ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 17 Week of May 4, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session Just days from Sine Die, the General Assembly was supposed to be cleaning up the budget, the roads bill, and hemp. Instead, week 17 turned the back half of session into a fight over whether South Carolina is going to redraw its congressional map. On top of that, S. 508 (monument and memorial protection), effectively an expansion of the Heritage Act, rec

ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 16 Week of April 27, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session The House passed a sweeping DUI reform bill unanimously. The massive transportation overhaul cleared the House and immediately hit a wall in the Senate. Kratom regulation took a sharp turn on the floor. Hemp went to conference. A commencement speech turned into a funding threat. And the Senate reminded everyone that South Carolina’s farmers are runni

ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 15 Week of April 20, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session The Senate passed its budget. The House moved through major calendar items. A near-total abortion bill cleared committee, with a Republican breaking ranks to oppose it, and landed on the Senate floor. Hemp regulation is back in the Senate after a long House floor fight. Here is what Week 15 actually means. THE SENATE PASSES ITS BUDGET, AND LOADS IT

ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 14 Week of April 13, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session South Carolina lawmakers came back from spring break with a to-do list the size of a phone book and exactly four weeks left to work through it. Welcome to Week 14. The sprinting has officially started. Last week, House members were on furlough while the Senate held a perfunctory session. This week, both chambers gaveled in with purpose. Bills th

ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 13 Week of April 6, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session The House left town. The Senate did not. That is the clean version of Week 13. The fuller version is more useful. The House was on furlough. Members went home, worked their districts, and left Columbia to the senators who apparently do not believe in spring break. No drama-heavy floor week. No parade of third readings. Just budget writing, co

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 b

ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 10 Week of March 16, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session There is a simple version of Week 10: the House was on furlough, the Senate passed a hemp bill, and candidate filing opened. It is also incomplete. The House stayed home. The Senate did not. A marathon debate over hemp-derived THC products ended with a failed vote late Wednesday, reconsideration Thursday morning, and final passage Thursday afternoon.

ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 9 Week of March 9, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session Let's start with the number that should stop you cold. Fourteen. That is how many bills have been filed this session -- this single legislative session -- seeking to require party registration to vote in a South Carolina partisan primary. Fourteen. Five of them dropped in a single week. Five. In one week. To be fair, some of those fourteen bills have t

ALPHA STRATEGIES | LEGISLATIVE SESSION UPDATE | WEEK 8 Week of March 2, 2026 | South Carolina General Assembly, 126th Session If you wanted one image to capture the range of Week 8 at the South Carolina State House, it might be this: the same building that opened its rotunda to thousands of mourners paying respects to the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday closed out Thursday with the House voting to name a highway after Charlie Kirk. That is not a political statement. It is just

Week of February 16, 2026 Let's be honest. If you blinked this week, you missed a lot. Week 6 of the 2026 legislative session was one of those weeks where you had to be in three rooms at once. The Senate was debating generational tax policy on the floor, the House was cranking through a $15.4 billion budget in committee, and in the background, a steady drumbeat of social policy bills kept marching through subcommittees. Welcome to February at the State House! Here's what you