SC Legislative Update

By Ben Homeyer

The Senate has already passed the crossover deadline for bills to be taken up this year and the House will hit their deadline this week. If a bill does not get three readings in a body by the assigned date the only way the other body may take it up is if 2/3 of the entire body votes to hear the bill. With six weeks remaining in the session, it will be crunch time on a lot of legislation.

The Senate is taking furlough this week to concentrate on finance taking up the budget. Similar to the House they are expecting it to take three days with large portions of dollars going to SCDOT, Commerce, airports and other economic development projects in which the association could benefit.

The Senate passed S576, legislation about foreign owned companies. While the language is currently aimed at keeping Chinese, Russian, North Korean, Cuban, and Iran from owning land and companies in the state it could have larger ramifications. Numerous groups have opposed the language as it could have many unintended consequences.

The House began and the Senate continued debating the breakup of DHEC. House 4124 has already made its way to the floor and will be debated this week. It is expected that it will become the vehicle used by the Senate as they are still a few weeks away from their version being ready.

We are continuing to monitor everything from proposed building code changes to the tort reform bill to procurement changes whithin the state and Department of Transportation