STATEHOUSE REPORT |  ISSUE 25.05  |  Jan. 30, 2026
  • BIG STORY: Democrats raise alarms over S.C. immigration bill
  • MORE NEWS:  S.C. House passes bathroom bill
  • ISSUE TRACKER: Casino gambling on back-burner
  • LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail:  News or weather?
  • BRACK: Invest more to get out of plantation economy
  • MY TURN, Bowers: Rights that ICE doesn’t want you to know about
  • MYSTERY PHOTO: Pink building
  • FEEDBACK: An alternative
BIG STORY

Democrats raise alarms over S.C. immigration bill

By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau  |  After the killing of a second Minnesota protester last weekend by federal immigration officers, two Charleston-area Democratic lawmakers and the party’s leading candidate for governor are raising alarms about a bill in the S.C. House that they say could put local law enforcement officers and residents at risk.

Under the bill (H. 4764), which has almost 50 Republican cosponsors including House Speaker Murrell Smith ofSumter, sheriff’s departments across the state would be forced to participate in the Trump administration’s controversial crackdown on illegal immigration by entering into so-called 287(g) agreements with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. The bill would require local departments that operate jails to choose among three levels of partnerships, from simply detaining suspected offenders to actively enforcing federal immigration law.  

Hundreds turned out Jan. 24 for a protest at Brittlebank Park in Charleston Credit: Andy Brack

Heading into this year’s session, Smith called for “immigration enforcement with zero tolerance for sanctuary policies,” and lauded “stronger partnerships with federal authorities to keep communities safe.”

But with national outrage over ICE tactics building after the deaths this month of Minnesota mother-of-three Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of masked federal immigration officers, Lowcountry Democratic legislators say the GOP supermajority needs to slow down.

“Every time we see footage of an angry masked officer claiming the power of the government to justify shootings, warrantless searches, shoving human beings to the ground and separating children, it unfortunately erodes overall trust in law enforcement,” Charleston Rep. Spenser Wetmore told the City Paper this week.

She added, “As hard as we’ve worked on training and accountability for our law enforcement officers to be seen as true public servants, it is embarrassing that we turn around and let masked cowboys who don’t seem to understand the constitution be a part of that system.”

Charleston Democratic Sen. Ed Sutton echoed those concerns in a Jan. 27 interview, noting that standards for ICE officers have reportedly fallen dramatically in the rush to hire new officers.

“They’re just not screening people and training them well at all,” Sutton said. “They’re basically just giving them guns and putting them out on the street.”

That’s why Sutton says he favored leaving decisions to partner with ICE in the hands of local sheriffs and police departments. Currently, sheriffs in 20 of the state’s 46 counties have voluntarily entered into federal enforcement agreements.

“Let’s respect local sheriffs and the principle of home rule,” Sutton said. “They know what’s best for their own community, and we don’t need to be tying their hands from Columbia.”

In a separate Jan. 27 interview, Richland Democratic Rep. Jermaine Johnson, a gubernatorial candidate, described  the timing of the GOP bill as “tone deaf.”

“Looking at the overall picture,” he said, referring to the situation in Minneapolis. “This could put our citizens in danger. It could also put our state and local law enforcement officers in danger. This is just a scary time for everybody.”

What’s more, he argued, the drive to force sheriffs into partnerships with federal immigration officers is part of what he sees as a larger Statehouse pattern — last seen in 2024 when GOP lawmakers ignored the concerns of local police chiefs and law enforcement officials by passing a bill legalizing permitless carry of open and concealed firearms.

“We haven’t been listening to the people on the ground doing the work,” he said. “We need to be talking to our law enforcement officers about these issues.”

That opportunity should arise in the weeks ahead, when the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by bill co-sponsor Rep. Weston Newton, R-Beaufort, takes up the legislation.

MORE NEWS

S.C. House passes bathroom bill

By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau | After a sometimes contentious two-day debate, members of the S.C. House voted 96-19 on Jan. 29 to require people in state schools and colleges to use bathrooms and changing facilities that match their birth sex.

The legislation, sponsored by House Speaker Pro Tempore Tommy Pope, R-York, and dubbed the S.C. Student Physical Privacy Act, was pitched by supporters as a commonsense measure aimed at protecting women and girls.

But opponents, including a majority of the chamber’s Democrats, denounced the bill as an unnecessary and cruel requirement that would inevitably harm transgender students, faculty and administrators.

Before passing the bill, members voted to include an amendment by Charleston Republican Rep. Thomas Hartnett mandating that all schools and colleges provide single-user bathroom and changing room options — a move some Democrats said eased their concerns.

The legislation now moves to the S.C. Senate, where a similar bill is already under consideration.

In other recent news

2026: Evette says vaccinations are parents’ choice. In the same week that S.C.’s Upstate measles outbreak officially became the worst since the disease was declared eliminated in the U.S., Lt. Gov. and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Pamela Evette declined to explicitly advise parents to vaccinate their children. 

McMaster says “best is yet to come” in final State of the State. S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster, in his ninth State of the State address Wednesday night, told lawmakers in Columbia that the Palmetto State’s best years are ahead.

Statehouse bill allowing casinos in S.C. seemingly dead after brief hope of revival. A Statehouse bill that would have allowed for a casino to operate along the Interstate 95 corridor appears to be dead this session after failing to gain the support of McMaster.

S.C. House bill targets road funding, EV fees and SCDOT reform. A sweeping House proposal would overhaul how South Carolina finances and manages its road system, raising fees on electric vehicle owners, creating “choice lanes,” and restructuring the state Department of Transportation.

S.C. legislators call for mandatory safety training on college campuses.  Legislators want to require safety training for South Carolina’s college students but stopped short of tougher penalties for people who call in fake threats on campus.

S.C. lawmakers advance bill requiring Ten Commandments in classrooms. The proposal has sparked a familiar debate over religious freedom, constitutional limits and the role of faith in public education.

S.C. Senate recognizes Oct. 21 as Ronald McNair Day. To commemorate the recent 40th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, the South Carolina Senate has adopted a resolution recognizing Oct. 21, 2026 as Ronald McNair Day in South Carolina.

New Census numbers show S.C. is nation’s fastest growing state. The state’s population grew by almost 80,000 people — 1.5% — making it the fastest growing state in the nation.

ISSUE TRACKER

Casino gambling on back-burner

By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau | The odds of lawmakers approving casino gambling in 2026 basically went to zero this week when the S.C. House voted to return a bill that would OK a proposed Santee-area casino  to the Ways and Means Committee.

“We talked to the sponsors of the bill and they realized they didn’t have the votes,” House Majority Leader Davey Hoitt, R-Pickens, told S.C. Public Radio. “We just wanted to get it off the calendar, so our folks could say ‘OK, we’ve dealt with that issue for the year, let’s get on to something else.’”

Also introduced this week: Beaufort Sen. Tom Davis’s much-anticipated Data Center Development Act, a sweeping reform bill aimed at protecting the state’s energy grid, water resources and sensitive environmental areas from the explosive growth of resource-hungry data centers.

Below is an update on 10 other major issues highlighted in our 2026 legislative preview:

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. LATEST: The Senate Budget Committee advanced the House bill on Jan. 20, with an additional property tax cut for residents 65 and older.

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: With traffic a growing concern across the state, leaders in the S.C. House and Senate have made reform of the S.C. Department of Transportation as a top priority for 2026. LATEST: Members of the House Ad Hoc SCDOT Modernization Committee introduced sweeping legislation on Jan. 29 aimed at shaking up the state’s transportation system, including stronger SCDOT executive oversight, increased county responsibility for some state roads and higher taxes on electric vehicles.

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.  LATEST: A bill restoring the $1,000 stipend retroactive to July 1, 2025, is headed to Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk after clearing the Senate Jan. 21 and the House Jan. 29.

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. LATEST: The leaders’ bill cleared committee Jan. 28 and now heads to the House floor for further action.

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 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. In particular, House GOP leaders have pledged to get their “Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act” passed into law 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. 

ROBERT ARIAIL’S LOWCOUNTRY

News or weather? 

Credit: Robert Ariail

Award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail has a special knack for poking a little fun in just the right way.  This week, Ariail wonders about the differences between dangerous ICE conditions for the country and dangerous ice conditions for the state.

COMMENTARY

Invest more to get out of plantation economy

Commentary by Andy Brack  |  New Census numbers show South Carolina is the nation’s fastest-growing state, adding almost 80,000 new residents between July 2024 and July 2025.

Growth was fueled, the Census added, “by a sizable net domestic migration increase of 66,622 … the increase of 1.5% was the highest of any state.”

But while some may be elated with fresh tax dollars they expect from just about enough people to populate another city the size of Greenville (70,720 people in 2020), think a little more deeply:  If as a state we had to pay for a whole new city about the size of Rock Hill (74,372 people), how much would it cost to build everything that those new people in that new city would need – in one year?  Billions.  And next year, billions more for another city that size, if growth trends continue.

For a state that has miserably underinvested for generations in physical and human capital, adding more people is further thinning services to everyone – unless the state morphs away from a lingering plantation economy and starts spending real money to pay for better roads, schools, health care.  Not only would improving infrastructure benefit newcomers and make the state more attractive, it would help lift longtime citizens out of endemic poverty, hunger and disease by reseeding the state’s economy with the fuel of capital and human investment.

That means investing more for roads and bridges, such as the $1.1 billion that outgoing Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has called for.  That means more for education, such as paying new teachers more, which the governor also called for in Wednesday’s State of the State address.  

But beyond using surplus state tax dollars for these lofty goals, the state needs to stop cutting income taxes for rich folks and generate more money to pay to prop up rural hospitals to improve health care.  It needs even more money for roads and public infrastructure.  It should steer new funding into public colleges, technical colleges, job training and more.  In short, it needs to invest in South Carolina’s people.

McMaster, a fan of income tax cuts, alluded to investment needed for growth challenges in future years: “If left unaddressed, we will face future problems with water and sewer access, traffic congestion, road and bridge repair, demand for electric power generation, public safety, school overcrowding and health care availability and everything else,” he said.,

“Therefore, I submit to you that the time has come — and reality requires — that we seriously assess whether our state’s infrastructure and government services will be able to catch up if this unrestrained out-of-state population growth continues at this rate.”

For the past 50 years, South Carolina economic development has focused on luring big manufacturing companies and their jobs here.  The state has done remarkably well by nabbing companies like BMW in Spartanburg to Boeing in Charleston.  But the job whales are fewer and further between – and their demands can cause problems, such as the $150 million in overruns for environmental mitigation the state is being asked to pay for in the Midlands because of its promises to Scout Motors.

Now is the time for the state to focus on helping small businesses, which fuel way more jobs than the whales.  We’ve long called for the state to have a cabinet-level office to help small businesses, matched by a budget that can actually do something.  (For example, if the state gave $500,000 grants to 300 targeted small businesses, it’s a pretty good bet that they would create more jobs than the 5,200 jobs coming from the $7 billion investment at two Scout Motors locations.)

In his speech, McMaster said the state’s best days are ahead.  We agree.  But to get there, state lawmakers need to focus on the future part of McMaster’s message and do something active – people investment – instead of just waiting passively for more people to show up with their retirement savings and senior tax rates.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper.  Have a comment?  Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.

MY TURN

Bowers: Rights that ICE doesn’t want you to know about

By Paul Bowers  |  The first time I drove across town to verify a tip about activity by U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) for the Charleston Immigrant Community Hotline, I took several calming breaths and repeated a mantra:  We still have rights. 

As federal immigration agencies ratchet up their brazen abuse of citizens and non-citizens alike, we need to constantly remind each other of our rights. Our safety is not guaranteed, and we all need to make decisions to protect ourselves and our loved ones. But if we are going to outlast the mass deportation regime, it’s important to understand our rights as they exist today. 

So let’s start here: The First Amendment still protects your right to record and share video footage of law enforcement officers carrying out their official duties in public. That includes ICE, the Border Patrol and local police that collaborate with ICE via 287(g) agreements. As long as you do not interfere, keep the cameras rolling. 

ICE and its enablers know we still have the right to observe and record, but they want us to be too afraid to exercise that right. That’s why, when South Carolina’s first rapid-response networks were forming in early 2025, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson sent a letter to organizers in Columbia warning they would be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” if they engaged in “illegal activities.” 

That’s … how laws work, yes, but the clear intent of the letter was to intimidate organizers. They were not intimidated. They continue to exercise their rights to this day. 

Here’s another reminder: Regardless of your immigration status, you still have rights when you encounter ICE and Border Patrol agents. If you are stopped and questioned by immigration agents, you still have the right to remain silent, and you still do not have to discuss your immigration or citizenship status with them. 

If immigration agents show up at your home, you still have the right to keep the door closed and ask to see a warrant. To enter and search a house or non-public area of a business, ICE still needs a valid judicial warrant issued by a court and signed by a judge. 

You may have seen some news that casts doubt on these rights. A whistleblower revealed a U.S. Department of Homeland Security memo asserting that agents can enter homes without a signed judicial warrant. That memo contradicts the Fourth Amendment and a heap of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. 

Proclaiming an end to our rights doesn’t make it so. We still have our rights. 

Finally, while the Constitution stands, we have the right to criticize immigration agencies — loudly, vociferously, rudely, if we choose. When, in response to people comparing his agents to the Gestapo, now-former Border Patrol Field Commander Greg Bovino whined to the press, “There are actions and consequences that come from those choices,” he may have thought he could chill our speech. 

He failed. For days afterward, throngs of protesters from Minneapolis to Charleston heaped scorn on federal immigration agencies for the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. We owe it to their memories, and the memories of all people harmed by ICE, to keep exercising our rights when and where we can. 

“Rights,” Helen Keller once said, “are things we get when we are strong enough to make good our claim on them.” None of us is strong enough alone to assert our rights against wannabe secret police and an authoritarian government. Together, though, we might still be strong enough. 

Paul Bowers serves as communications director for the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina. He was previously a staff writer at Charleston City Paper from 2011 through 2015. 

MYSTERY PHOTO

Pink building

Here’s a salmon pink building somewhere in South Carolina.  What and where is it?  Bonus points:  What is the building’s importance?  Send your best guess – plus hometown and name – to: feedback@statehousereport.com.  

Meanwhile, last week’s mystery – “Blue and green” – is a pretty overhead shot of the Intracoastal Waterway looking north from Isle of Palms.  

Hats off to several readers who correctly identified the image:  Philip Cromer of Beaufort; Jay Altman of Columbia; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Frank Bouknight of Summerville; and Norm Shea of Charleston.

  • SHARE: If you have a Mystery Photo to share, please send it to us – and make sure you tell us what it is!
FEEDBACK

An alternative!

To the editor:

I read online that one reason we call our phones “cell phones” is that they keep us in prison.

Thanks for giving us an alternative!

– John Hart, Columbia, S.C.

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