S.C. Legislature wrap-up: Where some bills we’ve covered ended up

South Carolina’s legislators wrapped up another two-year session this week with several items still on the agenda for the final day of the session Thursday. Some bills made it over the final hurdle, some did not, and others remain in limbo. Here’s a rundown of a few we’ve written about this term.

Alicia’s Law

An offensive against online sexual predators, this law – named for a woman who managed to escape from an online acquaintance who held her captive as a 13-year-old girl – was still in limbo as the Legislature wrapped up its session Thursday.

It was unveiled in March by state Rep. Tommy Pope, R-York, and passed the S.C. House on a 102-0 vote in April. Alicia’s Law would create a dedicated fund for combating internet crimes by charging an extra 6.1 percent on fines paid by criminal defendants, a measure that could raise an estimated $3.1 million a year.

But the idea of increasing court fines met opposition in the Senate, where the bill’s supporters ultimately agreed to drop the funding component May 26 just to keep it from dying a procedural death – leaving the fund in place, but without a dedicated source of revenue.

On the last day of the session Thursday, House members voted 97-0 to reject the Senate changes, and the bill was sent to a conference committee between the two chambers that could report back later in June.

The National Association to Protect Children, which has sponsored versions of Alicia’s Law passed in a dozen other states, says the law’s success depends on a secure source of funding – which would boost funding for the attorney general’s internet task force and provide grants to local law enforcement to combat online predators.

“Otherwise, it will be whittled away,” said Grier Weeks, a former executive director of the asscoation. “The way law enforcement hiring works, if they hire and train somebody to put in place, they want assurance it will be funded for at least three years.”

It would be difficult to find other funding sources for Alicia’s Law this year without opening up the budget. Weeks said he’s talked to the S.C. Attorney General’s Office in hopes of finding additional funding until the Legislature returns next year.

Pennies for Progress

The next vote on renewing York County’s penny sales tax for road construction will go forward as scheduled.

York County is slated to vote on the next round of road projects to be tackled by the Pennies program in November 2017. But county leaders were worried the timeline would be derailed under a bill that could have limited when local governments can hold a referendum on local taxes – and might have forced the long-running penny sales tax to expire.

An early version of H.5078 would have required counties to hold local referendums alongside a “general election,” specifically defined as “even-numbered years” that coincide with a presidential or midterm election.

York County wasn’t scheduled to finish its latest list of projects in time to hold a vote this year, and if forced to wait until 2018, the seven-year tax last approved by voters in 2011 would have expired before county residents had a chance to renew it.

Ultimately, a bill defining a “general election” as one held any November, in an even or odd year, easily passed both houses in the final week of the session, leaving the next Pennies vote on schedule.

Refugees in S.C.

Legislators started this session earlier this year in the midst of an international refugee crisis, as people fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and Africa fled to Europe in ever increasing numbers and President Barack Obama’s announcement that 10,000 additional refugees from the Syrian civil war would be resettled in the United States this year.

But in the aftermath of terror attacks in Paris, France, and San Bernardino, Calif., opposition to admitting more refugees to the United States grew. York County and several other local governments approved resolutions opposing the resettlement plans.

In March, after an airport bombing in Brussels, Belgium, the S.C. Senate approved a bill that would require refugees in South Carolina to register their address, telephone number, work information and criminal record with the Department of Social Services. One section removed prior to passage would have posted the resulting refugee database online for the public.

But the bill was never taken up by the House Judiciary Committee, and it officially died when the session ended.

The idea of a refugee registry earned vocal opposition from the mostly nonprofit groups that work with those fleeing conflicts overseas.

“Welcoming refugees is part of who we are,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. “America is better when we recognize the lives refugees have been forced to leave behind and when we honor and support their efforts to start over and contribute in their new home.”

This story was originally published June 3, 2016 at 5:50 PM with the headline "S.C. Legislature wrap-up: Where some bills we’ve covered ended up."