Session Week 12

Key Points for This Week
● Senate Rejects Tax Conformity
● House Advances Insurance Reform
● 18 Legislative Days Remain

The One-Minute Drill
The Big Picture: Four of the seven Republican Gubernatorial Candidates participated in the first GOP debate Wednesday. Senator Josh Kimbrell, Congresswoman Nancy Mace, Congressman Ralph Norman and Attorney General Alan Wilson engaged in a surprisingly civil debate. Questions included gambling, government spending, and tax cuts.

The Senate
Tax Conformity
In a bi-partisan vote, the Senate on Wednesday voted 27-16 to kill legislation that would change the state’s tax code to match federal tax law under President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The Senate’s decision defied both the House of Representatives unanimous vote and the urging of Governor McMaster. Opponents, including Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey (R-Edgefield), said the vote reflects letting South Carolina decide its own tax policy, He also said conformity undercuts tax cutting efforts, including those in the large scale income tax reduction bill, which would decouple our state tax code from the feds.

The Senate can still take up parliamentary procedures to reconsider the vote, and the House can continue to try to tack conformity language onto Senate bills residing in the House chamber. 

What Else?
By a vote of 32-9, the Municipal Tax Relief Bill received second reading in the Senate on Wednesday. The bill was amended and allows municipalities located in a county that has not enacted a sales and use tax to hold a referendum vote on a municipality-specific penny sales tax. The money is to be used for property tax relief (20%) and then other municipal infrastructure such as roads, bridges, other city facilities, civic centers, or police and fire stations. The referendum process is just like the county referendums and be held during a general election after 2026.

In a unanimous vote on Wednesday, the Senate approved legislation that will allow our technical colleges to offer four-year bachelors degrees in Culinary Arts Management. Across the state, the hospitality and tourism community has growing concerns for their workforce - this legislation will allow students to achieve four-year degrees and be better prepared to enter the culinary industry.

The House
House Passes Property & Casualty Insurance Reform
In a 96-7 vote, the House passed an expansive Property & Casualty Insurance Reform bill, the product of the Insurance Rate Reform ad hoc committee chaired this offsession by Representative Gary Brewer (R-Charleston). The bill increases oversight over insurance fraud, creates penalties for violations of policyholder protection.

What Else?
The House spent a significant amount of time Wednesday debating H.4764, legislation that requires all law enforcement agencies in the state that operate jails or detention centers to enter into cooperation agreements with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. The bill quickly turned contentious and sparked hours of party-line debate over cost, safety and fears that national stories about the agency could come to fruition in South Carolina. The bill is headed to the Senate.

On Wednesday, the House also passed legislation that would increase penalties for people who hurt or harass police dogs and horses. The bill ultimately passed by a 106-2 vote, and is headed to the Senate.

In Committees
Foreign Ownership of Real Estate - H.3408
A House Judiciary Subcommittee amended and advanced a bill that would prohibit federally-defined foreign adversaries from owning, leasing, possessing or exercise any control over farm land in South Carolina.

DOT Reform - S.831/H.5071
The House Ways & Means Committee advanced the sweeping DOT Reform legislation Thursday morning. The House and Senate bill now include the same language that was originally in the Senate bill with their working language. 
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The Week Ahead
In the Senate:
● The Senate will meet in perfunctory session next week, with no floor time, and limited committee meetings. The Senate Finance Committee will meet to outline their version of the 2026-2027 budget.

In the House:
● The House will be on Spring Break Round Two next week. They’ll return on April 14.

While there is no crossover deadline in the General Assembly, both bodies are nearing the point of the year in which they will unofficially only begin to consider legislation that has only passed one body, and many committees are expected to only have one to two more full committee meetings for the year. It will be a sprint after next week to get bills out of committees in what we expect to be about a two-week window.