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

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.