Group of SC lawmakers will go ‘virtual’ in first meeting since COVID-19 outbreak
Cue potential audio snafus, but a group of South Carolina lawmakers is ready to go virtual to handle state business.
The Joint Bond Review Committee, a joint 10-member House and Senate committee chaired by both of the chambers’ budget chairmen, will meet May 6 using the video conference platform Zoom.
The livestream meeting, which the public can watch on the State House website, will be the committee’s first since lawmakers stopped meeting in person in Columbia amid the state’s ongoing coronavirus outbreak. The agenda will cover issues related to bond refinancing, leases and improvement projects, according to Senate staff.
This week, the number of South Carolinians who have tested positive for COVID-19, the sometimes serious respiratory disease caused by the novel virus, has so far surpassed 5,600. The virus has resulted in more than 170 deaths.
Because of potential threat of catching the virus, lawmakers have not been back to the Columbia Capitol since earlier this month, when the full General Assembly failed to reach an agreement on two emergency measures to keep state government operating after June 30 and lay out what issues, mainly the next budget, the Legislature could return back to the State House to take up when they return in September.
And an agreement still has not been reached between legislative leaders on whether to return to work before May 14, the last official day of the legislative session.
Should they not return before May 14, Gov. Henry McMaster has offered to call the Legislature back to the State House at an agreed time and day so that lawmakers don’t put their health at risk.
“However, I believe and hope that by late June that risk will have diminished to the extent that businesses and activities in our state may be safely resumed and conducted using personal safety precautions,” McMaster said in his April 16 letter.
Until then, lawmakers are clearly antsy to get back to work and move legislation, even if they must do so miles away from Columbia.
So far, most lawmakers have not met in committee remotely and the Legislature as a whole has not held votes remotely. Though some have floated the idea of more remote meetings, that approach has not come to fruition in South Carolina, unlike in other states.
In South Carolina, local governments have held remote voting, including the Columbia City Council and Forest Acres City Council.
“It’s been going well,” said Columbia councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine. “We initially had some technical glitches and things, but for the most part it’s been going well.”
The downside, Devine said, is that they don’t get the public participation like they do in person.
The upside? Less chatter.
“It keeps us very focused and on target,” Devine said.
Judges have met remotely, too.
With courtroom backgrounds, the Georgia Supreme Court heard appeals over Zoom, becoming at least the 13th state Supreme Court in the United States to hear oral arguments over video conference, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
It begs the question: What background will some of the state’s most influential lawmakers choose?
