Abortion: A House Judiciary subcommittee on Jan. 14 killed one bill to treat abortion as homicide and advanced another to reclassify abortion pills as Schedule IV drugs.
8. Concurrency: A bill by Beaufort GOP Sen. Tom Davis that would allow local governments to limit development in areas with insufficient infrastructure is pending consideration in the Senate Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee.
9. DOGE SC: Multiple bills promising to cut the state workforce and the regulations they enforce have been introduced for consideration in 2026. House leaders have pledged to pass their “Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act” this session.
10. Immigration: Currently in the House Judiciary Committee, H. 4764 would require all S.C. sheriffs to partner with the federal government to enforce national immigration laws.
Highly contagious
Award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail has a special knack for poking a little fun in just the right way. This week, he takes a poke at something that’s “highly contagious” – but is not the measles outbreak impacting the Upstate.
- Love this week’s cartoon or hate it? Did he go too far, or not far enough? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
America’s tumultuous year
Commentary by Andy Brack | It’s been a sad year for America.
Since Jan. 20, 2025, we’ve had a president actively working to impede – some would say destroy – our democracy.
It’s hard to understand how a president who incited hundreds of Capitol insurrectionists in 2021 and then pardoned them for their protests can now be sending armed federal thugs into cities to assault protesters of a different ilk. How hypocritical.
It’s hard to understand how the very same president can support an ICE crackdown in Minneapolis where agents killed a suburban mom in a van when he is threatening Iran with bombs for using government thugs to kill thousands of protesters. How sanctimonious.
It’s hard to understand how a president can pick a former heroin addict and vaccine denialist to run a national health agency that has weakened recommendations that have kept American children healthy for decades. And now thanks to anti-vax denialism, vaccination rates are below herd immunity levels in South Carolina, where the Upstate has become the nation’s measles outbreak hotspot. How stupid.
It’s hard to understand how a president who cozies up to authoritarian leaders from Russia to China had the audacity to shut down the Voice of America, a global radio network that pushed the principles of freedom and helped foster democracy. How undemocratic.
It’s hard to understand how a president has the gumption to accept the world’s largest bribe – a $400 million jet – from Qatar when his family is making millions in business from oil gazillionaires all over the Middle East. How corrupt.
It’s hard to understand how a president who so covets a Nobel Peace Prize bombed seven countries in 2025 without congressional authority. And he then suckered a Venezuelan to give him her Peace Prize medal. Seems authoritarian and misleading.
It’s hard to understand how an American president who holds big grudges can turn the U.S. Justice Department into an agency that targets and prosecutes people who he perceives as political enemies. How unjust.
It’s hard to understand how the president can’t understand basic economics, how tariffs are paid by American consumers, not foreigners, and how businesses and farms are forced to shutter because they can’t afford inflated prices caused by the president’s tariff policies. How idiotic.
It’s hard to understand how too many Americans put up with a president who is a convicted felon and continues to run from his involvement in a scandal blooming from his sex predator buddy. And how the president constantly tries to skitter away by making grand pronouncements, like a need for taking Greenland, or deadly action, like bombing Venezuela, just to deflect attention from the Epstein scandal. How criminal.
It’s hard to understand how Republicans in Congress put up with all of this scandal, nonsense, misinformation, disinformation, lying and corruption.
And yet, the dysfunction that’s drowning democracy continues. Fortunately, protesters aren’t giving up. Fortunately, more people are speaking out, just like former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did this week when they explained why they wouldn’t testify before a rigged congressional committee. In a personal note to U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, they wrote:
“Continue to mislead Americans about what is truly at stake, and you will learn that Americans are better at finding the truth than you are at burying it. … Continue to abet the dismantling of America, and you will learn that it takes more than a wrecking ball to demolish what Americans have built over 250 years.”
Yes, it’s been a sad year in America. But true patriots who believe in democracy and freedom will not let either die.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of the Charleston City Paper and Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Street: Hunger, access to health care remain U.S. threats
By Lindsay Street | Welcome to 2026 where the threats to public health remain the same as 1923.
Sure, there are certainly far fewer occurrences of hookworm, syphilis, and maternal and infant deaths. But our enemies in the United States remain eerily similar: inadequate nutrition and limited access to health care.
But a different year – 1951 – offers insight into combatting these persistent plagues. At the time, South Carolina’s public health system—segregated as it was—saved countless lives due to nurses who lived in the communities they served. That year, Life magazine sent two reporters to the outskirts of Hell Hole Swamp in Berkeley County. They came, in part, to document the state’s health system that then drew national envy.
These reporters stumbled upon Maude Callen, one of those public health nurses. My new book, Maude Callen: Legendary Nurse-Midwife of South Carolina, shows Callen in context of the blossoming-to-withering public health system in the state.
Part of why Callen needs to be remembered is the context in which she lived.
Callen moved to Pineville as an Episcopal missionary nurse on Oct. 1, 1923. Tapped by church leadership to come to the impoverished area, she found her life’s work.
“I can never do too much along any line for our poor, unfortunate ones here,” Callen wrote for The Spirit of the Missions, the publication chronicling Episcopal mission work. “One cannot realize what a rural nurse does unless they have had the opportunity to see the work. I have no special hours, no special place, to be about my duties attending the sick.”
What she discovered was a need for cooking classes. Folks would eat boiled or roasted corn since that’s what grew in the fields to support the moonshine industry. But nutritional deficiencies reigned. Pellagra, a niacin deficiency caused by eating mostly corn, causes the four D’s: dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death.
Callen’s other early initiatives focused on prenatal care and early identification of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis. She hosted the county’s first-ever prenatal clinics and the county’s first midwife training class using state instructional materials.
So, Callen already had boots on the ground when the state began investing in county-level public health departments. Berkeley County’s public health department was wise enough to tap the tireless missionary in Pineville.
As Callen’s responsibilities grew, she also gained access to more education and vaccines, though not much more in support or pay. She retained her church position, which helped fund medical supplies. Churches around the county continued to host prenatal and vaccination clinics.
It became a cycle: as Callen’s patients knew more about nutrition, pregnancy and disease became less of a death sentence. And because Callen knew them and saw them frequently, she could catch problems earlier when they were treatable.
What Life magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith captured on film in 1951 was, unfortunately, a fleeting moment. Already, the state was cutting public health spending, kowtowing to the private medical professionals who claimed it was socialized medicine that threatened their practices. In reality, Callen’s poor patients were never going to drive the 27 miles into Charleston for sickness, health ailments or prenatal checks.
By the 1960s as lay midwives disappeared and public health departments began scaling back services, Callen told her trainees to hold strong. Stick to the state rules. Mind your P’s and Q’s. Why?
“Your patients have more confidence in you than they do in their doctor. They’re going to tell you more than they’re going to tell their doctor.”
But when Callen finally retired from public health in the 1970s, rural communities were already amid medical desertification. Berkeley County’s public hospital shuttered. If patients needed care, they had to drive to the city.
Today, like then, when medical care is far away, patients begin opting out, skipping routine prenatal visits and other doctor visits that can prevent or catch diseases early enough to treat. And even when they get to medical services, the rapport is lacking and care is often siloed.
Now, 75 years after Smith left Berkeley County, federal and state policies could lead to more hungry people this year, as reported by Statehouse Report’s Jack O’Toole in December. One in eight South Carolinians already faces food insecurity. It’s worse in rural areas.
Maternity deserts also continue to plague the state. When women don’t live close enough to maternity care, they miss appointments. When they finally get there, the doctors and nurses don’t know these women, and these women are more reluctant to share potentially harmful issues.
Callen is called a saint by those who remember her service in Pineville. But her legacy remains just one generation away from obscurity. With her legacy under threat, so too is the reminder that we once got healthcare (somewhat) right.
Lindsay Street is a former correspondent for Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Her book, Maude Callen: Legendary Nurse-Midwife of South Carolina, will be released through the History Press on Feb. 24. Follow Street’s book events and updates on her Substack: gatheringplace.substack.com.
Obscured old house
A palmetto tree and shrubs obscure the front of this old house, which might make it difficult to identify. But give it your best shot. Where specifically was this picture taken? Bonus points: What’s the history of the house. Send your best guess – plus hometown and name – to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Meanwhile, last week’s mystery – “Familiar looking place” – was a tough one. It was pretty obvious that it was a welcome center – but figuring out which one was a likely issue for many.
But not for Jay Altman of Columbia, Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas, and George Graf of Palmyra, Va. These super sleuths knew it was a welcome center along Interstate 95 near Santee. Congrats, guys!
- SHARE: If you have a Mystery Photo to share, please send it to us – and make sure you tell us what it is!
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Statehouse Report, founded in 2001 as a weekly legislative forecast that informs readers about what is going to happen in South Carolina politics and policy, is provided by email to you at no charge every Friday.
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