Month: March 2020

Every week the General Assembly is in session, we’re busy on the House floor and attending non-stop committee and sub-committee hearings as well as other meetings. This week was an important one to me personally as much of what moved through the House was legislation related to education. As the Chair of the House’s K-12 Sub-Committee, working on education issues is very important to me. I was certainly glad to see the focus on education issues this week.

The House took a step towards confronting anti-Semitism this week with the introduction of House Bill 5287 . I was among several dozen House members who sponsored this legislation, which establishes the definition of anti-Semitism when the state’s Human Affairs Commission is investigating complaints of religious harassment and discrimination. The bill was sent to the House Judiciary Committee for their review and consideration.

This week saw the first round of one of the biggest decisions faced by the General Assembly in modern times: whether or not to sell the state-owned Santee Cooper utility company. This is a major decision worth billions of dollars. In addition to being a direct utility for some areas along the South Carolina coast, it is a major supplier of power to the state’s electric co-cops and owns the state’s two largest lakes: Lakes Marion and Moultrie.

This started with the introduction of House Bill 4940 , which was quickly passed by the House and sent to the Senate this week. This legislation will establish the formal framework by which three options will be considered: accept the best-qualified proposal to sell Santee Cooper to a privately-owned utility company, accept the best-qualified proposal Santee Cooper to be managed by privately-owned utility company or to keep Santee Cooper and attempt to reform the utility while keeping state ownership and management.