Statehouse Dispatch: April 6, 2026

You’ve probably seen the headlines by now: Some of our state lawmakers want to overturn marriage equality.

Members of the religious authoritarian South Carolina Freedom Caucus introduced a resolution (H. 5501) in the State House of Representatives on April 2 asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn its own 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and allow same-sex marriage bans like South Carolina’s to take effect again.

Two things can be true at once:

1. This is only a resolution, not a bill. Even if it passes, it’s little more than an open letter, and it has no enforcement power.
2. This resolution represents the ambitions of politicians who will not be satisfied with attacking the rights of transgender people. It shows us who they will target next.

We remain committed to marriage equality. We oppose this hateful resolution and the small-minded agenda of the people who wrote it. Meanwhile, we are committed to fighting the substantive bills those same politicians will be advancing in the week ahead.

Your state senator and representative need to hear from you. Not sure who represents you in Columbia? You can look them up, along with their contact information, using the Find Your Legislators tool on the Statehouse website.

Ignoring the more than 1,600 South Carolinians who have written, called, and spoken out against police collaboration with ICE, the state House of Representatives voted 85-30 on April 1 to advance a bill (H. 4764) that would force many local law enforcement agencies to carry out enforcement work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

This fight isn’t over. Write to your state senator today and explain why surrendering local control of law enforcement to an unaccountable masked deportation machine is a terrible idea:

House Bill 4756 would require transgender students in South Carolina public schools and colleges to use restrooms and changing facilities that do not match their gender. This is a discriminatory policy that would also empower self-appointed bathroom police to question the presence of anyone whose gender expression does not conform with stereotypes.

Debate on H. 4756 has been adjourned until April 14. In the meantime, you can help reduce the harm of this bill by calling your state House representative and asking them to insist on the House version of the bill, which is slightly less bad than the Senate version. As we highlighted on Instagram recently, while both versions of the bill would require schools to have single-user restrooms on campus, the Senate introduced an amendment that would allow schools to install a temporary outdoor facility — in other words, a porta-potty.

Got 5 minutes for a phone call? Use this action page and we will connect you with your state House representative’s office. Ask them to not concur with the Senate’s amendments.

At least one positive policy has a chance of advancing this week. House Bill 4270, an eviction record sealing bill, is coming up for debate on the House floor soon. Meanwhile Senate Bill 983, a similar piece of legislation, will come up for a vote before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, April 8, at 2 p.m. in Gressette Building Room 308.

People who have had an eviction filed against them should not face barriers to renting a home — but that is the case today in South Carolina, where eviction filings remain on public court records for life. This bill would remove eviction filings from public court records after five years.

You can help advance these bills. Call your House representative via this form from the South Carolina Housing Justice Coalition and ask them to advance H. 4270 as-is, without delay.

You can also call your state senator today and ask them to vote for S. 983.

Not satisfied with the extreme and dangerous six-week abortion ban they have already enacted, some lawmakers are pushing new bills to further restrict access to abortions, reproductive healthcare, and even postpartum emergency care.

Senate Bill 1095, introduced on April 1, would make it illegal to receive an abortion in South Carolina unless the pregnant person’s life is in danger, drastically limiting the scope of reproductive healthcare. The bill would make it a felony to perform an abortion or provide abortion-inducing drugs, and a misdemeanor for a pregnant person to receive an abortion unless their life is in danger.

S. 1095 bears some similarities to S. 323, the total abortion ban that was introduced and then abandoned in a subcommittee in 2025 after thousands of South Carolinians expressed their outrage. No victory is permanent.

Meanwhile another anti-abortion bill criminalizing the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, H. 4760, remains active and could come up for a subcommittee hearing soon. As medical experts have pointed out in states that passed similar bans, these medications have other applications including the treatment of postpartum hemorrhage. Restricting access can lead to delays in medical care in life-or-death emergency situations, worsening the quality of healthcare in our rural counties where maternal mortality rates are already frighteningly high.

Lawmakers gestured toward “reforming” the juvenile justice system this year, but their focus has been on harsher penalties for children to reduce juvenile crime rates, which have been falling since the ‘90s.

Lawmakers recently introduced two bills, H. 5483 and S. 1060, that would give school employees increased and vague authority to discipline students in classrooms. They would be authorized to use “reasonable physical force” to protect themselves or others from harm and to permanently remove students from classrooms. These bills do not clearly define what “reasonable physical force” means.

Until our state gets serious about addressing the root causes of behavior issues in children, including poverty and trauma, children will pay the price for our misguided policy decisions. The South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice will continue to be overloaded with children for whom it cannot provide adequate care. We look forward to pushing for substantive change in the coming years.