Jay Luca News Today

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Members of thee South Carolina House were sworn into office Tuesday with a new speaker serving his first full term and nearly a quarter of the representatives newly elected.

South Carolina's health agency has become the latest group to ask lawmakers to make it clear that school districts can require students to wear masks without losing state budget money or any other penalties. The General Assembly put the mask ban item into the budget in early June when South Carolina was seeing an average of 150 COVID-19 cases a day. Ten weeks later, the state is seeing about 3,520 new cases each day.

SC Supreme Court ruling calls into question local government ‘user fees’ for services Chris Joseph © Provided by Columbia WIS TV “User fees” are commonly used across the state to fund public services -- like fire departments, Tim Winslow, the Executive Director of the South Carolina Association of Counties, said. CAMDEN, S.C. (WIS) - A new South Carolina Supreme Court ruling calls into question a funding mechanism that counties use to fund services across the state. O...

By Jamie Lovegrove jlovegrove@postandcourier.com The issue has been more pronounced in the House, where clusters of legislators can regularly be seen without masks while in the chamber. S.C. House Speaker Jay Lucas spokeswoman Nicolette Walters noted that Lucas, R-Hartsville, "continues to always wear a mask and strongly encourages all other members to follow suit." Walters said the House is also planning to adopt several rule changes in January, allowing committee meetings to be conducted virt...