STATEHOUSE REPORT |  ISSUE 25.17  |  APRIL 24, 2026
  • BIG STORY: Statehouse sprint: 10 major bills in session’s final days
  • ROUNDUP: Southern historian Jack Bass dies Thursday 
  • LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail:  Just try to stop me
  • BRACK: Get rid of cruel abortion bill or take away Viagra
  • MYSTERY PHOTO:  White boxes
  • FEEDBACK: Send us your thoughts
BIG STORY

Statehouse sprint: 10 major bills in session’s final days

By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau  |   With only nine working days left in the 2026 legislative session that officially ends May 14, lawmakers are scrambling to get bills over the finish line before the clock runs out. Adding urgency to that annual mad dash: Because this will be the end of a two-year session, any legislation that dies without a final vote will have to be reintroduced next year and start from scratch in both chambers. 

Here are the ten major legislative initiatives we’re watching as time runs short.

The state 2026-27 budget

The S.C. Senate stayed in session late Thursday  to pass its version of the 2026-27 state budget, a $15 billion spending blueprint that’s broadly aligned with the budget plan that passed the House last month.

Major items folded into both versions include $2,500 teacher raises, 2% salary bumps for state employees, an expansion of  the state’s private school voucher program from 10,000 to 15,000 students and about $500 million in new spending for roads and bridges. 

Also making the cut in both chambers: a $175 million down payment on the Medical University of South Carolina’s planned $1 billion state-of-the-art cancer center in Charleston, which hospital officials say will end the need for any cancer patient to seek treatment outside the state.

But with the budget now headed back to the House, members will still have to work out significant differences between the two spending plans. Those differences include specific funding sources for the new roads money, a $35 million assistance package for drought- and tariff-impacted S.C. farmers that’s in the Senate budget but not the House version, and a $32 million settlement of the long-running environmental lawsuit involving Captain Sams Spit on Kiawah Island, which the Senate budgeted at only $1. 

Tax cuts

Since January, lawmakers have looked at three major tax cuts totaling almost $1 billion. The first, a $310 million income tax bill that would cut taxes for about 40% of upper income ratepayers, passed both chambers and was signed into law earlier this month. The second, a House-passed effort to apply President Donald Trump’s 2025 federal tax cuts to the S.C. tax code, failed in the Senate.

Still on tap: The third major cut, a $250 million Senate-passed property tax cut for senior citizens, which the House will be forced to consider after the Senate voted last night to insert it into the budget.

DUI reform

With S.C. continuing to lead the nation in per-capita drunk-driving deaths, the S.C. Senate unanimously passed major DUI reform legislation in early February, strengthening penalties, pushing suspects to submit to Breathalyzer tests and closing legal loopholes that have made it difficult for prosecutors to secure convictions based on video evidence.

Supporters of the legislation tell Statehouse Report there’s still time for House members to get the bill out of the Judiciary Committee and onto the floor for a vote before May 14 — but that the odds fall every day the bill remains stalled.

SCDOT modernization

With 41,000 miles of state-owned highways, the S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) operates the fourth-largest road network in the country — but with annual road spending averaging only about $200 per driver, lawmakers and experts agree the agency needs more money and fewer responsibilities.

To that end, senators in March passed what one member called a “massive” SCDOT modernization bill that would encourage counties to take ownership of non-critical state roads, streamline the environmental permitting process for new transportation projects and raise additional dollars with expanded tolls and fees on electric vehicles. But according to supporters, the real game-changer in the bill is language allowing SCDOT to enter into public-private partnerships to add “choice lanes” — that is, tolled access lanes — to congested highways the state can’t afford to expand.

The House, which began its own SCDOT-modernization process with a series of public hearings across the state last year, is expected to take up its version of the bill next week.

Data centers

As artificial intelligence explodes, the massive data centers that power its growth have mushroomed in rural areas across the state, threatening sensitive environmental areas, straining the power grid and draining local water resources. 

A Senate bill that sponsors say would address those concerns by requiring data centers to pay all costs associated with their energy use, mandating the use of water-saving technologies and imposing environmentally friendly siting standards was introduced in January. And despite strong bipartisan support, it’s still languishing in committee with nine days left in the session.

THC drinks and edibles

Since the federal government, apparently somewhat to its own surprise, legalized hemp-derived THC drinks and edibles across the country in the 2018 farm bill, South Carolina’s THC consumables industry has grown into a $1.5 billion business that employs about 3,500 people. This year, both chambers have considered legislation that would either ban or strictly regulate the industry, with the Senate passing a bill last month to limit sales to adults and restrict sales of all products containing more than 5 milligrams of THC to liquor stores. 

But in a pair of mutually exclusive moves this week, the House voted both to ban the products and to restrict their sale to those over 21. House leaders said the votes will allow any final regulatory system to be negotiated in a conference between the two chambers.

Concurrency

As South Carolina continues its decade-long run as one of the fastest-growing states in the country — literally the fastest in two of the past three years — residents across the state have told lawmakers they’re fed up with the consequences, particularly traffic congestion and strains on local services.

To combat those issues, an S.C. Senate bill would give local governments the authority to delay future developments until sufficient local infrastructure exists to service them. But despite considerable momentum as the session began, the bill remains stuck in committee, where members continue to debate potential unintended consequences such as higher housing costs.

Immigration

As the 2026 session began in January, House GOP leaders named immigration enforcement as one of their top priorities. And to that end, the House passed legislation earlier this month requiring all local law enforcement agencies with detention facilities to participate in the federal 287(g) program, which establishes a partnership framework between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local police agencies. 

The bill is currently in the Senate Judiciary Committee awaiting further action.

Abortion

Despite already having one of the strictest abortion bans in the country at six weeks, lawmakers are considering two bills to further restrict the procedure as the session comes to a close.

The first, a House-passed bill to reclassify abortion pills as controlled substances like Xanax and limit their sale across state lines, remains stalled in the Senate Medical Affairs Committee. The second bill, a Senate measure to outlaw abortion at conception, without exceptions for rape or incest, was approved this week by the same committee, but faces an expected filibuster by Beaufort GOP Sen. Tom Davis when it reaches the Senate floor.

Hate crimes

Eleven years after the racially motivated massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, South Carolina remains, along with Montana, as one of only two states in the nation without a hate crimes law.

And despite optimism from the bill’s House sponsor as recently as last month, the Clementa C. Pinckney Hate Crimes Act — named in honor of the state senator and pastor who was killed in the Emanuel mass shooting — the legislation remains stuck in the House Judiciary Committee. The bill has passed the House twice in previous sessions — only to be killed by parliamentary maneuvers in the Senate.

ROUNDUP

Renowned Southern historian Jack Bass dies Thursday at 91

By Andy Brack |  Southern political historian Jack Bass, a celebrated Carolinas newspaperman who graduated to academia and became a widely respected author or co-author of 10 books, died Thursday afternoon at age 91 in hospice care, according to son David Bass of Raleigh, N.C.

In 2020, Bass moved from Charleston where he once taught at the College of Charleston to Raleigh with his third wife, legendary cooking personality Nathalie Dupree, to be closer to their family.  Dupree died in January 2025 at age 85.

Credit Jack Alterman

Bass, born in Columbia, S.C, was the youngest of seven children of Esther (Cohen) and Nathan Bass, immigrants from Poland and Lithuania respectively.  Jack Bass was the sixth child in the family to attend the University of South Carolina, where he caught the news bug and served as chief editor for the school’s newspaper, The Gamecock. 

During the 13-year newspaper career that followed, Bass was named S.C. Journalist of the Year twice by the S.C. Press Association, according to the S.C. Academy of Authors. Then, shifting to academia, Bass earned a doctorate in American studies from Emory University and taught journalism at universities including USC, S.C. State, the University of Mississippi and the College of Charleston.  See a video oral history of Bass here.

Throughout his journalism and academic careers, Bass published several books on Southern politics and civil rights that got national attention, including two biographies on the life of U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.  His books remain major sources today for understanding how the American South shifted in the post-war United States.

  • For the full Charleston City Paper story on Bass’s life, click here.

In other recent news

ELECTIONS: No-exception abortion ban splits gubernatorial candidates. All six major GOP candidates for governor touted their anti-abortion credentials at a televised debate this week. But only one, Upstate U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, said he’d sign the strict, no-exceptions ban currently in the S.C. Senate.

STATEHOUSE: House rejects changes to hemp bill. The bill over hemp-derived THC consumable regulation, weakened by the Senate, now heads to a compromise committee after the House returned to the core of its original proposal — which one GOP lawmaker complained would “set up the industry to fail.”

Bauer nominated for diplomatic role. Former Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer was appointed to be the next U.S. ambassador to Belize. The nomination needs U.S. Senate approval.

Emanuel survivors awarded damages from Russians. Children who survived the 2015 racially-motivated massacre at Emanuel AME are entitled to $150 million in damages from the Russian companies who knowingly disseminated content designed to incite violence against Black Americans.

ROBERT ARIAIL’S LOWCOUNTRY

Just try to stop me

Illustration by Robert Ariail showing two birds chatting about the Heritage Act.
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 an interesting and special way about discussing “adding context” to Confederate-era statues. 

COMMENTARY

Get rid of cruel abortion bill or take away the Viagra

Commentary by Andy Brack  |  This is not something shared lightly:  I will discourage my college-age daughters from returning to live in South Carolina as long as venal Republican legislators keep trying to make the state’s already barbaric anti-abortion restrictions even stricter.

These young women – and millions of South Carolina women – shouldn’t have to live in a state that wants to take away freedoms and health care decisions because of narrow-minded zealots on some mission to turn back the clock.

What six white male GOP senators have been pushing, particularly in the last few days, is ratcheting up venom, hate and cruelty. They’re trying to impose their deluded wills on South Carolina’s women. It’s nothing short of morally and physically disgusting. 

So shame on these six state GOP senators who are actively backing the so-called “Unborn Child Protection Act” (S. 1095): Sens. Richard Cash, the Anderson ringleader, as well as Danny Verdin of Laurens, Tom Fernandez of Summerville, Carlisle Kennedy of Lexington, Billy Garrett of McCormick  and Rex Rice of Easley. 

The summary of the bill is pretty succinct.  It seeks to “prohibit abortions.” But it wants to do so in such a brutal, vulgar manner that it would ban abortion from the moment a pregnancy was detected clinically as well as eliminate exceptions of rape, incest and fatal fetal anomaly, which currently is allowed under S.C.’s already restrictive law. Even worse: Anyone connected with an abortion could face felony charges – even doctors, who could face up to 20 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. A woman who received an abortion could face a misdemeanor charge and up to two years in prison.

Translated:  These men – who can’t give birth and really know nothing about it – are as serious as heart attacks in an election year with yet another wicked scheme to inflame people about abortion.  I wish pro-choice legislators would start introducing bills to ban Viagra, Cialis and other erectile dysfunction drugs. Maybe anti-abortion male nimrods would wake up a little bit if they saw their health choices being limited.

So it came as no surprise Wednesday when the S.C. Senate Medical Affairs Committee, chaired by Verdin, rammed through this cruel bill on an 8-4 voice vote.  Garrett, Fernandez and Cash are members of the committee.  Three Democrats and Republican Tom Davis of Beaufort voted against the measure.  

For South Carolina’s women, Davis is the new hero in this long, continuing abortion debate which led to the ouster of three vocal Republican women senators in the 2024 election.  On Wednesday, Davis vowed the anti-choice cabal’s draconian abortion bill would not make it through the state Senate this year – even if he had to filibuster it after senators dealt with the state budget.  (The General Assembly will adjourn May 14.)

“I don’t want to be associated with this,” Davis said this week. “I don’t want the party that I am affiliated with to be associated with this. I’m embarrassed.”

Later he added the restrictive bill does not reflect the views of most South Carolinians: “Somebody has got to yell stop. We jumped the shark on this. This is ridiculous. This bill is so out of line of where South Carolinians are on this issue, I doubt that 5% of South Carolinians think that this is a good idea.”

Vicki Ringer of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic said in a statement that anti-abortion lawmakers were endangering lives with bills like S. 1095.

 “South Carolina has risen in infamy as a state where it’s too hard to get reproductive and pregnancy care and where it’s dangerous to give birth, particularly for Black women,” she said. “But instead of working toward solutions that bring more providers into this state and make health care more accessible, all our lawmakers offer are prayers, platitudes and harsher threats. 

“If lawmakers won’t hold themselves accountable for their actions, we must do it for them. We won’t stop fighting — and we won’t be silenced.”

Good. Job #1: Stop the bill dead in its tracks. Job #2:  Get rid of their ED medication.

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

MYSTERY PHOTO

White boxes

Here are some white box-looking things somewhere interesting in South Carolina.  Where do you think this picture was taken – be warned, it might be a little tough.  (But some of y’all might think it’s easy!).  Send your best guess – plus hometown and name – to: feedback@statehousereport.com.  

Last week’s photo showed an aerial shot of the state of South Carolina’s inland port in Dillon.

According to sleuth Jay Altman of Columbia, “In 2025, the facility set a record by processing 48,761 rail containers, a 33% increase from the previous year.”

Others who correctly identified the view were:  Will Bradley of Las Vegas, Nevada; Steve Willis of Lancaster; Dalton Tresvant of Columbia; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Frank Bouknight of Summerville; and George Graf of Palmyra, Va.

  • 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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  • Have a comment?  Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com.  Make sure to provide your contact details (name, hometown and phone number for verification.  Letters are limited to 150 words.
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