Issues

The recently enacted Fetal Heartbeat Abortion Ban was a step backwards for South Carolina. Whether a fetal heartbeat can be detected at six weeks, as the ban's supporters assert, or at nine weeks, as Planned Parenthood is arguing in a pending case before Circuit Court Judge Daniel Coble, the Fetal Heartbeat Abortion Ban should have never become law. Before this law was enacted, and ruled constitutional by the five men sitting on South Carolina Supreme Court, South Carolina permitted abortions up through the 20th week of pregnancy. At the very least the Fetal Heartbeat Abortion Ban needs to be repealed and the previous standard  needs to be re-instated. 

UPDATE: On May 17 Circuit Court Judge Coble rejected Planned Parenthood's request for a preliminary injunction of the six week abortion ban based on the argument that a fetal heartbeat could not be detected until the ninth week of gestation.  Judge Coble ruled against the injunction request stating the intent of the legislature was to impose the abortion ban at six weeks. This ruling does not end Planned Parenthood's legal challenge.

The recent expansion of open handgun carry rights this past March 7th was a totally unnecessary measure that benefits no one in South Carolina. Lowering the age to carry a handgun in public from 21 to 18, eliminating the permit and training requirements, and allowing handguns to be carried openly in vehicles were ill-advised expansions that gun-activists pushed through our legislature at the expense of the safety of all South Carolinians. This open carry law needs to repealed and South Carolina needs elected representatives who will not surrender our safety to the wishes of a small, but loud, minority of gun activists.  

Teacher pay in our public schools is embarrassingly low. Salaries for teachers need to be increased across the state and especially in Charleston County, where the cost of living runs much higher than most of the rest of South Carolina. Current proposals for expanding oversight of school curriculums and libraries by the State Board of Education are a thinly disguised attempt to impose book bans and restrict curriculums in school districts that Republicans do not control at the local level. The current proposal for weighted student school funding advanced by Superintendent Anita Huggins needs to be passed by Charleston County School Board.