The Buzz: Crossover deadline clouds SC legislative dreams

Lawmakers in the House and Senate have one week left to pass bills from one chamber to the other before their policy hopes are – almost certainly – dashed for this legislative session.

Next Sunday is the crossover deadline. If a bill fails to pass in either the House or Senate and cross the lobby to the other chamber by that date, it will need a steep two-thirds vote just to stay alive.

A look at proposals that need a vote this week to beat the odds:

Improving rural schools

Operating in the shadow of a school equity lawsuit, state lawmakers introduced a handful of bills this year aimed at improving the state’s ailing K-12 public schools, deemed unconstitutional by the S.C. Supreme Court two years ago.

Several proposals have cleared the House, including defining what a S.C. high-school graduate should know and giving the S.C. Department of Education authority to take over a school district in financially dire straits.

But the bill likely to have the most impact on the bank accounts of poor, rural school districts only just passed committee last Tuesday and hit the House floor.

First proposed by Gov. Nikki Haley, the bill would commit up to $200 million a year in state spending to help school districts renovate and build school facilities.

Given its broad support, the bill likely will clear the House this week and sail smoothly into the Senate.

Fixing S.C. roads

Last week, the Senate Finance Committee OK’d a bill that would spend an added $315 million on roads, including $200 million a year to borrow more than 10 times that amount for roads.

The Senate and House have passed their own preferred road spending plans, but the chambers have failed to agree on a single path forward.

Senate Minority Leader Nikki Setzler, D-Lexington, said he’d like to see the Senate pass its roads plan and send it to the House this week. That’s the surest way to make sure “there's no slip between the lip and the cup” on a roads fix before the legislative session ends.

Transgender bathroom bill has steep climb

State Sen. Lee Bright’s bill to require transgender people to use the bathroom assigned to their biological birth sex has one week to get to the Senate floor and pass there to avoid the crossover deadline.

The Spartanburg Republican needs nine votes from Senate General Committee members to bring the bill directly to the Senate floor, skipping a committee vote. Bright said Friday he needs three more votes toward that nine.

Even if Bright succeeds, Democrats say they will block the bill on the Senate floor.

Disturbing schools

One of four bills that would change the state’s disturbing schools law, which allows law enforcement to arrest students for misbehavior, managed to get a hearing last week.

But the bill’s chances of being passed this year took a hit when a House panel decided to hold onto it for another week to make some changes. That ends the bill’s chance of getting a House vote before Sunday’s crossover deadline.

The panel’s chairman, David Weeks, D-Sumter, said it’s possible the bill could go directly to the floor.

But House Judiciary Chairman Greg Delleney, R-Chester, said that is unlikely because it would require the unanimous consent of the GOP-controlled House to bring the proposal to the floor for a vote.

Time is running out for all legislation introduced in this session, Delleney said. “Anything filed in the second year of a two-year session that has controversy in it doesn't make it.”

Abortion at 20 weeks is not yet banned

More than a month has passed since Delleney said he was certain the S.C. House would vote to send a bill banning abortion at 20 weeks and later to Haley’s desk.

The bill passed the House 71-22 in February. The Senate then passed the bill, making some changes to provide for exceptions.

Now, Delleney needs 83 of the House’s 124 members to OK a House-Senate compromise on the bill, already approved by the Senate.

So what’s holding up the bill?

Attendance.

“We've had a lot of people out for sickness and business and other reasons,” Delleney said.

Delleney has tried twice to get the compromise approved, failing by one vote the first time and by three votes the second time in a chamber made up of 78 Republicans and 46 Democrats.

Delleney said he will try again in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, he has been counting votes, working to hold onto the support he has.

Efforts to persuade are going the other way, too.

Both sides are talking to everybody they can, said state Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, who opposes the abortion legislation. “If you look at the votes, many times there are Republicans who happen not to be there. It's not just a ‘no’ vote that is helpful. ... Simply not voting gets us there.”

Buzz Bites

S.C. Democrats prepare for their convention: U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez will keynote the S.C. Democratic Party’s 2016 state convention Saturday in Columbia. Popular among unions and progressives, Perez has been named in Washington political chatter as a possible vice presidential running mate for the eventual Democratic presidential nominee.

New Democratic consulting firm in town: Democratic political consultant Tyler Jones has launched a new communications, media production and campaign consulting and management company named Speak Strategic. Jones has worked as an adviser to House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, and the S.C. House Democratic Caucus since 2009. He also was state director for Martin O’Malley’s presidential campaign.

Jones is bringing Morgan Allison on as senior vice president and chief operating officer of the firm. The former communications director for House Democrats and chief of staff to state Rep. James Smith, Allison also worked on the S.C. Democratic Party’s 2014 coordinated campaign and the effort to draft Joe Biden to run for president.

This story was originally published April 23, 2016 at 6:29 PM with the headline "The Buzz: Crossover deadline clouds SC legislative dreams."