News 19 WLTX

With less than a month until the statewide primary election, voters in South Carolina are gearing up to cast their ballots for new members of the state House, Senate, and Congress. Lynn Teague, VP for Issues and Action, League of Women Voters of South Carolina, emphasized the importance of voter participation, especially in primaries.

"Very few people vote in the primaries. This is an infraction, destroying our democracy," Teague noted. "If everybody in the state voted in the primaries, we would have a different government."

The Statehouse Report

A controversial, 70-page energy bill designed to increase Palmetto State power production effectively died on the floor of the S.C.Senate this week. Bill critics like S.C. League of Women Voters Vice President Teague warned that the process next year will have to be more inclusive and sensitive to public concerns to win their support. “The best thing about this Senate bill is that it doesn’t actually do any of the inadequately vetted things it talks about,” she said. “Going forward, we hope that legislators will understand that stakeholders participating in these discussions must include those of us concerned about protecting ratepayers and the public.”

The Statehouse Report

With only three working days left in this year’s regular legislative session, a controversial energy bill that looked like an irresistible force coming out of the South Carolina House has met an immovable object. Its name? The South Carolina Senate. Proposed data centers are "energy hogs that only employ 20 workers per facility, "said Lynn Teague, VP, League of Women Voters of South Carolina. “Ideally, there would be a moratorium on building them,” Teague said. “Absent that, data centers should pay in full for the energy they use, not expect other ratepayers to subsidize them.”

The Post & Courier
A part-time legislator keeps his job and, in his role, occasionally votes on bills that benefit members of his advocacy organization. Unethical? Potentially disqualifying? "There are questions of legitimate interest for the public such as conflict of interest, like Bobby Cox sponsoring and lobbying for bills to benefit Sig Sauer,”wrote Lynn Teague, a lobbyist for the League of Women Voters who often works on ethics issues in the legislature. “That should be illegal but isn’t."