Week Two: What Actually Happened, What It Signals, and What to Watch Next

Week of January 19, 2026

It’s the second week of session, and you can already tell how and where things are headed.

Not from press releases or the sheer number of bills filed, but from the process: which committees were put to work first, which agendas showed up early, which bills moved quickly through subcommittee and full committee, and which high-profile issues generated plenty of noise but never quite got moving.

If week one was about orientation and positioning, week two offered the first real look at how leadership intends to manage the calendar and where attention is being directed.

Committees are driving. The floor is the stage.

In the Senate, floor time was largely consumed by DUI reform, limiting bandwidth for other debates and delaying movement on other items. In the House, policy work is happening early and deliberately at the subcommittee and full committee level.

That split matters. Early committee movement in the House signals an intent to set the framework for debate before bills reach the floor. Meanwhile, when the Senate is tied up on the floor, committee rooms and behind-the-scenes drafting become even more consequential for what comes next.

Why Caucus Priorities Matter Early

It is important to name the policy priorities being advanced by the caucuses within the House Republican Caucus, because those priorities are not abstract. They are showing up in bill selection, committee scheduling, and the pace at which certain bills are advancing.

The House Republican Family Caucus centered its 2026 legislative agenda on values-based policy, with a stated focus on protecting children and strengthening parental authority. In week two, that orientation is evident in early committee activity around school policy and parental-rights legislation, including H.4756 (Student Physical Privacy Act) and H.4757 (Parental Rights Act). It is also reflected in continued movement on abortion-drug restrictions, including H.4760 (Abortion-Inducing Drugs), which advanced out of House Judiciary.

The House Republican Freedom Caucus has emphasized ideological and structural change. Its priorities include defending constitutional rights, limiting government authority, expanding religious liberty protections, reforming the judicial system, eliminating DEI mandates, strengthening immigration enforcement partnerships, and advancing law-and-order legislation. Those themes are most visible in Judiciary-heavy agendas and in the use of broader legislative vehicles designed to improve procedural survivability, particularly on education- and religious-liberty-adjacent issues.

Taken together, these caucus priorities help explain why certain bills are receiving early committee attention while others remain parked without a hearing or a clear path forward. Early in the session, alignment between caucus priorities, committee chairs, and leadership calendars matters more than raw bill volume, and that alignment is already taking shape.

That influence is amplified by the fact that Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers. In that context, internal caucus dynamics play an outsized role in shaping which bills are scheduled, how quickly they move, and where leadership focuses its time early in the session.

What Moved and Why It Matters

With that context, week two’s committee activity offers several clear signals, beginning with how leadership handled education- and school-related legislation.

H.4762 (Volunteer School Chaplains and Historical Displays, including the Ten Commandments)

House Judiciary advanced H.4762 to the House floor after amending it to emphasize a broader historical-documents framing. This is the bill leadership is choosing to advance this session rather than the earlier standalone bill, H.3217 (Display of Ten Commandments).

In practice, the Ten Commandments effort is moving through H.4762, a broader schools, chaplains, and historical-displays framework that combines multiple policy elements into a single legislative vehicle. The bill has two main components. First, it authorizes school districts and charter schools to adopt policies allowing volunteer school chaplains, with parental notice and written parental consent requirements. Second, it requires the display of the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents in public school and postsecondary classrooms.

That structure is intentional. Rather than advancing a narrow religious-text mandate, House leadership opted for a broader approach that ties the display requirement to schools, civic history, and parental involvement. Amendments adopted in Judiciary reinforce that framing.

While H.3217 remains in committee, momentum this session is clearly with the broader vehicle.

H.4756 (Student Physical Privacy Act)

H.4756 illustrates how leadership is managing high-salience school policy early in the session.

The bill requires sex-segregated use of certain restrooms and facilities in public K–12 schools and public institutions of higher education and includes a 25 percent funding penalty for noncompliance.

Process matters here as much as substance. H.4756 advanced out of a House Judiciary subcommittee and was quickly positioned for full committee consideration, where it received a favorable report. That pace signals early calendar management and clear leadership prioritization.

The bill’s trajectory also reflects parallel activity beyond the House. A Senate companion, S.199 (Student Physical Privacy Act), is scheduled for hearing in a Senate Education subcommittee, indicating coordinated interest rather than a one-chamber push.

Taken together, H.4756’s substance and movement align with Family Caucus priorities around school policy, student privacy, and parental authority. Its early advancement suggests a strong likelihood of House floor consideration and offers a preview of how similar school-focused legislation may move this session.

H.4757 (Parental Rights Act)

H.4757 reflects how parental-authority legislation is being prioritized early through committee process rather than floor debate.

Substantively, the bill expands explicitly defined parental rights related to education and healthcare and modifies existing minor-consent provisions for certain non-emergency medical services.

Procedurally, H.4757 was taken up in the 3M Medical and Health Affairs Subcommittee and voted out to advance to full committee. For bills like this, the most consequential shaping occurs at the committee level, where scope and implementation details are refined before broader debate.

That early movement aligns with the session’s emphasis on parental authority, education governance, and healthcare decision-making and signals continued traction as the bill moves forward.

Leadership and Governor Signals

Some bills are loud in public but quiet on the calendar. That is not accidental. Executive posture and leadership control of the calendar, through agenda placement, bill bundling, and amendment strategy, will continue to shape what gets floor time, what stays in committee, and what reappears later in the session.

What to Watch Next

Continued committee activity will be the clearest indicator of what leadership intends to move next, particularly in House Judiciary and Medical Affairs. On the Senate side, watch whether floor bandwidth remains dominated by DUI reform, as that will continue pushing other priorities into committees and negotiations.

If you want to be effective this early, do not wait for a bill to hit the floor to decide how you feel about it. By the time it appears on the calendar, most of the shaping has already happened.

Alpha Strategies

Week two made one thing clear: early-session process matters. Committee calendars, caucus priorities, and leadership sequencing are already shaping what moves and what does not. That is where most outcomes are set.

We will continue watching how this unfolds as the session picks up speed. If something on your radar needs a closer look before then, reach out. Otherwise, more to come next week.

Alpha Strategies tracks and analyzes legislative and policy activity in South Carolina to help organizations understand what is changing, why it matters, and how to respond.