From left to right, House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, and Rep. Jay West, R-Belton, speak to reporters after session ends Thursday, May 9, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Providing hurricane relief, cutting income taxes and reinstating K-12 scholarships for private schools are top priorities for Republicans in the state House following historic GOP election gains that make it easier for them to push through their agenda.
They are among the broad goals outlined Wednesday by House Speaker Murrell Smith and House GOP caucus leaders in a letter ahead of the caucus’ organizational meeting in Columbia next week, where they’ll discuss the details. Notably not mentioned on the two-page letter is abortion.
At the top of the agenda will be helping South Carolinians recover from tropical storms Debby and Helene, according to the letter obtained by the SC Daily Gazette.
“First, we are committed to helping communities devastated by recent hurricanes across South Carolina,” reads the letter sent to all caucus members who won re-election and Republicans who newly won House seats. It is signed by Smith of Sumter, House Speaker Pro Tem Tommy Pope of York, Majority Leader Davey Hiott of Pickens, Chief Whip Brandon Newton of Lancaster, and Rep. Lee Hewitt of Murrells Inlet.
In August, Tropical Storm Debby caused flooding and spun off some tornadoes across much of the state, damaging buildings, but no one died. Then Helene hammered the state in late September. Its destructive path left over a million homes and businesses without power and killed 49 people, making it the deadliest storm in state history and one of the costliest. Restoring services took weeks in some parts of the state.
“We are committed to assisting every town, city, and county who may not have the resources or cash reserves necessary to get back on their feet,” the letter reads.
House and Senate leaders decided against coming back early to deal with Helene’s aftermath. Beyond the extent of the damage not yet known, Smith told reporters Oct. 8, the state has $330 million in reserves available if needed before legislators return in January.
Smith, who was the House’s chief budget writer before becoming speaker, alluded to those reserves in the letter.
“We are more prepared than ever to manage the financial consequences of these storms due to setting aside reserve funds in previous budget cycles,” it reads.
Also to be addressed quickly is a GOP priority blocked by the state Supreme Court earlier this fall, when the court ruled South Carolina’s fledgling K-12 voucher program violated the state constitution’s ban on public money directly benefiting private education.
The decision ended all payments for private school tuition but left other parts of the law intact, allowing quarterly transfers of taxpayer dollars to parents’ accounts to continue. Roughly 700 students were attending private schools with taxpayer-funded scholarships when the ruling came down. A Pennsylvania billionaire is covering their tuition for the rest of this semester. But come January, they may again face the possibility of needing to transfer to their local public school.
“The SC Supreme Court’s flawed ruling on educational scholarships devastated thousands of students and their families who counted on these funds,” reads the letter from caucus leaders. “We must restore this option for these children … and continue the fight for true school choice in South Carolina.”
The Republican leaders also want to further reduce South Carolina’s state income tax, saying the “job isn’t finished” with the 2022 law that phased in a $1 billion tax cut.
“We must once again deliver historic income tax cuts to give South Carolinians more control over their hard-earned money,” they wrote.
The letter also outlines several priorities to revisit after legislators failed to pass them during the 2024 session, including reducing insurance rates for restaurants that serve alcohol and putting magistrates through a screening process. The county-level judges are picked by their local senator.
One issue not in the letter: Abortion.
Last year, Republicans pushed through a law banning abortions past six weeks gestation, with limited exceptions. It took effect in August 2023 when the state Supreme Court declared the law constitutional. Some Republicans and anti-abortion activists have made clear they intend to pursue a ban at the onset of pregnancy in 2025, on the hopes that the 2024 elections would change the makeup of the Senate, which previously blocked further restrictions.
They got their wish on a changed Senate. All three Republican women who voted against a total ban were ousted during the June primaries. And Republicans flipped as many as four other Senate seats Tuesday, depending on the results of two automatic recounts.
The election left the upper chamber with as few as 12 Democrats among 46 senators, giving Republicans their largest advantage in 150 years in the state Legislature. Republicans held their beyond-supermajority advantage in the House, flipping one seat in Berkeley County while Democrats picked up a new, open seat.
But abortion’s absence in the letter suggests GOP leaders have no intentions of renewing that debate in 2025. When responding to questions on the campaign trail this fall, several Republicans said they believed the 2023 law should be left alone.
But House leaders also recognized in their letter’s conclusion that the issues they addressed “represent only a portion of the priorities identified by our caucus members for the upcoming session.”
2024 SCHRC Letter to Members (1)