For the 126th South Carolina General Assembly, Palmetto Promise tracked nearly 200 pieces of legislation. Our interest in these bills was guided primarily by the 20 items on our Palmetto Freedom Agenda. During the session, we tracked bills that aligned with the Agenda’s core principles, presented research about those policy issues on our blog, and,
I was fortunate enough to join ABC 4 News (Charleston) to offer some commentary on H.5073, Rep. Fawn Pedalino’s (R – Clarendon) ban on grade floors in public schools. The bill has since been signed by Governor McMaster and will be in effect for the 2026-27 school year. COLUMBIA, S.C (WCIV) — South Carolina lawmakers have
In recent years, there has been a plethora of stories about the great migration of Americans from high-cost-of-living states, namely California and New York, to cheaper, freer states such as Texas, Florida, and Tennessee. So, what about South Carolina? It is actually the Palmetto State that is leading the nation in in-migration. According to Tax
Under the leadership of Rep. Heather Crawford (R-Horry) and Rep. Shannon Erickson (R-Beaufort), the South Carolina House of Representatives took up a Senate version (S.831) and its own version (H.5071) of comprehensive infrastructure reform legislation on Wednesday. They chose to amend and pass the Senate version to speed up the progress to the finish line for
Just yesterday, April 28th, the South Carolina Department of Education (“the Department”) released the open enrollment guidelines required by Section 12 of S.62, the bill that re-established the Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) after it was struck down by the South Carolina Supreme Court in 2024. Specifically, this section required the Department to develop model guidelines for interdistrict transfers (i.e. transfers between school districts),
As Palmetto Promise has discussed regularly on this blog, there is a glaring problem with the South Carolina civil justice system that allows what we have termed “billboard lawyers” to target legitimate businesses for “nuclear” verdicts just because those businesses are successful, not necessarily because they are at fault. The most targeted businesses in the
H.3408, introduced in the 2025-26 General Assembly by Rep. Patrick Haddon (R-Greenville), is designed to prevent the ownership of South Carolina land by foreign adversaries of the United States, such as Iran, North Korea, the People’s Republic of China, and the Russian Federation. The threat of hostile countries purchasing American land to gain a strategic
In this OpEd originally published in the South Carolina Daily Gazette, Palmetto Promise CEO Wendy Damron and Investor Choice Advocates Network Founder and President, Nicolas Morgan discuss the strict regulations concerning investing in South Carolina and nationwide. Emily Kapszukiewicz has spent her career in health care — earning a master’s degree in applied economics and
Charleston County School District has created quite the stir in the charter school sector over the last couple of days – first by suggesting amendments to a piece of legislation that reforms and strengthens how charter school authorizers function in South Carolina (amendments that would create different requirements and oversight mechanisms for local and statewide
The South Carolina Senate Finance Committee is currently debating this year’s budget. On Tuesday, April 7, Senator Greg Hembree (R – Horry) introduced a budget proviso that would: Prohibit “unbundlers” in the Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) program; Grandfather “unbundlers” from this school year into the program, but treats them like Option 1 (district-approved and
