Copper Dome Chronicle: 2023 Session Week 16
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Copper Dome Chronicle, sponsored by Advocatus. We strive for substantive writing with brevity, inspired by the book Smart Brevity; one of the best books about communications and writing we’ve read in years.
This week’s edition, covering April 24-28, 2023, is 1,184 words or a 4.5 minute read. There are 6 legislative days remaining in the 2023 regular session. Thanks for reading and sharing; we welcome your feedback and commentary!
1. House Passes Groundbreaking School Choice Bill
The House was busy last week and after finishing its work week the scoreboard showed: 14 bills were sent to the Senate, 2 bills returned to the Senate with House amendments, and 6 bills were enrolled for ratification. The significant, and in many respects groundbreaking, legislation debated in the House last week was S.39, commonly called the ESA (education savings account) bill.
The bill creates an education scholarship trust fund (ESTF) with funding annually appropriated by the General Assembly for families to use for qualifying education expenses via an account. Expenses are defined in the bill and some examples include tuition and fees at an independent school, tutoring services regardless of where the student is enrolled, extracurricular activities fees, therapy services for students with disabilities, and several other expenses. The bill received a second reading by a vote of 79-35 and third reading by a vote of 74-36. The House did not amend the bill so it has been enrolled for ratification and will be sent to Governor Henry McMaster, who will sign it into law. Gov. McMaster has been a strong proponent of school choice. House Education & Public Works Chairlady Shannon Erickson deftly shepherded the bill through the House.
In many respects this is groundbreaking legislation. Former Governor Mark Sanford in 2004 proposed the “Put Parents In Charge Act,” which was the primary school choice discussed during the Sanford Administration. Additionally, there was the School Choice Act of 2004 that gained some attention at the time. The issue of school choice was a dividing line within the Republican Party and in many primary elections was the defining issue between the candidates. Today, the ESA bill was a priority for both House and Senate Republican Caucuses, and is the first jointly-held priority to reach Gov. McMaster’s desk.
The House consumed 9 hours, 9 minutes of floor time last week. Other bills that were sent to the Senate last week included H.3217 (child custody transfers), H.3734 (municipal elections), H.3583 (sexual extortion), and H.3953 (restructuring the Department of Consumer Affairs to a cabinet agency). The current House calendar has 14 bills on it, equally divided between House and Senate origins.
2. Senate Debates Abortion, No Bill Passes
The Senate spent nearly all week debating H.3774, a bill to regulate abortion rights. The bill received second reading on a 22-21 vote on April 25 but failed to gain a third reading after opponents of the bill successfully defeated four attempts to invoke cloture on the bill under Senate Rule 15A. A motion to continue the bill to the 2024 legislative session under Senate Rule 14 was adopted by a vote of 22-21, ending this bill’s journey for this session. However, the issue of abortion rights remains on the radar because of S.474, which is awaiting consideration in the House. The two bills are very different and in his public comments Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey made clear the votes are not there in the Senate to pass H.3774, urging the House to take up S.474. The Senate sent 8 bills to the House last week and consumed 11 hours, 43 minutes of floor time. The current Senate calendar has 50 bills on it; 31 Senate bills and 19 House bills.
During the debate a rare motion was made under Senate Rule 7A to appeal and override the ruling of the Senate President. During the debate on April 25 an amendment offered by Sen. Greg Hembree was ruled out of order for lack of germaneness under Senate Rule 24A. The amendment would have stricken nearly all of the text in H.3774 and replaced it with a constitutional amendment regarding abortion rights. Sen. Sandy Senn made the motion to override the ruling of the Senate President, which set in motion a specific debate procedure under Senate Rule 7A whereby Senate President Thomas Alexander stepped down as presiding officer temporarily and the most senior member of the Senate, Sen. Nikki Setzler, took the gavel as the presiding officer. After 30 minutes of debate the motion gained only 5 votes to override the ruling of the Senate President with 39 bipartisan votes against, including every Senate Republican except for Sen. Senn. While no public database exists tracking such motions, most long-time observers under the copper dome stated the number of times this motion has been made since the year 2000 can be counted on one hand.
3. Bill Introductions
H.4372 - Introduced by House Speaker Murrell Smith and several House members, this legislation proposes the indexing of unemployment benefits to the seasonally adjusted state unemployment rate. The practical implications of the bill is the lower the state unemployment rate, the shorter the period of time a person would have to draw unemployment benefits. Proponents of indexed unemployment benefits argue the state unemployment rate is a signal of state economic health, and that a low unemployment rate means a strong state economy. They believe in a strong state economy unemployed workers should be encouraged to find new work as soon as possible and not have long periods of eligibility for unemployment benefits. Conversely, a high state unemployment rate is a signal of a weak state economy, so unemployment benefits periods would be longer because it is more difficult to find work.
There are 11 states that index unemployment benefits: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee in the Southeast, as well as Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma.
H.4388 - Introduced by House Education & Public Works Chair Shannon Erickson and many other House members, the bill would eliminate the need for the South Carolina High School League (SCHSL) by creating the Division of Interscholastic Athletics within the South Carolina Department of Education. Traditional public school districts and public charter schools would be prohibited from joining or contracting with the SCHSL.
For almost two decades there has been significant friction and debate within the SCHSL about admitting public charter schools to its organization and which classification they should be placed. Some SCHSL proposals have included imposing a “multiplier” on public charter schools, which the net effect is to artificially inflated their enrollment and bump up the schools to higher classifications. Class A and AA schools, the smallest classes by enrollment, are especially vocal about public charter schools. This issue is likely to be a significant topic of debate in 2024, almost 10 years after the last significant SCHSL debate, which was led by Sen. Larry Grooms, former Senator Greg Ryberg, and former Senator Phil Leventis.
S.755 - Introduced by Senator Tom Young and a majority of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, this legislation permits owners of personal property (vehicle, mobile home, watercraft, etc.) to establish a Transfer on Death (TOD) designation upon the title or registration of personal property. The concept is similar to that of a retirement account and named beneficiaries in the event of the death of the account holder. If the personal property owner does not name any beneficiaries then the personal property belongs to the estate of the owner.
