STATEHOUSE REPORT |  ISSUE 25.15  |  April 10, 2026
  • BIG STORY: S.C. deregulatory overhaul draws growing calls for exemptions 
  • ROUNDUP: 1st District Democratic candidate snags major GOP endorsement 
  • ISSUE TRACKER:  S.C. Senate budget writers reverse themselves on voucher caps
  • LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail:  One exception
  • BRACK: Verify, then trust: 2026 S.C. elections will be huge (and Sanford’s back!)
BIG STORY

S.C. deregulatory overhaul draws growing calls for exemptions 

By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau  |  With state elections on the ballot this November, South Carolina lawmakers are scrambling to pass sweeping new health, safety and environmental regulations on industries voters say they want reined in — data centers, home builders, social media companies and more.

S.C. Statehouse | Photo by SC Picture Project

But it’s a deregulatory bill — one with strong out-of-state support from national conservative advocacy groups like Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — that’s getting most of the attention as the legislative session enters its final weeks.

Dubbed “The Small Business Regulatory Freedom Act,” the bill aims to slash existing state regulations by at least 25%, while mandating that agencies eliminate two regulations for every new one they propose going forward.

What’s more, it would sunset every current and future state regulation in the code, forcing agencies to conduct complex cost-benefit studies of each one before asking lawmakers to renew it for another eight years. Those continuous studies would cost taxpayers at least $4.5 million a year, according to the state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office.

According to the nonpartisan Mercatus Center, S.C. is the 14th least-regulated state in the country with about 83,000 regulations. In comparison, California tops the Mercatus list with 420,000 regulations and Idaho rounds it out at 31,000.

S.C. supporters describe the bill as an effort to ensure that old and out-of-date regulations are eliminated or modernized as more effective technologies and regulatory strategies are developed.

“Regulations a lot of times can choke those best practices from coming to the fore,” Beaufort Republican Sen. Tom Davis told reporters in January.  “This is a way to … make sure the regulations necessary to protect the public are there, but that they’re as minimal as possible to produce the maximum benefit.” 

Meanwhile, ALEC representative Alan Jernigan described the rationale in more openly ideological terms last January.

“Free markets operate best without government interference,” he told lawmakers in submitted testimony.

Passed unanimously last year by the S.C. House, GOP leaders pledged to push hard for state Senate adoption in 2026, calling it one of their top priorities for the legislative session.

Nevertheless, the bill appears to be facing major headwinds in the upper chamber, where witnesses at a pair of recent Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearings — including CPAs, engineers, real estate agents, nurse practitioners, airplane and harbor pilots — asked that their industry be exempted from the law.

“I’m concerned about reduced standards,” CPA Ken Whitener, chair of the state Board of Accountancy, told senators. “This blunt approach to cutting red tape could eliminate critical regulations that protect the public and maintain public trust in CPAs.”

He added, “I therefore humbly request consideration for an amendment to this bill to exempt and carve out regulations related to accountancy from the provisions.”

It was the kind of request that committee members have already begun to honor, with Republican Chairman Chip Campsen of Charleston pushing through an amendment to exempt harbor pilots in a 4-3 vote on March 5.

Asked if that wouldn’t just open up the bill to endless amendments, Campsen told his colleagues that careless deregulation could lead to a suspension of operations at the Port of Charleston, which is responsible for about one out of every 10 jobs in the state.

“You want to make a point, or do you want to avoid a catastrophe?” Campsen said. “I want to avoid a catastrophe.”

Charleston Democratic Sen. Ed Sutton, a decorated combat pilot, made a similar point when he successfully moved to carve aviation out of the bill as well.

“In aviation, every regulation is written in blood,” he said. “This is just an area where we don’t play games.”

In an April 9 interview, Sutton told Statehouse Report he supports the goal of cutting outdated and duplicative regulations that hurt small businesses, but thinks the bill’s automatic sunsets and numerical mandates are overly prescriptive.

“If you want greater flexibility, you create rules that allow for flexibility, not rules that mandate rigidity,” he said. “My impression right now is that this is a hammer, when what we need is a scalpel.”

S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce President Frank Knapp told Statehouse Report that he, too, supports the objective of reducing unnecessary regulation, noting his work on behalf of the 2005 bill that requires all new state regulations to be vetted by a business panel before enactment.

But he worries that under the numerical targets in the current legislation, agencies could get bogged down in an expensive review process as they constantly reevaluate regulations.

“It’s a good effort and a noble goal,” he said. “I’m just concerned about the implementation if the state agencies don’t have the resources to actually review every regulation every few years.”

Sutton echoed that concern — and when asked if he expected to see further changes as the bill continues to move through the Senate, he didn’t mince words.

“Yeah,” he said. “Significant changes.”

ROUNDUP

1st District Democratic candidate snags major GOP endorsement

By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau  |  The race to fill gubernatorial candidate Nancy Mace’s 1st district congressional seat got its first jolt of real news this week when popular Mount Pleasant Republican Mayor Will Haynie crossed party lines to endorse Democratic candidate Nancy Lacore.

Lacore

“I know voters in Mount Pleasant want resiliency, they want conservation, and they want transportation and infrastructure,” Haynie said at Lacore’s April 8 campaign kick-off in Charleston. “We will have Nancy there supporting us in these endeavors, and she will put country before party.

“If she was a Republican, I’d be backing her. If she was an independent, I’d be backing her. This is not a party statement.”

Lacore, a retired rear admiral who was among the military officers fired without explanation by President Donald Trump when he began his second term, moved to the Lowcountry after her service ended last year. She is one of 18 major party candidates, including former Gov. and 1st District Rep. Mark Sanford seeking the open seat.

John Cassibry, campaign manager for fellow Democratic candidate Mac Deford, seemed to suggest the endorsement raised questions about Lacore’s party loyalty.

“This is the same Mayor Haynie who endorsed Republican Nancy Mace over Democratic incumbent Joe Cunningham, helping Republicans unseat him,” Cassibry said in a statement. “Now he’s endorsing Nancy Lacore, a lifelong Republican who recently changed parties and moved to the Lowcountry to run for this seat and a candidate he met only a few months ago. Make of that what you will.”

South Carolina’s 2026 primary elections are set for June 9.

In other recent news

Elections: Mark Sanford makes first appearance since announcing congressional bid. Former South Carolina Governor and U.S. Congressman Mark Sanford made his first appearance since announcing his bid to return to Congress in Charleston’s 1st district.

STATEHOUSE: S.C. schools, government agencies must buy U.S.-made flags under state law. Under a new state law, all United States and South Carolina flags bought by cities, counties, public schools and state agencies going forward must be 100% made in the United States. 

S.C. treasurer won’t take out long-term loans in continued fallout from $1.8B accounting error. More than two years after the discovery of a $1.8 billion accounting error within the state’s books, South Carolina’s top banker continues to balk at taking out long-term loans for major construction projects at the state’s three research universities.

Scott seeks ‘critical’ funding to continue wastewater surveillance in bipartisan effort. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is leading a bipartisan group seeking to extend federal funding of wastewater surveillance that tracks infectious disease and provides an early warning system for outbreaks.

ISSUE TRACKER

S.C. Senate budget writers reverse themselves on voucher caps

By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau | The Senate Finance Committee voted 16-3 on April 7 to keep the state’s private school voucher program capped at 10,000 students, rather than allowing it to rise to 15,000 as current law dictates. The following day, the same panel reversed itself, with members saying they meant to support a related measure to explicitly disallow homeschoolers’ participation in the program, but not to freeze the cap. 

The moves came after senators learned last month that Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver allowed voucher funds to flow to homeschoolers — something legislators say the voucher law was written to forbid. The full Senate will vote on the item later this month.

Bills that are on the move

DOGE S.C.: 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 through the S.C. Senate this session. LATEST: As reported in this edition of Statehouse Report, the bill is currently being marked up — and amended — in a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

Immigration: Legislation requiring local law enforcement agencies to assist in federal immigration enforcement passed the S.C. House 85-30 along party lines on April 1. LATEST: The bill is now awaiting further action in the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Juvenile justice: Two bills have passed the House — one making it easier to try 16 and 17 year olds as adults and another to mandate fingerprinting when juveniles come into the system. LATEST: Both bills are now in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which began considering them this week.

Taxes: Gov. Henry McMaster this week signed a bill to cut the state’s top tax rate from 6% to 5.21%. Further property and income tax cuts are advancing in both chambers. LATEST: The S.C. Senate on April 1 voted down a House bill that would have extended federal tax breaks under President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” to state taxpayers. 

Concurrency: A bill by Beaufort Republican Sen. Tom Davis that would allow local governments to limit development in areas with insufficient infrastructure was amended and advanced on March 12 by the Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee.

Bills in less of a hurry

Judicial selection: A bill with the support of leaders in both chambers would give the governor more power in selecting state judges. LATEST: S.C. House members passed the bill 86-25 on Feb. 11, sending it to the Senate, where it currently resides in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Rolling back affirmative action and DEI: Several bills are still currently awaiting consideration, including one to codify Gov. Henry McMaster’s executive order ending affirmative action in state contracting.

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. LATEST: The S.C. House on Feb. 4 voted 81-31 to advance the abortion pill rescheduling bill to the S.C. Senate.

ROBERT ARIAIL’S LOWCOUNTRY

One exception

Credit: Robert Ariail

Award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail has a special knack for poking a little fun in just the right way.  This week, he has a little something to say about war in Iran.

COMMENTARY

Brack: Brack: 2026 S.C. elections will be huge (and Sanford’s back!)

Commentary by Andy Brack   |  What’s ahead in the 2026 primary and general elections for South Carolina could easily result in the biggest political changes in decades at statewide, congressional and legislative levels.

Hundreds of candidates filed to run across the Palmetto State. This will give voters more choices than they’ve had in years. One way or another, things are going to get shaken up — and not just because of the national frustration with politics. More choices mean more changes.

Perhaps the biggest reflection of the bubbling undercurrent of change is in the — surprise — last-minute return of former Gov. Mark Sanford as a congressional candidate in the First Congressional District. He’s already held the seat on two occasions. Now, he is one of 11 candidates in the June primary that, up until his reappearance, seemed like a relatively dull race of known and unknown politicos distinguished by little more than various MAGA shades of red.  

Sanford, however, is not remotely associated with MAGA red. He is, if you think of a color, a deep navy blue that reflects his core belief in fiscal conservatism and paying down the explosive national debt. Sanford’s appearance in the mix is heartening because it offers GOP voters a real way to get back to fiscal and conservative basics without having to bow to the increasingly shaky altar of Donald Trump’s narcissistic, bullying politics. 

The other big deal about the results of this year’s candidate filings is that the S.C. Democratic Party delivered candidates in ways that haven’t been seen in a generation or two. Democrats filed in each of the state’s 124 S.C. House districts, seven statewide constitutional offices, seven congressional districts and the U.S. Senate race that’s up for grabs. Again, this means voters will have more choices. While the GOP supermajority in the S.C. House likely won’t wither away, it will face fresh challenges — which is healthy for a democracy that has been ripped and torn since Trump returned to national office.

In the GOP governor’s primary in June, voters will have seven candidates to sift through. As it stands early, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette appears to be taking more of a frontrunner’s stance, as Attorney General Alan Wilson and U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace seem to be struggling to break out of their silos of support.  U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman is charging along, but his campaign to end corruption in Columbia seems disingenuous and thin because guess which party has been in control for 20 years — his Republican Party. It’s almost as if he’s running against his own party. Three other candidates, including Isle of Palms rich guy Rom Reddy, are struggling to find traction.

On the Democratic side, voters will have a three-way choice between S.C. Rep. Jermaine Johnson, Charleston lawyer Mullins McLeod and Upstate businessman Billy Webster, whose last-minute addition is shaking things up a little, too. Webster, once a chief of staff to former S.C. Gov. Richard Riley, worked in the Clinton administration as the president’s director of scheduling. He brings significant policy experience, which should reshape how voters make picks in the primary.

The state’s U.S. Senate contest is getting attention, too. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has the backing of Trump, but faces six challengers, including Paul Dans who helped to craft the uber-conservative Project 2025 plan to change the U.S. government. On the Democratic side, former First Congressional District candidate and physician Annie Andrews will face Brandon Brown and Kyle Freeman in a contest being waged through social media.

If you want to have your say in this season’s primaries, make sure to register to vote. Election Day is June 9.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper.

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