Should SC lower its drinking age? Here’s why this Richland lawmaker wants it to happen
A South Carolina lawmaker says he will push next year to lower the minimum drinking age to 18 from 21.
House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, called changing the legal drinking age “a personal freedom issue.”
“If you are old enough to fight for our country, if you’re old enough to vote, if you’re old enough to sign on for thousands of dollars of student loans for a college education, then you are old enough to have a drink,” Rutherford said in a statement from the House Democratic Caucus Wednesday.
The legal drinking age was set at 21 by a federal law passed in 1984. Specifically, the law required states to prohibit those under 21 from buying or possessing alcohol in order to keep receiving money for highway projects. The law was later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987.
In his statement, Rutherford said he’s filing the bill because of the state’s financial situation, bolstered by a $1 billion surplus last year and billions of dollars coming to the state from a recently passed federal infrastructure bill. With those windfalls, Rutherford said “the state can adjust the drinking age while improving roads.”
“Now is the time to do this. Between the existing state budget surplus, all the money that Joe Biden has sent us, and the economic growth that will come as a result, we can afford to do this,” Rutherford said in his statement. “Rather than criminalize adults for doing something that is otherwise legal, we can show the rest the of the country that there is a better way.”
Rutherford’s proposal is one of likely hundreds that will be pre-filed ahead of the legislative session.
Lawmakers return to Columbia in January.
This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 3:24 PM.
