Your SC politics briefing
Welcome to your weekly South Carolina politics briefing, a newsletter curated by The State’s politics and government team.
Welcome to 2023, Buzz readers.
The 2023 South Carolina legislative session is already off to a pretty interesting start.
But before we explain why, we want to start with good news. We’re adding a member to the Buzz team! Florida reporter Javon Harris is joining The State’s politics and State House team, starting Monday. Please give him a follow on Twitter @JavonLHarris_JD.
It’s been a rather newsy pre-session, and from talks we’ve had with legislators it’ll be a pretty active session.
Start with abortion.
On Thursday, the SC Supreme Court released a surprising 147-page decision, ruling 3-2 that the state’s six-week “heartbeat” abortion ban, passed in 2021, was unconstitutional because it violates a woman’s right to privacy.
In the majority were state Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald Beatty, Justice John Few and Justice Kaye Hearn, the lone woman on the Supreme Court, who will retire this year. Justices John Kittredge and George James dissented.
“We have found that the right to privacy may be implicated in many ways, from requiring a witness to divulge medical information during a criminal trial to forcing a convicted felon to take medication so that he may be competent enough to be executed,” Hearn wrote in the majority opinion.
In his dissent, Kittredge wrote that he did not believe the state Constitution’s right to privacy extended to abortion and slammed his colleagues in the majority, calling their decision “merely a personal preference disguised as a legal judgment.”
Where does the debate go from here? That part is not entirely clear.
Now that the court has tossed out the six-week ban, and we know anyway there weren’t enough votes in the Senate to pass a ban at conception, lawmakers are pretty limited. They could try every year to chip away at the state’s current law at about 20 weeks, but one legislator told us that would likely put the state in litigation for years.
Another option? Changing the court makeup entirely.
Remember, SC lawmakers vote on SC Supreme Court justices, and could seek to do what was done on the national level by completely changing the makeup of the court by electing conservative judges. That’s not a short-term goal.
Hearn, the only woman on the court currently, is retiring this year due to age, and lawmakers will decide her successor in the next several weeks. Though vetting for her replacement occurred before the court’s ruling, that election will likely give us an idea whether legislators are serious — as some said they were — about changing the court.
Stay tuned.
SC senator arrested New Year’s Day
SC Sen. Tom Davis was arrested and ticketed New Year’s Day for public intoxication by the Lexington Police Department.
Davis released a statement Jan. 1 that said the Beaufort Republican, soon after leaving a social gathering where alcohol was consumed, “recognized he should not be driving.” The statement said Davis, 62, pulled his car into a nearby parking lot, turned it off and sat in his car for more than an hour.
Davis was approached by an officer with the Lexington Police Department, who ticketed him early Sunday for public intoxication, the statement said.
A supplemental police report said the officer found Davis with his head slumped down on his steering wheel and with “extremely slurred speech.”
Davis, attorney who chairs the Senate Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, reiterated his embarrassment to The State, saying, “I have no one to blame but myself. I embarrassed myself, I embarrassed my family, I embarrassed my colleagues, and I will try to learn from it and get better.”
Why SC non-white voters didn’t cast ballots
As reasons for the SC Democrats’ shellacking continue to be discussed and debated, one explanation has become abundantly clear: Black voters — the core of the party — stayed home.
Non-white voter turnout — the State Election Commission only distinguishes between white and non-white voters — was the lowest it’s been in at least a generation and more than 30% lower than white voter turnout, according to election participation data released Dec. 15.
Only 390,000 non-white voters — roughly 35% of those registered — cast ballots in the midterm. That’s a nearly 20% drop in non-white turnout compared to 2018, despite the fact that 170,000 more non-white residents were registered to vote this year.
“It’s pretty clear that these folks just weren’t motivated by what they were hearing,” said Lachlan McIntosh, a Democratic political consultant and former executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party. “They didn’t go out and vote Republican, they decided to just not vote at all.”
Buzz Bites
▪ South Carolina teachers are leaving the profession at record rates and there aren’t nearly enough recent college graduates to replace them. Lawmakers have filed a slew of legislation aiming to fix the teacher shortage.
▪ Brian DeQuincey Newman, a former Columbia city councilman who hailed from a prominent South Carolina family active in law and civil rights, has died at the age of 40.
▪ Russell Laffitte, the disgraced Hampton banker found guilty in November of six counts of federal bank-related fraud, has hired two new lawyers as he seeks to appeal his case.
▪ Senate President Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, will be honored Jan. 10 at the annual Riley-Wilkins OneSouthCarolina Legislative and Civic Leadership Awards
▪ David Aylor, a prominent Charleston County lawyer who ran a 22-person firm, died at his home Jan. 2. The cause and manner of death is still pending, the coroner’s office said. Aylor made headlines last year after the US Attorney’s office in South Carolina investigated how confidential material was left in a jail.
▪ Curtis “Eddie” Smith has been subpoenaed to appear as a witness in Alex Murdaugh’s upcoming murder trial.
▪ The Post and Courier looks at whether the SC Legislature will debate raising lawmakers’ pay in the new session.
▪ More than 308,000 South Carolina households who get extra federal food assistance will no longer get that money starting in February because a COVID-era program is ending.
▪ A group of SC agency officials are focusing on where to locate electric vehicle charging stations with $70 million in federal money.
▪ Columbia City Councilman Joe Taylor was laid to rest Thursday, remembered at his funeral as “larger than life.” Taylor died unexpectedly Dec. 29. He was 64 years old.
▪ A 77-year-old Swansea man, who pleaded guilty when he was 18 to illegally selling whiskey, received a presidential pardon from President Joe Biden Dec. 30.
▪ A South Carolina man charged in the Jan. 6 US Capitol riot who was jailed for threatening his estranged wife can be released from pretrial detention but only under strict security conditions, a federal judge decided.
▪ Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang is returning to South Carolina to rally for ranked-choice voting, the Post and Courier reports.
▪ SC Supreme Court justices questioned lawyers for the governor and the state’s corrections department repeatedly Thursday over why South Carolina can’t get the drugs to carry out an execution by lethal injection.
▪ POLITICO reports 14 former SC state directors for 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidates, including Bernie Sanders’, have signed a letter affirming support for South Carolina to go first on the primary calendar.
▪ Gov. Henry McMaster has expressed concern over a controversial local proposal to build a luxury golf course and gated housing development on St. Helena Island, urging Beaufort County to reject a zoning change sought by a developer to make it happen.
▪ Advocates tell the Post and Courier they’ll try again to get the Legislature to standardize the state flag design.
▪ As Rep. Kevin McCarthy continues to fall short in his quest for US House speaker, Rep. Ralph Norman says he is not being swayed to back the California Republican despite former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Mark your calendar
Jan. 9
University of South Carolina spring semester begins
Jan. 10
First day of 2023 legislative session
Screening commission revisits USC board members, 3:30 p.m.
Jan. 11
Inauguration Day
Jan. 12
Senate Education Committee meets at 9:30 a.m. to discuss “Education Scholarship Trust Fund” bill
Senate Medical Affairs Committee meets on certificate of need bill, 10 a.m.
Jan. 16
SC NAACP’s annual King Day at the Dome
Jan. 25
Gov. Henry McMaster delivers the annual State of the State address
Feb. 2/3
Democratic National Committee meets to decide presidential primary calendar
Before we adjourn
Dick Riley, a former South Carolina governor who was promoted to secretary of education under the Clinton administration, turned 90 this week.
In an interview with The State, the Upstate attorney reflected on his life and years of public service.
“Thank the Lord,” he said about his health.
Riley’s been involved in his law firm Nelson Mullins and in the Riley Institute at Furman University, centered on leadership diversity and (polite) public discourse on a range of issues. Riley is well-known for his gentlemanly approach to life and politics — soft-spoken yet driven, especially with regard to reforming education. He is known for listening to a chorus of voices and sometimes even changing his own thinking.
What’s his wish over the year? To make it to 91, he says,
Pulling the newsletter together this week was Maayan Schechter (My-yahn Schek-ter), senior editor of the The State’s politics and state government team. You can keep up with her on Twitter and send her tips on Twitter at @MaayanSchechter or by email mschechter@thestate.com.
To stay on top of South Carolina politics and election news, you can chat with us on Facebook, email us tips and follow our stories at scpolitics.com.
