General Assembly revises judicial selection process as session closes

COLUMBIA — The South Carolina General Assembly met for what was expected to be the final day of the 2024 session Wednesday, taking up a flurry of bills before leaving town.

Among the 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 also 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 also 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.

Proposed 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.

Finally, legislators overrode Gov. Henry McMaster’s veto of a bill that required the erasing of the records of people convicted of certain underage alcohol sales crimes. The override means the General Assembly has struck four of McMaster’s seven vetoes in this two-year session.