Benjamin Ashford|South Carolina General Assembly ends 2024 session with goodbyes and a flurry of bills

COLUMBIA,Benjamin Ashford S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina General Assembly met for what is expected to be the final day of the 2024 session Wednesday, taking up a flurry of bills and giving several lawmakers a chance to say goodbye.

Legislators sent to the governor’s desk a bill changing the way judges are screened before the General Assembly votes on them and overrode Gov. Henry McMaster’s vetoes of bills that required the erasing of the records of people convicted of certain gun, fraudulent check and underage alcohol sales crimes.

They also let die a bill that would limit how topics like race can be taught in public school K-12 classrooms.

But before the flurry of legislative action, there were nearly a dozen goodbye speeches between the House and Senate from members who weren’t running for reelection, some who lost in primaries and one likely moving from the House to the Senate.

Goodbye speeches

The chief speech was from Democratic Sen. Nikki Setzler, who decided not to run for reelection after 48 years.

Setzler told stories of the Senate from times before a handful of current senators were born. There were debates that went on for days, budget fights that almost became literal fights and honorable men who laid the path of service and decency that Setzler hopes continues after he is gone.

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Setzler, who remained a Democrat under the label of “a caring conservative” even as Republicans took over and now dominate the state, said letting South Carolina be run by moderates has helped the state grow and thrive over the past few decades.

“We run under a party label. But we represent people. We ought to vote for the people that we represent, not what some party tells us to,” Setzler said.

For now, Setzler is the longest serving state lawmaker in the country and set the record for the longest service ever in the South Carolina Senate. But he said after his last election win, he realized it was time to leave.

That thought was cemented when his friend, Sen. Hugh Leatherman, died in office in 2021 at age 90 after 37 years in the upper chamber.

“I can’t reach that point where you can’t give it up,” said Setzler, who turns 79 in August.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey was a 1-year-old when Setzler first took his seat. The two grew close when they worked together to try to help the state get through the failure when the private utility South Carolina Electric & Gas and state-owned Santee Cooper poured billions of dollars into a nuclear power plant project that never generated a watt of power.

“He shows up. He pays attention. He’s smart. He works hard and he operates in good faith,” Massey said.

Democratic Sen. Dick Harpootlian also said goodbye. He said when he came to the Senate six years ago, he scoffed when a fellow senator called it hallowed ground. But he now realizes how important it is.

“This is hallowed ground. Things happen here that affect millions of people. Some good, some bad,” Harpootlian said.

Lots of bills

Both chambers approved the state’s $14.5 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts Monday. It accelerates a planned income tax cut, raises the salaries of all teachers and state employees and spends $500 million to fix more roads and repair bridges across the state.

Both chambers passed a compromise changing the makeup of the Judicial Merit Screening Commission, which determines if candidates to be judges are qualified. The governor goes from no appointments to four on the now 12-member board.

The commission must send out all qualified candidates up to six instead of a previous cap of three. Term limits mean all but three of the 10 current members must leave in July 2025. It does not limit the number of legislators who can serve, but any member must be a member of the South Carolina Bar for at least 10 years.

The three vetoes overridden Wednesday on the expungement bills mean the General Assembly has struck six of the Republican governor’s seven vetoes in this two-year session.

And any new requirements limiting how topics involving race are taught in school and requiring teachers to post their lesson plans online will have to wait until next year after Democrats banded together and the Senate failed to get a two-thirds vote needed to take up a compromise proposal.

A new portrait

A new portrait met senators when they came in the chamber Wednesday.

Republican Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler was honored with the painting the day before to celebrate his 44 years in the Senate.

Peeler is portrayed in the purple robe he wore as Senate president for nearly three years. He was the first president of the body after a constitutional amendment took that role away form the lieutenant governor. In his hand is a gavel. The Statehouse is in the background.

And in the lower right corner is a small recreation of a photo of his family taken at his 50th wedding anniversary, a cow representing the Peeler family dairy and the giant peach water tower that looms over his beloved hometown of Gaffney.