South Carolina Statehouse Blog

Bill S. 970, a bill regarding medical patients’ privacy rights, is set to see debate today. The bill, sponsored by Senator Hutto, specifically states that if a patient has been diagnosed with HIV, the information is strictly confidential. Therefore, in the context of public schools, no administrators may be notified that the given student is carrying the virus. The patient’s medical information in this situation would be confidential.

The current code states that if the patient has tested positive for HIV at a public health clinic, the information must be forwarded to administrators, principals and so on at the school that the student attends. Rep. Crawford stated that “there is no evidence that anyone’s privacy has been breached by a school official.”

Representative Kris Crawford, a practicing physician, takes exception to the bill and the law, and sees changes that should be made. He believes they were both poorly drawn, and stated that the schools should be notified that a student of theirs does in fact have HIV. However, he agrees that the student’s name should not be given.

The reasoning for not giving the name is that patients can get a “chilling effect,” and will not get tested if they fear people will find out. However, as stated, there is no evidence of privacy being breached. Regardless, it can cause people to worry about it and make the wrong decision.

Moreover, Rep. Crawford believes that it should encompass all blood-borne illnesses, not just HIV. He says that HIV is not unique in the way it is transmitted, so it should not be singled out. Therefore, all blood-borne illnesses, like HIV and Hepatitis, will be included in this bill.

According to Rep. Crawford, the Department of Health and Environmental Control(DHEC) will have to notify the school that there is an anonymous student with the given illness. If there is a laceration and/or a possibility of a transfer of bodily fluids, like in the case of a stab wound, sports-related lacerations, and so on, the nurse must notify DHEC, as proper procedure. They will then explain what to do if the nurse is not familiar with this sort of situation. The student will go to the hospital as safe, proper procedure suggests and then get prophylaxis treatment to try to prevent the illness.

If, in this sort of case, the student must be treated to prevent the spreading of the illness, it will clearly be realized that the other person involved was in fact infected with it. So, the anonymity would not be able to be kept. This is easily justified, as Rep Crawford states “our goal is to make sure nobody’s life or health is in danger, and in this case, that person’s life is in danger.”

Rep. Crawford is hopeful this bill will pass today, as this seems to be relatively straightforward public health policy. Furthermore, there is an effective compromise being made to make everyone happy, in that health conditions are kept private, but safety is also a main priority. Rep Crawford said “I don’t think what we were doing made sense, and I don’t think the way the bill was initially drawn made sense.” Through compromise and collaboration, it seems they have come up with something that does in fact make sense.

Illegal immigration, along with the many problems associated with it, is a major topic being debated in almost every state’s legislature and South Carolina’s statehouse is no exception. A recent bill proposed by Representative Nathan Ballentine tries to tackle the issue of illegal immigrants receiving state aid to public educational institutions. The bill he is proposing, House Bill 4451, would specifically state that those who are not in the country legally are not eligible for state aid for education. I was able to interview Representative Ballentine about his bill and the following is based off that interview.

Rep. Ballentine told me that he first got the idea for this bill after listening to one of the many presidential debates in the fall of last year. During this particular debate, he heard one candidate talk about how illegal immigrants in his state could receive state aid for education.

After hearing that this was occurring in other states, Ballentine decided to do some research and find out if the same thing could happen in South Carolina.

“When I asked the legislative council to look into the statutes they had on file,” Representative Ballentine explained, “They said, ‘Nathan there is a loophole. It doesn’t specifically say you can’t be an illegal immigrant [to receive state aid for education].’”

Upon hearing this, Ballentine decided to close that loophole, no matter how small it might be.

As you may be aware, there is currently a bill (S. 392) which is considered a “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Package” that probably would address this problem. However, since this bill has stalled in the conference committee, Ballentine felt that something else was needed.

“When you have a comprehensive anything (referring to S.392), someone is going to find fault with it,” Ballentine explained. Therefore, he felt it was necessary to create a bill that had a “laser” like focus on this one particular issue.

“I thought it was important that we had a stand alone bill that just addressed this one item, which I noted we can and should address, and that was to be sure that our tax dollars do not go to fund educational scholarships for illegal immigrants.”

It seems that most Representatives up at the statehouse agree with Ballentine since the bill received the customary second and third readings this past week without any major problems. Following its easy passage through the House, it was introduced on the Senate floor on Thursday. Now, it is currently residing in the Senate’s Committee on Education where Ballentine believes it won’t encounter any problems either.

To sum up how he feels about the the immigration issue, Representative Ballentine had this to say:

“Immigration is a federal issue but there are certain things that we can do locally.”

With the federal government seemingly stalled on immigration, many other state legislators are holding Ballentine’s view that things must be done at the state level to deal with this issue. However, with South Carolina’s legislature scheduled to be in session only until the beginning of June, time is quickly running out for them to resolve some of the many immigration problems South Carolina faces.

A new law regarding abortions recently passed through the state legislator and will soon be signed by Governor Sanford. The law involves new guidelines in the inevitably controversial issue of abortions. As would be expected in legislation regarding this topic, debates and emotions accompanied this bill on its way to the Governor.

This soon-to-be law specifically states that the doctor giving an abortion must inform the patient that an ultrasound has been taken, and that the patient has a right to view it. The patient then chooses to view it, or not, and must sign a paper saying that she was given the information by the doctor. Then, before having an abortion performed, the patient must wait one hour, whether she views the ultrasound or not.

It is already common practice to perform an ultrasound before giving an abortion, but this law explicitly states that the patient must be informed about it and follow the above details.

Senator Kevin Bryant is a main sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, bill S 0084. Sen. Bryant is and always has been adamantly pro-life, and says that is one of the reasons for why he got into politics in the first place. He explained that the liberty of the child in the womb should be protected, and hence, stated “I’ve always supported legislation to protect those rights.”

Sen. Bryant confidently stated “I think this is more effective than outlawing abortion.” This is because of the fact that when outlawed, people simply see it as a law; they do not examine the rationale behind it. Here, they think about it and rights of the child are more apt to be put into thought. Sen. Bryant claims that in cases where the mothers view the ultrasound images, about 85% of them choose not to have an abortion.

Senator Kevin Bryant explained that the hour waiting period is installed to promote patience and contemplation in the process. Although Representative Delleney’s version in the House, House Bill H 3355, is the one that ultimately passed, Sen. Bryant is still happy with the end result. The House version is more of a “safe” approach to implementing the law, explained Sen. Bryant. Delleney’s version was initially strict and aggressive, but changes were ultimately made in committees. Sen. Bryant wanted a more aggressive approach to this idea. Sen. Bryant’s version was more of a test case that would have inevitably seen the Supreme Court, perhaps being held up in the courts for several years. The House version is safer because it is proven to work in other states and has been upheld in courts, so there will be little controversy over its constitutionality.

Sen. Bryant said he wanted the viewing of ultrasound images to be more mandatory, but he still supports this law as it stands. Moreover, he explained that there are two approaches to the pro-life ideal. One side wants to make the strongest pro-life legislation in the nation. The other wants to play it safe and take laws that are proven to hold up in court, but this certainly comes with some amount of compromise and is less aggressive. The plus-side of the safe approach is that once passed, it will immediately go into effect, rather than get held up in the court system.

Making all kinds of national news, this is clearly a large step in the issue of abortions. Furthermore, there are other states that have adopted this sort of approach in the recent past, and Oklahoma also passed a similar law to this one very recently. One can assume that this may become a national trend of some sort, and Sen. Bryant says that he hopes that is the case.

The law can be seen as a compromise of the two sides in the debate about abortion. As Sen. Bryant put it, a choice is still being given to women, but patience, contemplation and the liberty of the child in the womb is being stressed. It seems as though both sides of the issue can see some sort of victory and progress here.

Being debated in the Banking and Consumer Affairs subcommittee right now, is the issue of payday lending. What the final product of this bill will look like is still not entirely clear. It may still undergo fundamental changes. The legislative term used for this bill is the “Deferred Presentment Act.” In this committee is Representative Nikki Haley, with whom I discussed the issue.

First of all, to iron out the details, we should understand what the issue is all about. Payday lending generally consists of a lender giving relatively small loans of about $300-$600, in advance of a paycheck, usually for emergency expenses like a doctor’s visit, or car repairs. According to current South Carolina laws, no more than 15% of the borrowed amount may be charged by the lender as a fee. There are no late fees or additional interest fees allowed. This means that if someone takes out a loan of $300, the most the lender will ever be able to get in return is $345.

80% of the borrowers are in good standing, meaning they paid back their loans on time without a hitch, so to speak. The other 20% seems to get into a cycle of not being able to pay back the original loan. What typically happens, is the borrower will take a loan, have to pay it back with another loan, and possibly have to pay that one back with another loan. It’s a detrimental cycle, where the borrower is simply taking money from one firm and giving it to another and so on. Hence, the debate is about how to reform this industry.

“Now, the challenge is…how we can help that 20%, but not hurt 80% who are doing what they’re supposed to do,” explains Rep. Haley.

Some delicate actions will be taken to hopefully remedy this situation. First of all, the proposed reform will only allow one loan to be taken out at a time. There will be a database set up that will enable the lender to find out whether the borrower has a loan already or not. In case the borrower runs into trouble, there will be a period of 60 days in which the borrower has to pay back the loan. After these 60 days, the senate version of the bill, bill S 0398, proposes a 7 day “cool-off” period in which the borrower may not take out another loan.

Rep. Haley sees a problem with this aspect of the bill, and explained that this is being debated right now in the House subcommittee. The Banking and Consumer Affairs committee is going through each part of the issue, and will see the finished Senate version next week. She contends that we should not punish the 80% who do things correctly. The question now is certainly about how much government should control the industry. Rep. Haley believes that “our goal is to give them as many choices as possible and educate them, so they make good decisions.”

It should be noted that banks, credit card companies, and virtually no other financial industry has a “cool-off” period like this, so the question is whether this particular industry should be the only one to be regulated in such a way.

Furthermore, when looking at Georgia and North Carolina, we see that payday lending has been banned altogether. Because of that, they have seen increases in returned checks, and in some cases, people come to South Carolina for these small loans. Rep. Haley explained that payday lending clearly has its market. People will always have emergency expenditures, like unexpected doctor’s visits, car repairs, and so on, and no other institution offers these small loans. Banks and credit card companies certainly do not get involved in this market.

In the Senate’s version of the bill, a limit of 25% of the two-week period paycheck may be borrowed. A dispute over this is probably going to motivate some changes in that version. Representative Haley explained that it is hard to put that percentage-limit given a two-week period because some people may be paid by the hour and will therefore make more or less money at different times of the month. The 25% rule seems to be vague, sometimes inaccurate and a potentially unfair constraint.

There seems to be a misconception by some about the payday lending industry. Some people say that they want people to default so they can charge high interest rates and late fees. However, there are no late fees or additional interest rates that they are allowed to charge. Nobody in the industry wants to lend to people who cannot pay them back, so this bill will hopefully help this inbalance. The goal here seems to be to stop the problem of paying off one loan with another loan. But, how do we do this without hurting the large majority who do just fine with the loans? That is certainly up for question at the State House.

The argument about who has the right to possess a gun has been going on since the creation of the second amendment. An especially hot topic in recent years has been handgun possession and in particular the issue of what should be the legal age of possession. For the citizens of South Carolina, a consensus seems to have been reached.

Last week, Governor Mark Sanford signed House Bill 4364 (now R.219) into law which clarifies at what age one can possess a handgun in South Carolina. The bill, simply put, lowers the age one can possess a handgun from 21 years old to 18.

Representative Michael Pitts from Laurens was one of the main sponsors of this bill and agreed to talk to me a little more about what all this bill entailed.

Representative Pitts started off by explaining why this bill was needed in the first place. He explained that South Carolina has a couple major gun manufacturing plants which are staffed by a lot of people between the ages of 18-21. Before this bill was passed, handgun possession in South Carolina was limited to those 21 and older. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that South Carolina’s definition of handgun “possession” was very ambiguous. Without any set standard, the current interpretation of “possession” meant that those working in a gun factory were actually in “possession” of handguns even if they just handled paperwork. If left unresolved, this would have resulted in these businesses having to fire a lot of their staff because they were under the legal age of possession.

In order to clearly define possession, H.4364 was proposed in the House. However, the bill originally proposed in the House wasn’t the one that ended up on the governor’s desk. Before it got to the governor’s desk, the Senate made some changes to it.

“The original bill defined more clearly what possession of a handgun meant by a person 18 to 21 years of age for the purpose of sales,” Representative Pitts explained. “When it got to the Senate, Senator Hutto gave the argument…that in the state of South Carolina, we consider you an adult at the age of 18.”

Therefore, while the bill was in the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was simplified to allow anyone above the age of 18 the right to possess a handgun.

“What Senator Hutto’s [bill] did was gave a person over 18 [and] under 21 the ability not to just possess while working in sales, but to possess period.”

When Representative Pitts saw these changes, he fully supported them.

“If you can bear arms for this country at the age of 18 without signature from your parents, you should be able to own a gun also.”

However, this doesn’t mean that an 18 year old can just walk into a handgun dealer’s store and buy one.

“The bill in and of itself would allow the purchase of a handgun,” Pitts said, “but when you take into account all of the laws, federal, state, and everything else, federal law restricts the sale of handguns to an 18 year old.”

What this means is that those between the ages of 18 and 21 are still not allowed to purchase handguns from dealers even though they are allowed to possess one.

To put this new law into context, Representative Pitts gave me an example of where this law could be seen in action.

“If my daughter were driving, as a 19 or 20 year old, to Charleston for the weekend,” Pitts explained, “I could put my handgun in the glove compartment of my car and she could drive to Charleston without being a felon if she were stopped.”

One of the surprising things about this bill is that the media didn’t discover it until after the governor had practically signed it. I asked Representative Pitts why he thought this happened.

“Because they were so focused…on the Freedom of Information on Concealed Weapon’s permits, they became tunnel visioned and lost track of the big picture”

“Now, if they missed a bill that could create as much controversy as [it] did once they found out about it,” Pitts continued, “what else did they miss as they were so focussed in on me?”

Representative Pitts also noted that a lot of South Carolina’s media missed the fact that lowering the age of possession to 18 actually aligns itself with Federal Law (18 USC 922(b), (x)). In fact, South Carolina was the last of the southern states to lower the possession age to 18. Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that there are some western states that have laws that allow persons younger than 18 to possess handguns. One such state is Montana which allows 14 year olds to posses a handgun.

In order to wrap up the interview, Pitts left me with these two question:

“Are South Carolina’s kids less intelligent, less mature, or less responsible than the kids in the rest of the southern states? Are the southern kids as a group more untrustworthy and irresponsible than the kids in the western states?”