Corruption series sparked calls for change at SC Statehouse, but progress has been slow
Avery G. Wilks, 10 April 2021
COLUMBIA — With time running out on their 2021 calendar, South Carolina lawmakers have made little progress toward closing ethics loopholes for big-spending special government district leaders. Nor have they given the state’s top law enforcement agency the money it says it needs to better investigate public corruption.
But influential legislators say they remain committed to tackling those concerns, which were highlighted earlier this year in The Post and Courier’s Uncovered series, a yearlong project with community newspapers aimed at unearthing corruption and abuses of power in small-town South Carolina.
Some of the fixes, like bolstering the State Law Enforcement Division’s crime-fighting budget, are still achievable before the Legislature adjourns for the year this summer — even amid a legislative session dominated by guns, abortion and how to classify transgender student athletes.
Other efforts, like substantially reforming the hundreds of special government districts that spend taxpayer money with scant oversight, likely will bleed into 2022, the second half of the General Assembly’s two-year session.
