South Carolina lawmakers returned to the State House on January 14 for the start of a new two-year legislative session.
We’re as ready as we can be. When lawmakers pre-filed bills in December, we read them all and prioritized the ones that would affect South Carolinians’ civil liberties — for better or for worse.
For more details on our top priority bills for the 2025-26 legislative session, visit the Legislation page. For an audio preview of the legislative session, check out Episode 11 of the While I Breathe podcast, “New Year, Same Struggle.”
A focus on youth
The South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice has been in a dangerous state of crisis for years, and a handful of bills seek to address the overcrowded conditions of DJJ facilities. The pre-filed bills H. 3595 and S. 16 would both limit DJJ referrals for juveniles who commit certain first-time status offenses (that is, acts that are only illegal because of a person’s age). Given the dangerous overcrowding of these facilities, the director of the DJJ came out in favor of similar reforms last year.
Meanwhile, other lawmakers have pre-filed bills that would curtail the freedoms of children and families — particularly LGBTQ youth. H. 3263 would ban transgender people from using bathrooms, locker rooms, and dormitories in public schools and universities unless they conform with their sex at birth. This proposal is a continuation of the attacks we’ve seen on transgender young people across the country – attacks given additional fire by the tens of millions of ad dollars spent by the Trump re-election campaign demonizing transgender people.
Elsewhere, lawmakers are pushing a white Christian nationalist agenda by establishing a public school chaplaincy (S. 122), requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom (H. 3217), and authorizing the teaching of the Bible in public school classrooms (S. 134). These ideas flout the separation of church and state and create schools that are hostile to atheist students and students of other faiths.
Bad ideas are back (with a vengeance)
Speaking of children, high-ranking state senators have made it clear they intend to ram yet another private school voucher bill (S. 62) through the approval process at the start of the session. For more about the clear record of harm from this failed policy in other states, see our blog post “The ugly truth about school vouchers.”
You might feel déjà vu about some of the other bad ideas getting a second (or third or fourth) chance in the legislature this year. We’re seeing the return of bills to create an overly broad definition of criminal gangs (H. 3520), censor classroom discussion (H. 3185), ban Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs (H. 3219), and criminalize drag performance (H. 3381).
Housing justice in the spotlight
South Carolina’s housing and eviction crisis is ongoing. As a corporate landlord headed by our state's wealthiest individual is under federal investigation for an alleged rent price-fixing scheme, our homeless population has grown by 13 percent over the past year.
A handful of bills seek to level the playing field for tenants. H. 3336 would forbid housing discrimination on the basis of disability or income source, H. 3462 would increase transparency regarding rental application screening fees, and H. 3494 would pause court proceedings related to property foreclosures during a state of emergency.
Voting rights: For and against
Expanding voting rights shouldn’t be a controversial goal, but it often is. Most adult South Carolinians don’t vote, and some politicians want to keep it that way.
Some lawmakers have pre-filed bills that would push our state toward representative democracy. We support bills that would authorize ranked choice voting in local elections (H. 3589), allow South Carolinians to vote directly to enact laws via ballot propositions (H. 3491), and require the S.C. Department of Corrections to educate formerly incarcerated people on their voting rights upon release (S. 140).
At the opposite end of the spectrum, other lawmakers have proposed bills that would restrict voter registration (S. 128, H. 3459) and require voters to register with a party before voting in a primary (H. 3310, H. 3396). At a time when many legislative elections are effectively decided in the primary, creating “closed primaries” a plainly anti-democratic move.
Keeping you updated
At the start of each week during the legislative session, we’ll give a preview of upcoming committee hearings and floor debates here on the blog. We’ll also issue calls to action via our email newsletter, which you can sign up for at the top of our homepage.
Be sure to also follow us on your social media platform of choice, where we’ll be giving updates from under the State House dome. You can follow us on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Twitter.
