By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | A new Winthrop Poll of South Carolina residents shows support remains strong among GOP voters for Republican leaders including President Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Henry McMaster.
One of the most divisive issues in the poll focused on the issue of paying reparations to the descendants of slaves. While only 31 percent of respondents overall said there should be reparations, 72 percent of black respondents and a majority of Democrats said there should be. Read more.
A few other takeaways:
- 45 percent of respondents said they approve of the state legislature’s handling of its job. More than 20 percent of the respondents said they were “not sure.”
- 52 percent of respondents said they approve of the job Gov. Henry McMaster is doing. Twenty percent said they were “not sure.”
- 56 percent of respondents said they think economic conditions in the country are getting better.
- A third of respondents said they are strongly in favor of getting their health coverage from a single government plan, while 38 percent strongly oppose. Forty-eight percent of respondents said they would strongly favor creating a plan that would be similar to Medicare, while another 23 percent say they somewhat favor the plan.
- Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they support local governments enacting their own plastic bag bans.
- See the full poll results here.
In other news:
Session winding down. The last regular day of legislative session is May 9. After ending a debate on abortion this week, the House appears to be coasting into summer. The Senate will spend its final days debating Santee Cooper before getting to smaller items on its calendar, according to Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield. Expect a decision on evaluating sale bids for the state-owned utility next week, he said.
Morris up for confirmation in the Senate. Gov. Henry McMaster’s nominee for the director of the Office on Aging, Stephen Morris, will face a floor vote in the Senate next week. On Wednesday, members of the Senate Veterans and Family Affairs Committee heard testimony from Morris, who has been accused of racism and is also seeking to “build morale” at the office. The committee sent the confirmation to the floor with no recommendation.
Girl power in powerful House committee. House Ways and Means Chairman Murrell Smith, R-York, is out of the country, and that means that during a Tuesday full Ways and Means Committee meeting, history will be made. Committee First Vice Chair Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, will likely become the first woman and first woman of color to chair the powerful financial committee, according to House staff. There is no way to completely confirm she is the first due to inadequate records, but the assertion is “likely accurate,” according to House Clerk Patrick Dennis. See the agenda here for the meeting.
New lawmaker joins ranks. The race to replace retired Rep. Mike Pitts, R-Laurens, is over. The seat was won by fellow Republican Stewart Jones. Jones defeated fellow Laurens County Council member, Democratic candidate Garrett McDaniel, by fewer than 500 votes in a special election this week. The swearing-in is not scheduled yet, but House staff said it could be done as soon as Tuesday.
Judges under the microscope. The Post and Courier is investigating disciplinary actions against judges in the state. Check out the initial story here, where they found zero judges in the state have been punished publicly despite more than 1,000 ethics complaints lodged against them in the past two decades.
Weekly update on Palmetto Priorities
Throughout the legislative session, we have been providing relevant updates related to our list of Palmetto Priorities, which are 10 big policy areas where major progress is needed for South Carolina to escape the bottom of lots of lists. Over the last week:
ENVIRONMENT: Offshore drilling halted indefinitely. The Trump Administration is backing off its plan to open Atlantic waters to offshore oil and gas testing after facing a setback in court over opening drilling in the Arctic. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told The Wall Street Journal this week that the plans are sidelined indefinitely. The move earned praise from Republicans and Democrats alike in South Carolina — but U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, D-Charleston, tweeted that the “fight is far from over.” He is pushing for a law to enforce a ban in exploring and drilling for oil in the Atlantic. Read more. Coastal Conservation League Executive Director Laura Cantral said Thursday: “Let’s settle this debate once and for all. Congress should move quickly to pass Representative Joe Cunningham’s permanent ban on dangerous offshore drilling in Atlantic waters and off South Carolina’s coast.”
HEALTH CARE, Part I: House approves abortion ban. After long hours of debate, S.C. House members voted mostly along party lines to give final reading to a bill that seeks to ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected — a time frame of about six weeks of gestation. Kentucky, Ohio and Georgia have passed such bills this year. But the House bill faces an uphill climb in the Senate, where the final days of the session are ticking down.
HEALTH CARE, Part II: Senate punts on medical marijuana. The Senate Medical Affairs Committee this week did not advance a bill that would legalize medical marijuana in the state. The bill will likely be reworked over the summer break and brought to the floor in January. Read more.
HEALTH CARE, Part III: Youth vaping targeted. The Senate and the House have given favorable passage to H. 3420, which prohibits minors under the age of 18 from entering retail establishments that primarily sell tobacco products, alternative nicotine products or both — unless the minor is actively supervised and accompanied by an adult. The legislation, which doesn’t apply to typical convenience stores, provides for a more expansive definition of “alternative nicotine product” that specifically includes vaping. The bill is awaiting Gov. Henry McMaster’s signature.
EDUCATION: Waived days for inclement weather. The Senate and the House have given favorable passage to H. 3929, which allows school districts to waive inclement weather days beyond the three set out by state law in the 2018-2019 school year. The bill is awaiting Gov. Henry McMaster’s signature.
JOBS: Hemp act signed into law. McMaster signed into law this month an act that legalizes the hemp industry in South Carolina (H. 3449). Hemp and its more illicit cousin marijuana have become big economic drivers in the nation, according to this story in The New York Times.
POLITICS: Voting system evaluation panel enacted. McMaster signed into law joint resolution (H. 4157) to extend the deadline to submit offers for a solicitation for a statewide voting system and for the creation of a special evaluation panel to evaluate and score each proposal for new voting machines.
Looking ahead
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