One of the biggest legislative issues this week for our area was the news that the Senate had passed a provision in the budget that would allow hunting in wildlife sanctuary areas and more particularly in the 20,000-acre Yawkey Wildlife Center in Georgetown County. Click here for news coverage.

The concern is that by allowing hunting in the Yawkey Center, it would violate the provisions of Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey’s will that essentially gifted the land to the state of South Carolina as a wilderness area, possibly causing the Yawkey Trust to take back the land.

I have gotten assurance from the House leadership that the budget will not pass the House with the Senate provision allowing hunting in sanctuaries in it.

The Senate voted Thursday 42 to 1 to seek binding offers to purchase or manage Santee Cooper in the wake of the massive debt accumulated from the failed VC Summer nuclear reactor project. The Senate’s proposal asks the State Department of Administration to evaluate offers from companies who want to buy or manage Santee Cooper and bring the best ones to the General Assembly to consider.

The House passed a joint resolution weeks ago 101 to 6 that would allow the special legislative committee to proceed with the process of analyzing bids and making recommendations on offers to purchase or manage the utility. The House will consider the Senate’s proposal next week while continuing to make the ratepayers, taxpayers, and employees’ the top priority.

On Wednesday a joint legislative session elected trustees for Coastal Carolina University, The Citadel and Medical University of SC.

The bill I sponsored to allow our struggling shrimpers access to prime inshore shrimping grounds off Horry County in the fall was passed out of the Senate Fish, Game and Forestry Committee and hopefully will get a floor vote on Tuesday or Wednesday. Sen. Stephen Goldfinch has been very helpful in moving the bill forward.

There are just three days left in the legislative session.

As always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

I think most people are aware that commercial fishing is very important to our area. It supplies our restaurants and seafood markets with fresh local fish, shrimp and shellfish and defines us as the “Seafood Capital of South Carolina.”

But you may not be aware that one of the biggest threats to commercial fishing is the lack of working waterfronts. More and more of our waterfront property is being developed, squeezing out fishermen and seafood packing houses.

That’s why I attended a town meeting in McClellanville on April 17th to support a Charleston County Greenbelt grant application to purchase commercial docks in the town to preserve them with a conservation easement, which would restrict future uses to only those compatible with the seafood industry.

I believe preserving working waterfronts is important to our coastal economy and culture.

This week, the House was back in session after a week-long Easter break and fishery issues were on the Agricultural, Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Committee’s agenda.

The committee passed reasonable size and bag limits for spadefish and tripletail to help sustain those fisheries.

The Senate passed their version of the state’s $9.3 billion budget last week. The House and Senate will meet over the next few weeks to negotiate the differences between the two budgets and come up with a final version.

I strongly support the ban on approval of offshore oil drilling infrastructure permits by the state or local governments that was added by the Senate to the budget bill.

I’m cautiously optimistic about the news this week that U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said his department is “indefinitely sidelining” plans for offshore drilling in the Atlantic.

On Wednesday at the State House I was privileged to meet with three young women who represent Georgetown County with distinction: Miss Georgetown County, Brooke Vu; Miss Five Rivers, Jada Samuel; and Miss Georgetown County Teen, Julia Herrin.

There are just six days left in the legislative session for this year.

As always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

My thanks to all who took the time to support my bill opposing seismic testing and offshore oil drilling either in person at Wednesday’s Environmental Affairs Subcommittee hearing or in writing.

Testifying in support of Rep. Hewitt's bill opposing offshore oil drilling, from left to right, Gabriella Martin, Peg Howell, Sandra Bundy and Mary Salvatore.

Dozens of people spoke in support of my bill and against offshore oil drilling. This despite the unfortunate last minute on-off-on whipsawing of whether the hearing would occur or not.

The stack of written comments supporting my bill was over 2 inches thick.

A special thanks to Gabriella Martin, an eighth grader at the Coastal Montessori Charter School in Pawleys Island, for her compelling testimony in favor of my bill. She was the only speaker to receive applause. Click here for news coverage.

Only one person, a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, spoke against my bill and in favor of drilling. Yet in the end, the subcommittee voted to advance both my bill and a bill supporting seismic testing and offshore drilling, so we’ll have to continue the fight.

Coincidentally, on the same day offshore oil drilling off our coast was being debated, it was the S.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association’s Hospitality Day at the State House – a day in which the importance of the restaurant and lodging industry to the state’s economy is highlighted.

This is an industry that would be at peril should an offshore oil spill impact our coast.

I enjoyed seeing SCRLA board member and past president David McMillan from Drunken Jack’s Restaurant in Murrells Inlet during the Hospitality Day event.

On Tuesday, the bill I cosponsor in the wake of the tragic death of Samantha Josephson to require better identification of rideshare vehicles, such as Uber and Lyft, passed the House on a 99 to 1 vote. Click here for news coverage.

Wednesday, April 10th was crossover day in the legislature. Any legislation that clears either the House or Senate after April 10th requires a two-thirds majority vote to even be debated by the other body this year, greatly narrowing down bills that can pass both houses.

The House will be on furlough next week and will resume on Tuesday, April 23rd.

As always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

I need your help.

This Wednesday, April 10th, a hearing on competing seismic testing and offshore oil drilling bills – one for and one against – will be held by the House Environmental Affairs Subcommittee. I’m a cosponsor of the bill against seismic testing and offshore oil drilling, H. 3087.

The inevitable oil spills that come with offshore drilling would be a disaster for our coastal economy and environment.

Your written comments or testimony at the hearing in support of my bill would be greatly appreciated. The hearing will start one hour after House adjournment, which is usually 2 pm to 3 pm, in Room 410 of the Blatt Building at 1105 Pendleton Street in Columbia. Please send written comments to [email protected] as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance for your help!

On Tuesday the bill I sponsored to allow our shrimpers access to prime inshore shrimping grounds off Horry County in the fall passed the House on a 101 to 0 vote.

On Wednesday the House passed a joint resolution on a 101 to 6 vote that will take the next step towards negotiating with the four entities who have bid to purchase Santee Cooper. The bids offer assurances about rate reductions, employee retention, retirement protections, environmental assurances, and more. Click here for news coverage.

In the wake of the tragedy involving the killing of Samantha Josephson, a University of South Carolina student last weekend, I cosponsored legislation to make it easier for riders to identify Uber and Lyft vehicles. The proposal requires drivers for ridesharing services to display illuminated stickers on their windshields. Click here for news coverage.

Yesterday I was on the morning WRNN radio show. I used the opportunity to talk about the importance of building the proposed Southern Evacuation Lifeline Highway.

The SELL would vastly improve access across the Waccamaw River between Conway and Georgetown, expediting hurricane evacuations, reducing traffic congestion, and providing a needed additional transportation corridor in the event other vital roadways became flooded and impassable. It needs to be built.

As always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

This week two of my bills passed the Senate and head to Gov. McMaster’s desk for his signature.

One was my deer hunting bill, H. 3750, which would modify the current doe tag program from eight specific date tags to two any day tags. This would allow hunters more flexibility in days to hunt does.

The other bill, H. 3732, requires opioid abuse training as part of the continuing education requirements for veterinarians, who are able to prescribe opioids for animals that might fall into the wrong hands. This bill was strongly supported by the Opioid Abuse Prevention Study Committee.

The bill I sponsored to allow our shrimpers access to prime inshore shrimping grounds off Horry County after September 15th passed the Agricultural, Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Committee and could hit the House floor next week for a vote. Our struggling shrimpers need the help.

On Tuesday, I was honored to meet with the Coastal Carolina Association of Realtors’ leadership class and discuss legislative issues. I’m appreciative of their efforts to become involved and learn about the legislative process.

I’ve steadfastly opposed seismic testing and offshore oil drilling off our coast. A bill I’ve cosponsored to help prevent seismic testing and oil drilling may get a committee hearing by April 10th.

H. 3087, prohibits the approval of actions to facilitate seismic testing or the transportation of offshore oil and natural gas into the land and waters of this state by the state of South Carolina, a state agency, or a political subdivision of this state.

I believe the inevitable oil spills that come with offshore drilling would be a disaster for our coastal economy and environment.

As always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

This week the House of Representatives was focused on protecting electric utility customers.

On Wednesday, a bill I cosponsored to protect electric cooperative ratepayers by providing oversight of the state’s 20 electric cooperatives passed the House on a 104-6 vote. Please click here for news coverage.

We filed the bill after the recent Tri-County Electric Cooperative scandal in which the nine part-time directors paid themselves $52,000 a year each, plus expensive benefits and inappropriate perks – all at the expense of ratepayers. My thanks to Rep. Russell Ott, D-Calhoun, the prime sponsor, for his leadership on this bill.

The House issued a Joint Resolution this week to authorize the special Santee Cooper legislative committee to take the next step towards analyzing bids and making recommendations on offers to purchase the state-owned utility, which is now faced with having to sharply increase rates to start paying off its $9 billion debt. This issue also affects electric cooperative customers as the co-ops buy their power from Santee Cooper.

Last month the committee released a promising preliminary report showing a number of qualified bids that would effectively pay off all the debt and offer lower long-term rates than Santee Cooper.

The bill I sponsored to allow our struggling shrimpers access to prime inshore shrimping grounds off Horry County in the fall passed the Agricultural Subcommittee on Tuesday and will be considered by the full committee next week. I was overwhelmed with written testimony in support of the bill.

As the April 10th crossover deadline approaches, I’m very concerned about the lack of committee hearings on two important bills I’ve sponsored: H. 3064, which would outlaw child luring and H. 3931, which would increase criminal penalties for looting during an evacuation order.

I will continue to press the committee chairmen for hearings so these bills can get to the House floor for a vote. Any legislation that clears either the House or Senate after April 10th requires a two-thirds majority vote to even be debated by the other body this year.

Tuesday was Legislative Day for the S.C. State Firefighters Association. I was privileged to meet with a number of firefighters, including Murrells Inlet-Garden City Fire District Chief Norman Knight. I greatly appreciate their efforts to keep us safe.

As always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

I wanted you to know that we’re nearing the middle of the legislative session which, for the House, means this week was “Budget Week,” our weeklong debate on the $8.7 billion 2019-2020 budget. After going through the budget line by line, casting 226 votes, and working past 1 am on Wednesday, we passed the budget bill on a near unanimous vote.

The budget is based on four pillars: protecting taxpayers (no tax increases and a tax rebate from the surplus), attracting and retaining teachers, funding higher education and freezing tuition, and funding the core functions of government.

This week I introduced a bill, H. 4239, to allow our shrimpers access to prime inshore shrimping grounds off Horry County after September 15th. Experimental shrimp trawling was successfully conducted in the area last fall under the supervision of the S.C. Dept. of Natural Resources. With our shrimpers struggling to survive against a massive wave of shrimp imports, it just makes good sense to allow them to access prime shrimping areas.

It was my privilege to meet with the Leadership Georgetown class this week in Columbia. I was very impressed with the class.

On Tuesday, I had the privilege of meeting with the Charleston County 4H Club. I always appreciate their pledge: I pledge my head to clearer thinking, My heart to greater loyalty, My hands to larger service, and my health to better living, for my club, my community, my country, and my world.

The Senate will be holding a subcommittee hearing on its version of the education reform bill next Thursday, March 21st at the Georgetown High School Auditorium from 6 pm to 8 pm. Please click here for more information.

Next week will be filled with committee meetings, including three Agricultural, Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs subcommittee meetings, and Legislative Oversight and Opioid Abuse Prevention Study committee meetings.

As always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

Last week the House of Representatives was focused on education reform and preparation for the upcoming budget bill debate.

The bipartisan comprehensive education reform bill, the S.C. Education, Career, Opportunity, and Access for All Act, passed the House on Wednesday by a vote of 113-4. As a cosponsor, I’m proud of all of the people who contributed, provided input and made this piece of legislation into a true reform bill.

The bill increases teacher pay, eliminates several mandatory tests, strengthens the ‘Read to Succeed’ program, requires school district consolidation for districts with fewer than 1,000 students, requires school board adoption of ethics policies and training, and gives teachers daily, 30-minute planning periods, among other important reforms.

Today the House will meet to start debating the 2019-2020 budget and continue through the week. In addition to efficiently funding the normal core functions of government, this year we are making substantive investments in education (the education reform bill must be funded) and workforce development. We have prioritized public and higher education in the budget not only because we owe it to our students, but also to ensure our students are better prepared for the workforce.

The budget does not increase taxes and in fact offers tax relief in the form of a tax rebate from the budget surplus.

I’ve cosponsored a bipartisan bill, H. 3145, to provide oversight of the 20 electric cooperatives in the state to protect ratepayers after the recent Tri-County Electric Cooperative scandal in which the nine part-time directors paid themselves $52,000 a year each, plus expensive benefits and inappropriate perks – all at the expense of ratepayers.

The bill allows the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff, a utility watchdog, to audit the electric cooperatives’ compliance with state law, particularly in spending ratepayers’ money.

And finally, I hope you’ll visit the “Important Links” page on my website by clicking here. There you can find important links to state and local government, which I hope you’ll find helpful.

As always, please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

My legislative week started last Monday night with a Charleston County Legislative Delegation meeting on The Citadel campus. I was honored to meet Citadel President General Glenn Walters, United States Marine Corps. Prior to his arrival at The Citadel, General Walters served as the Marine Corps’ second-highest ranking officer.

Last week was dominated by joint sessions of the House and Senate to hear special speakers.

On Tuesday, the General Assembly honored the Clemson national football championship team and heard an inspiring speech by Coach Dabo Swinney on the importance of unity in order to get things done.

On Wednesday, we heard the State of the Judiciary address from S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Don Beatty. He said judicial branch’s top funding needs are infrastructure, technology and personnel, and asked to end the judiciary’s funding dependence on fines and fees.

Our education reform legislation, the S.C. Career Opportunity and Access for All Act, was reported out of the full education committee on a 15-1 vote and is expected to be debated on the House floor this week.

The bill includes needed reforms like raising teacher pay, testing less and teaching more, consolidating small school districts so they run more efficiently, and creating accountability for school boards.

Also, on Wednesday I was pleased to meet with Dwight McInvaill, Director of Georgetown County Library Services, and some of his staff. They were at the State House to support the House Ways and Means budget as written, which increased fiscal support for public libraries.

And finally, some good news for SC tourism. For the sixth consecutive year, tourism in SC has shown record growth. 2017 generated a record economic impact of $22.6 billion, an increase of $1.4 billion from 2016. Tourism growth in the state has increased 50 percent since 2010, according to the SC Parks and Recreation Division.

It’s an honor to serve in the House of Representatives! Please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt

Please click here to donate to my reelection campaign.

I wanted you to know I’m honored to be named a 2018 Friend of the Coast by the South Carolina Beach Advocates for my efforts as primary sponsor to pass the 2018 Beachfront Management Reform Act, which resolved the issue of how beachfront jurisdictional lines will be set -- an issue that affects 20,000 property owners.

This week the budget was successfully passed out of the Ways and Means Committee. The budget is built on the foundation of protecting taxpayers, a renewed commitment to being resourceful and efficient, and funding only core functions of state government.

On Wednesday, Gov. Henry McMaster, House Speaker Jay Lucas, Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman, and Sen. Greg Hembree held a press conference in support of the comprehensive education reform bill, H. 3759. After hearing input and concerns from teachers, parents, students and the business community, the original legislation was amended, and the bill is now stronger.

Also, on Wednesday, it was my pleasure to speak to the S.C. Association of Probate Judges and to be with Georgetown County Probate Judge Leigh Powers Boan. Topics included an update on opioid legislation and mental health issues.

On Thursday, my bill requiring opioid abuse training as part of the continuing education requirements for veterinarians unanimously passed the House and is now in the Senate.

Yesterday, I attended the Georgetown County Republican Morning Club meeting in Litchfield. I got to hear Georgetown County Council Chairman John Thomas speak and enjoyed meeting constituents.

I made the news (click here) this week concerning the recently released report on offers to buy troubled utility Santee Cooper. Based on the report, there are offers to buy Santee Cooper that would pay off all the debt and lower rates for Santee Cooper and electric cooperative customers. I stand with House Speaker Lucas on the need to further evaluate the offers and to enter into negotiations with potential buyers to best evaluate the terms of a sale. We owe it to ratepayers and taxpayers to take these next steps.

I will only support the sale of Santee Cooper if it’s in the interest of the district.

On Monday night, I will be in Charleston attending a county legislative delegation meeting and then it’s off to Columbia again.

It’s an honor to serve in the House of Representatives! Please let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Rep. Lee Hewitt