Pertinent Prefiles in the Palmetto State: Part 2
The 125th South Carolina General Assembly is officially underway and legislation prefiling is finished. In South Carolina there are four days, two for the House and two for the Senate, when legislators can prefile legislation. This year those dates were November 30 and December 7 for the Senate, while the House dates were December 8 and December 15.
Today we took a quick look at some House prefiled legislation statistics. In Part 1 of this series we examined what prefiling means in the South Carolina General Assembly and why legislators prefile legislation.
House bills begin with H.3000, which along with H.3001, are typically bills used by the Speaker of the House for the purposes of organizing the House. There were 596 House bills filed during the prefiling days.
There is no limit on the number of bills a House member can prefile. Seventy-seven (77) House members prefiled at least one bill, representing 62% of the membership. Basic arithmetic shows us forty-seven (47) House members did not file a bill (38%). The South Carolina General Assembly website has a search feature to find primary bill sponsors; we encourage readers to check it out.
When removing those House members who did not prefile legislation from the number set, we find per House member the median number of prefiled bills was three (3) and the average number of prefiled bills was eight (8, rounding up from 7.74).
When examining the number set by party affiliation, the results are 329 prefiled bills by Republicans (55%) and 267 prefiled bills by Democrats (45%). The partisan split in the House Chamber is 71% Republican/29% Democratic House members.
Lastly, we’ll examine individual House members who led the House in prefiled legislation with the number of bills in parentheses:
Overall
First: Rep. J. Todd Rutherford (74)
Second: Rep. John King (47)
Third: Rep. Neal Collins (38)
Fourth: Rep. Chris Wooten (32)
Fifth: Rep. Tommy Pope (25)
Republicans
First: Rep. Neal Collins (38)
Second: Rep. Chris Wooten (32)
Third: Rep. Tommy Pope (25)
Fourth: Rep. Weston J. Newton (21)
Fifth: Rep. Steven Long (17)
Democrats
First: Rep. J. Todd Rutherford (74)
Second: Rep. John King (47)
Third: Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (24)
Fourth: Rep. JA Moore (16)
Fifth: Rep. Jermaine Johnston (15)
In Part 3 of this series we’ll take a look at the subject areas of the House prefiled legislation, identifying any trends as the 2023 session begins January 10, 2023.
