Legislature returning to Columbia next week before projected SC coronavirus peak
The South Carolina General Assembly will return to Columbia on Wednesday to pass emergency measures to ensure state government keeps operating into the fall and to set plans for returning later this year.
Senate President Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, and House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, will gavel in their respective chambers at 1 p.m. Wednesday, according to memos shared with legislators.
Legislative business should be completed in a single day, House Clerk Charles Reid wrote to members and staff.
“As details of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to develop, the General Assembly must act responsibly in order to be in a position to stay out of session for more than a week at a time,” Peeler wrote to senators. “Knowing that the Senate must return before May 14th, the State’s public health professionals advise that this work be done as soon and as quickly as possible.”
May 14th is the last day of the legislative session, referred to as sine die. Any legislative activity that takes place after sine die must be approved by lawmakers in advance of gaveling out for the year.
In a letter sent Thursday to House members, Lucas wrote that he has struggled with the correct course of action for the 124-member House as the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across the state.
“Ideally, the House would not return to Columbia until the danger posed by the COVID-19 virus had passed or at least abated to a degree that some normalcy had returned to our daily lives,” Lucas wrote. “However, we are not experiencing an ideal set of circumstances which force extremely difficult choices for all of us. I do not take lightly what I am asking each of you to do, and I am very cognizant of the realities of this virus.”
Lawmakers, who typically go home for the year after the session ends in May, are briefly returning to work to pass two bills.
The first is a continuing resolution that allows the state to continue operating at current funding levels. State lawmakers adopt one every year just in case they are unable to pass a budget and the governor does not sign one by the July 1 start of the fiscal year.
An earlier effort last month to pass the resolution through the full General Assembly failed after some senators argued passing that measure would give many South Carolinians a false impression that state government had closed.
Lawmakers also will take up a resolution that will give legislators a specific outline of what issues they can gavel back into session to take up after the legislative session officially ends.
Both proposals were not available by press time.
One reason lawmakers have pushed to postpone session as the state’s coronavirus outbreak nears is to get full revenue projections from state economists, who will likely adjust their original revenue predictions next week. But the entire S.C. Senate Democratic Caucus reiterated its push back in a new statement on Thursday that returning to the Capitol puts lawmakers’ health at risk.
“Instead, we propose that legislators should be working in email groups via video conference calls or by having small meetings of select members in large rooms with appropriate social distance spacing to make sure operations continue,” the statement said.
There is a state statute on the books that allows by proclamation the governor to name a “more secure and convenient” place to meet in the event that war or contagious disease renders the current meeting place unsafe. State Sen. Thomas McElveen, D-Sumter, in a letter this week went so far as to propose meeting in the Colonial Life Arena or Williams-Brice Football Stadium.
Gov. Henry McMaster’s spokesman, Brian Symmes, told The State Thursday the governor has been in frequent communication with House and Senate leaders, and “they haven’t made this request of him.”
Economists initially projected that the state will have roughly $1.8 billion in extra cash to spend in the budget starting July 1. But that forecast was initially based on South Carolina’s continued positive economic growth and is expected to change in large part because one of the state’s main economic drivers, tourism, has taken a major hit.
“The forecast that was issued in February assumed continued good growth in the economy,” Frank Rainwater, head of the state’s Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, told The State last week. “But now that the economy has hit a major stumbling block, an adjustment has to be strongly considered.”
In his memo, Reid said the House chamber will be thoroughly cleaned prior to session on Wednesday, and more chairs will be placed against the walls for lawmakers to add distance between them. House members also are allowed to sit in the balcony that on a typical day is full with visitors and lobbyists.
Peeler told senators in his memo that he expects lawmakers to use any space available around the chamber to keep a safe distance.
Only senators and essential staff will be allowed in and around the chamber, Peeler said.
The State House lobby and House balcony will be closed to the public.
“There are certain realities that we cannot escape,” Lucas said in his letter. “One is that it is our responsibility to ensure that state government continues to operate. Never has that reality been more significant than today. South Carolina does not have the ability to continue governmental operations in the absence of an appropriations action. The public health and economic damage which we would experience from even a slight interruption to the operation of state government is an unacceptable risk and forces us to act.”
This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 10:11 AM.
