April 25th & May 3rd News Letter
EXTRA, EXTRA 4/25/23
H-3481 – Amendment relating to child custody. This bill revises the child custody laws by stating the fact that it is in the best interest of the child to spend an equal amount of time with each parent when both parents are willing, able and fit. This bill is being held up by one Congresswoman – Elizabeth Spencer Wetmore. She needs to be contacted NOW at 843-696-8292.
H – 3514 – a bill legalizing horse racing. Though a majority of Republicans actually opposed the bill, the ruling coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats won the day – a growing trend in the House.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
The much anticipated ESG bill passed last week, but predictably the SC House settled for the weakest ESG legislation in the country. Freedom Caucus member Rep. Josiah Magnuson attempted to amend the bill to make it stronger by not allowing taxpayer money to be used as incentives for companies pushing ESG. The speaker Pro Tem ruled that this clearly germane amendment was “out of order”. In a comment following the ruling, the Pro Tem revealed that he failed to even understand the amendment.
H-3695 – Closed primaries – For years our platform has called for partisan voter registration and excluding the Democrats from our primary elections. In 2018, 2020 and 2022, our primary voters supported a ballot advisory question to South Carolinians to register by party by nearly 90%.
Momentum is growing but we need your help. Please get in touch with your legislators and ask them to add their names as co-sponsors of this important bill.
UPDATE – S.39 – Added to bill – It is open to only 15,000 eligible students after a 3 yr. phase in. The State still decides what schools you can choose. Private schools wishing to accept ESA funding must be approved by the state and must submit all test score data to the state to stay eligible. Private schools must also comply with all applicable health and safety laws regardless of whether such laws are justified or legal. The state can also control what the private schools can teach. Call your Senator now.
update 5/3/23
S-164 – The SC Senate has passed this bill that would eliminate the Certificate of Need (CON) in our state. CON laws act like a government-mandated permission slip to start or expand a healthcare business. These laws were passed with the intent of controlling healthcare costs, but over time, have been proven to do the opposite while restricting access to care. While this bill is a great step forward for South Carolina, there is one issue with it. The bill provides for a full repeal of CON laws except for nursing homes. Nursing homes must be included in this legislation to ensure seniors have full access to competitive nursing home care.
- S-406 – Bad election bill – provides that the tabulation results from early voting be posted to the election management system BEFORE the polls open on Election Day. AND the counties would be required to report election results – not 24 hours after completing the canvassing and counting of ballots, as the law stands now – but the counties would be required to report election results continuously throughout
Election Day.
There are two sections of this bill – the first allows for the results from the early voting period to be tabulated and uploaded into the County Board of Elections Computer at the same time as the absentee ballots start to be counted which is 7am on Election Day.
The second section says that the unofficial election results tabulated by managers of the County Board of Elections must be reported continuously and without undue delay to the State Election Commission.
Why this bill? According to testimony given to the House Subcommittee on Constitutional Law, this bill is important because it would alleviate the extreme pressure on the election workers.
I wonder – how long does it take to insert a flash drive into the system to upload the results?