South Carolina Daily Gazette

Both our House and Senate are considering reform of South Carolina’s judicial selection process. The membership of the Judicial Merit Selection Committee (JMSC) should exclude legislators, and the list of qualified candidates sent by the JMSC to legislators for a vote should be expanded. The role of the legislative and executive branches must be narrowly tailored to select well-qualified jurists without exerting excessive influence over the judicial branch.~Lynn S. Teague, VP for Issues & Action, LWVSC

Both houses are actively working on reforming the process of judicial selection. The House Chair outlined 16 recommendations, some quite broad. Neither public election of judges nor gubernatorial appointment is reflected in the recommendations. We applaud Rep. Tommy Pope’s chairmanship of this committee, both for hearing out everyone who wished to speak and for his diligence in organizing the complex body of information.

The Senate has scheduled a Judiciary Subcommittee on Tuesday, Feb 6 with multiple bills considered., invited testimony only.

Today the House Judiciary Constitutional Laws Subcommittee forwarded with a favorable recommendation: H.4589, Municipal Election Protests and H.4590, Early Voting Hours. They heard testimony but did not act on H. 4022, Instant Runoff Voting [Municipal Elections), H.4259, Hand Count Audit Act, H.4260, Voter Access and Transparency Act, H.4261, Clean Voter Roll Act, and H.4591, Ranked Choice Voting Ban..

The Subcommittee will meet again to further consider these bills, possibly several times. We cannot afford to ignore the bills with potentially disastrous impacts.

House Judiciary Constitutional Laws Subcommittee has just posted an array of voting bills to be heard Thursday, January 25, at 9 AM , Room 516 , Blatt Building. On the agenda: Muncipal Election Protests, Early Voting Hours, Instant Runoff Voting, Hand County Audit, Voter Access and Transparency, Clean Voter Roll Act, and Ranked Choice Voting Ban. The League supports some and not others. More details to come.