Who Are You, Exactly? The 126th Session Keeps Asking.
- Alpha Strategies
- Mar 30
- 8 min read
ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 11
Week of March 23, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session
If there is a thread running through the week of March 23 at the South Carolina State House, it is not hemp or highways or even the Student Privacy Act that dominated headlines.
It is something quieter and more persistent: the General Assembly's ongoing effort to define, classify, protect, and name. To draw a bright line around who and what belongs where.
Who is a physician, and what can an employer demand of them? Who is a first responder, and how much distance must the public keep? Who is a student, and which restroom is theirs? Who is a child whose parent can still make decisions? Who gets their name on the highway? The 126th Session, week after week, is building a taxonomy of belonging— who has authority, who has protection, and where the lines are drawn.
Week 11 did not break the pattern.
RATIFIED: WHAT BECAME LAW THIS WEEK
Before the week's debates and floor votes, it is worth noting what became permanent. Four bills were ratified by both chambers on March 25, completing the legislative process and sending them to the Governor.
The most significant is H.4216, the income tax restructuring bill. It replaces South Carolina's previous rate structure with two brackets: 1.99 percent on taxable income below $30,000 and 5.39 percent above that threshold. The bill passed the House, was amended by the Senate, and was ratified this week. It is now law. Whatever one thinks of the policy, the structural change to how South Carolina taxes its residents is settled for this session.
The Smart Heart Act (H. 3831) also became law, requiring each public school to develop a cardiac emergency response plan and ensure the presence of an automated external defibrillator on site and within proximity of athletic venues. The Forestry Commission acquisitions bill (H. 3629) and the watercraft titling and property tax exemption bill (H. 3858) round out the week's ratifications. Four bills in. Four laws out.
THE HOUSE RETURNS. THINGS MOVE FAST.
The House had been on furlough during Week 10 while the Senate carried the week. That changed Tuesday, March 24. The chamber came back and the tempo picked up accordingly.
The first significant action was passage of S.922, the executive appointments reform bill. It strips Senate confirmation requirements from dozens of boards and commissions, makes cabinet members serve coterminous with the governor who appoints them, and restructures the State Election Commission to be governor-appointed with Senate confirmation. It passed third reading 32-11 and was referred in the House to the Committee on Judiciary.
H. 4767, the physician noncompete ban, passed the House 58-53. That is a narrow margin, and it reflects genuine disagreement among members about the right balance between physician freedom, patient continuity of care, and hospital business interests. The bill would prohibit noncompete clauses in physician contracts. It now moves to the Senate.
THE HEMP BILL COMES HOME
H.3924 returned to the House with significant Senate changes after the extraordinary procedural drama of Week 10, a bill that died at midnight and rose again by lunch.
The Senate's compromise framework establishes an age-21 requirement for hemp-derived consumables, permits up to five-milligram single-serving THC drinks to be sold in licensed retail stores, routes higher-concentration products exclusively through licensed liquor stores, and preserves a path for independent hemp retailers who obtain a liquor-store-equivalent license. The final Senate vote was 35-4.
The House must now decide: concur, reject, or conference. The practical window before Sine Die on May 14 is shorter than it looks, particularly if conference committee is required. Industry advocates have maintained throughout this debate that federal regulatory changes taking effect in November 2026 could eliminate most of the existing hemp-derived THC product market if South Carolina fails to act.
H.4756: THE STUDENT PRIVACY ACT PASSES THE SENATE
One of the session's most watched bills cleared the Senate Thursday, March 26, on a 33-2 vote.
H.4756, the South Carolina Student Physical Privacy Act, requires that multi-occupancy restrooms and changing facilities in public schools and public institutions of higher learning be designated for use by one sex, mandates single-user accommodation options, creates a private right of action for individuals who encounter a violation, and ties enforcement to a 25 percent withholding of state funds for noncompliant districts and institutions.
The bill had a complicated path through the Senate, and it now returns to the House with amendments. The House must accept or reject.
S. 862: WHEN A PARENT'S AUTHORITY DOESN'T END AT 18
S.862 passed the Senate 43-0 on March 25 and moves to the House. The bill allows a parent or legal guardian to exercise temporary decision-making authority for an adult child during a verified medical or behavioral health crisis but only when a licensed physician has determined the adult is temporarily unable to make informed decisions, and only when the parent is physically present during the crisis intervention. The authority is limited to decisions necessary to address the immediate crisis and expires within 48 hours unless a second physician independently confirms the original determination.
It is a narrow bill with careful guardrails. It does not create ongoing guardianship authority and does not override a valid advance directive. What it does is codify a moment that many families have already lived through: the gap between a child turning 18 and a parent's ability to intervene in an emergency.
THE HALO ACT AND THE QUESTION OF SPACE
H. 4763, the Helping Alleviate Lawful Obstruction Act, passed the Senate with overwhelming support and moves toward enrollment. The bill makes it a misdemeanor to approach within 25 feet of a first responder performing their duties after a verbal warning with intent to impede, threaten, or harass. It was amended in committee to extend protections to healthcare workers within healthcare facility campuses under similar conditions.
The HALO Act fits Week 11's theme cleanly. It is a bill about drawing a circle, a physical perimeter of protection around people performing a public function. Twenty-five feet of deference, codified into law. Like several other bills moving through this session, it is less about creating new conduct standards than about naming and formalizing a boundary that many assumed already existed.
TORT REFORM MOVES THROUGH THE HOUSE
Two civil litigation reform bills passed the House this week with overwhelming bipartisan support. H.4544, which addresses noneconomic damages caps and expands exceptions for gross negligence and felony conduct, passed 116-0. H. 4670, which establishes a 30-day minimum for time-limited settlement demands in personal injury matters, passed 114-0. Both now head to the Senate.
These bills represent meaningful changes to South Carolina's litigation landscape. Their unanimous or near-unanimous passage signals broad House consensus. The Senate Judiciary Committee will have its own views, and that is where the real conversation begins.
BILLS INTRODUCED: THE TAXONOMY CONTINUES
The bill introduction lists for both chambers this week reinforced the session's defining theme with particular clarity.
S.1060, from Senator Johnson and a broad coalition of co-sponsors, would establish classroom authority and safety protections for educators defining educator rights to refer and remove disruptive students, with administrative accountability built in. It is, at its core, an assertion of professional standing for teachers. The same week the physician noncompete ban was advancing in the House, the Senate was introducing protections for the professional authority of teachers. Two different chambers. Two different professions. One persistent question: what does it mean to do a public-facing job in South Carolina in 2026, and who has the power to define the terms?
S.1065, from Senators Climer, Johnson, and Stubbs, would prohibit ownership of property in South Carolina by persons affiliated with foreign adversaries, foreign terrorist organizations, or transnational criminal organizations, and would bar courts from applying Sharia law in judicial decisions. The bill was referred to the Committee on Education, an unusual committee assignment for legislation of this nature.
H.5447 would require voters to register as members of a political party to participate in that party's primary, a structural change that has been debated in South Carolina for years and that would reshape the state's electoral politics significantly if it advances. Filed quietly in the House this week.
H.5442 would ban digital devices in kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms and prohibit teachers from using them for instruction. At what age does a child need protection from the screen, and who gets to decide?
THE HIGHWAY NAMING WARS: BOTH LANES NOW OPEN
S. 1040 passed the Senate Wednesday, March 25, and now sits in the House's Committee on Invitations and Memorial Resolutions. The resolution requests that DOT name the portion of I-77 from US-1 to I-20 in Richland County the President Barack H. Obama Highway.
On the same day, the Senate also adopted H. 4982, naming a portion of the future I-73 serving Dillon, Horry, Marion, and Marlboro Counties the President Donald J. Trump Highway.
The scoreboard for the 126th Session's highway naming wars now includes a proposed highway for Charlie Kirk, a bridge for Charlie Kirk, an interstate for Donald Trump, and a stretch of I-77 in Richland County for Barack Obama.
WHAT'S COMING IN WEEK 12 AND BEYOND
Several significant items are positioned for action in the coming weeks.
Candidate filing closed at noon on March 30. The field for the June 9 primaries is now set, including a crowded Republican gubernatorial primary.
H.3924 (Hemp) must be resolved before Sine Die on May 14, and the practical window is shorter still if conference committee is required. The November federal deadline does not move.
H.4756 (Student Privacy Act) returns to the House with Senate amendments. Concurrence or conference. Either way, this bill is not finished.
H.4591, the Stop Harm from Addictive Social Media Act, cleared the House Judiciary Committee this week and is positioned for floor action. The bill would require covered social media platforms to use reasonable means to verify the age of account holders and create default account settings and parental consent frameworks for minors. It belongs in the same conversation as H. 5442's classroom device ban both are asking a version of the same question: at what age and under what conditions does a child need protection from the screen, and who is responsible for providing it?
H.4764, the mandatory 287(g) immigration enforcement agreement bill, cleared the House Judiciary Committee this week and is positioned for floor action.
S.983, the Eviction Record Auto-Removal Act, would automatically remove eviction records from public indexes after five years, a bill with real consequences for housing access and tenant rights that has not yet received the attention it deserves.
Senate budget floor debate is expected the week of April 21. The House-passed budget (H. 5126) is already through. The Senate's version will diverge. Budget conference follows, and that is where the real work of appropriations happens.
Sine Die is May 14. Seven weeks. Not all of these bills will cross the finish line. But the ones that do will have been shaped by the question this session keeps returning to: who are you, and where do you belong?
The answer is being written right now, one vote at a time.
ABOUT ALPHA STRATEGIES
The room is moving. The question is whether your organization is in it.
Alpha Strategies exists for two things: consistent communication and access. You should never be caught off guard by what happens at the South Carolina State House, and you should never be on the outside of a conversation that affects your work. That means you hear from us before the vote, not after. It means you are in the room, or you know exactly what happened in it. That is what we do, week in, week out, from the first gavel to Sine Die.
If the 126th Session is touching your industry, your clients, or your community, let's talk.
Seven weeks is not a lot of time in a legislative session.
But it is enough to decide what laws will define South Carolina for years to come.
Alpha Strategies tracks South Carolina’s legislative process week by week to help organizations understand not just what happened, but what it means and what is coming next.
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