By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | South Carolina lawmakers appear poised to tackle big education issues in the state during the coming legislative session,, according to multiple lawmakers and a survey of elected leaders. The session begins Jan. 8.
Lawmakers listed education as a top priority and said increasing teacher pay and reforming the state’s education formula should be a part of improving public education for K-12 students.
“Education is at top of everyone’s list,” S.C. Rep. Jerry Govan, D-Orangeburg, told Statehouse Report.
That priority is also held by Republican leaders, such as House Speaker Jay Lucas, who championed education Dec. 4 after being re-elected as speaker.
Other items that are likely to receive attention from lawmakers include: utility reform, tax reform, increasing state employee pay, investing in flooding prevention, investing in strategies to reduce poverty, and investing in more transportation infrastructure, restructuring the state Department of Social Services, putting more constitutional offices under the governor, and improving health care access for poor people.
Who we spoke with
Last week, Statehouse Report sent a survey to all 124 S.C. House members and all 46 S.C. Senate members. Only 11 lawmakers — eight Republicans and three Democrats — returned the 10-question survey detailing their legislative priorities: Govan and House Republican Reps. Josiah Magnuson of Spartanburg, Gary Clary of Pickens, and Jonathon Hill of Pickens, as well as state Sens. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, and Katrina Frye Shealy, R-Lexington. Five other respondents chose to remain anonymous.
Additionally, Statehouse Report spoke with eight other lawmakers: state Rep. Peter McCoy R-Charleston; newly-elected Rep. J.A. Moore, D-Charleston; House Ways and Means Chairman Murrell Smith, R-Sumter; Rep. Tommy Pope, R-York; and Rep. Gilda Cobb Hunter, an Orangeburg Democrat who has the most seniority in the House. We also spoke with state Sens. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, and Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort.
The survey asked 10 questions, including three questions that asked respondents to rank issues in order of importance and four questions asking respondents open-ended questions, allowing them to respond in fewer than 100 words.
Right or wrong direction
A majority of survey respondents (63.64 percent) said South Carolina was going in the right direction.
McCoy, who is now leading the House’s powerful judiciary committee, was among those that said the state is moving in the right direction.
“You’re going to see a change of leadership in the South Carolina House of Representatives, and you’re going to see more people getting involved,” he said.
Moore told Statehouse Report that he is encouraged by the 2018 election — particularly the First Congressional District’s election of Democratic candidate Joe Cunningham and the Richland County special Senate election of former state Democratic chair Dick Harpootlian. But, he added, “we have some work to do.”
Govan wrote why he said the state was moving in the wrong direction:
“The state is moving in wrong direction, not because good things are not happening economically but (because) I fear that we are not taking full advantage of the current positive growth and economic indicators to position ourselves for the future. (This is) similar to what happened between 1992-2000. Secondly, the state sought and was successful in vacating itself from the Abbeville (education case in 2018), which I believe will someday come back to haunt us.”
Priorities
Education — whether it was improving academic success or reforming education formula or teacher pay — was among the top priorities of nearly every lawmaker responding to the survey and in phone interviews with Statehouse Report.
“I’m anxious to hear what’s going to be put on the table and hope that it’s substantive and meaningful,” Cobb Hunter said.
McCoy said he expects the House to “tackle education quickly and early.” This week, the Senate released its list of pre-filed legislation. Of the 298 bills filed before session, 37 of them deal with education.
Survey respondents were also asked to rank reform issues in order of importance. Those that received the highest responses included:
- Utility reform;
- Tax reform;
- Reforming the state’s education formula;
- Restructuring the state’s higher educational institutions; and,
- Ethics reform for legislators.
Kimpson questioned whether tax reform would become a big issue in the 2019 session, saying he had not heard it discussed much among his colleagues. But in the House, Pope, who worked on tax reform in the 2017 session, said he wants it back on the table.
Survey respondents also ranked politically-charged issues in order of importance:
- Restructuring the state Department of Social Services;
- Restructuring state constitutional offices so more are directly under the governor; and,
- Improving access to health care for poor people.
McCoy said three issues are certain to spark a lot of debate in the House:
“There will be engaged debate on whether we sell Santee Cooper or not, how we finish out SCANA, and the education debate will have a lot of engaged banter where people will debate the merits of each proposal,” he said.
Among the politically-charged issues listed in the survey was closing the Charleston loophole, a state bill that would increase the time of a gun-purchasing background check for certain buyers. That response received six votes, and was called a “no brainer” by McCoy, who said it was a controversial topic that shouldn’t be controversial.
There also has been media attention lately about lawmakers pushing for stricter access to abortions in state in 2019. For Hill, Magnuson and an anonymous responder, it was listed as a top priority. In the weighted responses, this item received six votes, tying protecting the state’s water resources and protecting the state from offshore drilling in terms of importance among lawmakers. No lawmakers Statehouse Report spoke with listed it as a top priority.
However, as the House and Senate got tied up with abortion debates in 2018, there was concern the issue could again take the spotlight away from other issues like education.
“Do I foresee tough issues coming up that can tie up the Legislature? That happens every session,” McCoy said. “(But) I’m very confident in the leadership in the Senate and the House to get things done.”
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