Your SC politics briefing

Welcome to your weekly South Carolina politics briefing, a newsletter curated by The State’s politics and government team.

News broke Thursday that Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, the state’s most powerful and oldest lawmaker, is in hospice care at home, multiple sources familiar with the senator’s health told media, including The State.

Leatherman, a 40-year state lawmaker, recently returned home from the hospital after surgery to fix an intestinal blockage.

The Associated Press reported one senator said Leatherman, 90, has what was described as an inoperable cancer.

“He has been in the hospital. He’s dealing with some serious health issues right now,” Leatherman’s office said. “He’s back home resting now, and his family thanks everybody for their thoughts and prayers.”

Leatherman was reelected to his Senate seat last year, and was in his 11th term.

Leatherman, whose portrait hangs in the Senate chamber, has represented District 31, which covers parts of Darlington and Florence counties, since 1981. Prior to joining the Senate, he served on the Quinby Town Council from 1967 to 1976, and was mayor pro tempore from 1971 to 1976, according to his legislative biography.

McMaster squares off with feds

Gov. Henry McMaster is once again at odds with the Biden administration over COVID-19 policy and South Carolina, which came under federal investigation earlier this year for its effort to ban school mask mandates, is back in the federal government’s crosshairs.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration this week said it was moving to strip the state of its authority to regulate workplace safety because it hadn’t adopted temporary federal standards in the wake of the pandemic, such as requiring that employers provide workers protective equipment or paid time off to get vaccinated.

McMaster was defiant on Twitter, calling the move a “preemptive strike” by the federal government and vowing to fight the federal interference in court.

“With no state regulators in the way, the federal Labor Department will be free to penalize employers who do not comply with President Biden’s unconstitutional vaccine mandate,” McMaster tweeted. “To protect South Carolina employers, I have instructed (Labor, Licensing and Regulation) Director Emily Farr to begin immediate preparations for a vigorous and lengthy legal fight.”

The acting U.S. assistant labor secretary said South Carolina’s continued refusal to adopt policies equivalent to the federal emergency safety standards was putting thousands of workers at risk for exposure to the coronavirus.

OSHA has initiated a process that includes a 35-day comment period before final revocation of the state’s safety plan.

COVID RUNDOWN

In COVID news, state health officials have ordered more than 150,000 Pfizer doses for children ages 5 to 11, in anticipation of the vaccine receiving authorization for use in that age group shortly.

The doses will arrive in three shipments during the first week of November and will be farmed out to pediatrician’s offices, children’s hospitals, pharmacies and other primary care sites across the state.

If reviews by the FDA and CDC go as expected, children as young as 5 could be eligible for COVID shots by Nov. 4, assistant state epidemiologist Jane Kelly said.

Meanwhile, more cities and counties across the state are looking at vaccine mandates and incentives to increase uptake.

Columbia is finalizing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for city employees that would take effect Nov. 1, but have yet to decide on the consequences noncompliant workers would face. Immediate termination is not being considered as an option.

An effort by dozens of Lowcountry firefighters, police officers, sheriff’s deputies and paramedics to temporarily stop four separate vaccination mandates from going into effect in another of South Carolina’s major metro areas has been denied.

A federal judge rejected a temporary restraining order requested by nearly 80 Charleston-area first responders, writing “their right to express themselves by refusing the COVID-19 vaccine is outweighed by the government’s interest in protecting their employees and communities from a deadly infectious disease.”

The decision means vaccine mandates for the cities of Charleston and North Charleston, Charleston County and the St. John’s Fire District will take effect as planned next month.

FIRST LADY MAKES COMEBACK TO SC

First lady Jill Biden made a trip to South Carolina earlier this week and already has planned her return.

Biden stopped by West Columbia’s Brookland Baptist Church this past Sunday to speak at the 50th work anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Charles Jackson. There, she talked about her faith and about her special friendship with her “prayer partner” Robin Jackson, the church’s first lady.

The trip marked Biden’s first return to South Carolina since her husband overwhelmingly won the state during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

This Sunday, Biden will return to the Palmetto State to visit Charleston.

BUZZ BITES

▪ South Carolina’s prisons director and a Republican lawmaker are pushing the legislature to pass a shield law that would keep hidden the names of drug companies that sell the state lethal injection components. If approved, such a law could mean the resumption of executions by lethal injection.

▪ Incumbent congressmen ended the last fundraising quarter with more cash on hand than any of their competitors.

▪ State health officials are asking lawmakers to use more than $100 million in federal COVID money to build a new public health laboratory to replace the state’s existing lab that is outdated, undersized and prone to mechanical system failures.

▪ SC lawmakers mourned the death of Colin Powell, the first Black U.S. secretary of state.

▪ Less than a month after resigning as director of South Carolina’s Juvenile Justice Department, Freddie Pough has been hired by the state police as a senior special agent.

▪ US Rep. Nancy Mace was the lone South Carolina Republican to join House Democrats in voting to hold former White House aide Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for his refusal to cooperate with its investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

▪ Jim Newsome, who has led the South Carolina Ports Authority since 2009, announced this week that he would retire next summer. Barbara Melvin has named Newsome’s successor.

▪ A former Bamberg County councilman and Jasper County magistrate who lied on an application to buy a gun while facing felony sex crimes charges and under a restraining order from his wife was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

▪ A Lexington 2 school board member faces ethics charges after investigators say she voted on multiple district construction programs that benefited her husband’s firm.

▪ Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump loyalist with a history of pushing conspiracy theories, endorsed one of U.S. Rep. Tom Rice’s primary challengers in the SC-7 race.

▪ Eden Hendrick, who was named acting director of South Carolina’s juvenile justice agency last month, laid out her ambitious plans for turning around the troubled department at a legislative hearing this week.

▪ A Senate redistricting panel took testimony Thursday from outside groups that have submitted proposals to redraw the state’s voting districts.

▪ The Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council voted unanimously to support Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel’s request for a 40-year license to continue operating an atomic fuel plant in Richland County that has a history of environmental and safety violations.

▪ A task force that has been meeting for months to discuss the state of health and environmental protection in South Carolina and craft a plan for the future held its final meeting this week. The group will report its recommendations to the Department of Health and Environmental Control board no later than Nov. 10.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

Oct. 27

SC House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Subcommittee to get DJJ update from interim director, 10:30 a.m.

Oct. 29-31

South Carolina GOP Myrtle Beach conference, featuring 2024 hopefuls

Nov. 2

Municipal elections in South Carolina

BEFORE WE ADJOURN

Columbia City Council this week approved naming the intersection of Oak and Gervais streets for Simon Bouie, a local civil rights activist in the 1960s.

As a 20-year-old Allen University student, Bouie and another local Black college student named Talmadge Neal co-led a sit-in at the Eckerd’s drug store on Main Street, which denied food counter service to African Americans.

The pair, who had been inspired by student sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, was arrested and convicted of trespassing.

Their convictions were later overturned on appeal in what became a landmark Supreme Court ruling.

You can read more about Bouie in this 2018 article published by the University of South Carolina.

Who pulled together this week’s newsletter?

This week it was reporter Zak Koeske, a member of The State’s government and politics team who currently focuses on South Carolina’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Keep up with him on Twitter @ZakKoeske or send him story tips at zkoeske@thestate.com.

Make sure to sign up for our weekly politics newsletter that will come straight to your inbox every Friday morning. Tell your friends to do the same. For even more South Carolina-focused political news, you can chat with us on Facebook at the Buzz on South Carolina Politics, email us tips at thebuzz [at] thestate [dot] com and follow our stories at scpolitics.com.