Category: Blog

In Oconee County, South Carolina, there’s something in the water–taxation. In the fall of 2023, the county issued $25 million in bonds to fund wastewater and sewer treatment for an area near Interstate I-85, but it only benefits part of the county. When the bond proposal was first discussed during County Council meetings, several citizens took issue with the idea and attempted to engage the council to express their concerns.  With no firm budget being presented on how the bond monies would be spent, the group publicly called for a town hall meeting to discuss the issues and question the legality of the proposal.  That offer was firmly rejected, and the county quickly moved to secure the bond amidst public opposition.  The public learned shortly after that the bond was secured, and the monies were to be spent on sewer expansion.  It was then that the citizens approached SCPIF for legal help. Knowing this was a blatant violation of the clear...

What Happened? What would an extra $75 million mean to South Carolina? That amount of money could fund more than 5,000 students for an entire school year. It is nearly the entire public safety budget for the city of Columbia last year. The state could use it to pay down some debt or put it toward fixing the roads. Instead, when Attorney General Alan Wilson won a windfall for the state in court, he directed $75 million of it toward his former law firm in attorney’s fees. South Carolina Public Interest Foundation (SCPIF) is working to get that money back into the public coffers, and making sure something like this can never happen again.   There has been a long history of South Carolina storing plutonium at the Savannah River site. Former Gov. Hodges negotiated with the Department of Energy (DoE) to get the nuclear waste out of South Carolina, which would generate a lot of income for the areas around Aiken and...

In the age of AI, police departments across the country are using increasingly powerful and complex technology every day. In South Carolina, the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is using one such tool, automated license plate readers, without legislative permission—and without the limitations placed on them by many states. SCPIF has teamed up with The Policing Project at NYU School of Law to prevent SLED from operating this illegal vehicle surveillance program. Improper Data Collection SLED is not only utilizing license plate readers without legislative authority, but they’re also taking full advantage of the lack of oversight. For example, other states have laws limiting how long captured data can be stored or which crimes it can be used to investigate. In New Hampshire, for example, data has to be purged within three minutes unless it is matched to a vehicle of interest to law enforcement. In South Carolina, there are no state laws limiting how long police can retain vehicle surveillance information....

A group of Travelers Rest citizens are alleging constitutional violations by the Greenville County Council. The claims include that the county council has used technical loopholes to violate the state constitution by adopting a bi-annual budget rather than the required annual budget. Other claims involve council members holding closed-door meetings, violating South Carolina’s open meetings law under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “One of the main focuses of this lawsuit and a lot of others like it, is it requires our public officials to follow the law. We have good laws. The problem is, our public officials are not as faithful and diligent as they should be with following the laws,” said SCPIF’s principal attorney, Jim Carpenter. What's the violation? The state constitution requires that the county adopt a budget every year, but Greenville County has been budgeting bi-annually for approximately ten years. “They have no idea in the next fiscal year whether their revenue is what they projected and what...

Constitutional Context On September 14, 1787, in the closing hours of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Ben Franklin proposed Congress be granted "a power to provide for cutting canals where deemed necessary." Connecticut’s Roger Sherman objected, noting “The expense in such cases will fall on the United States, and the benefit accrue to the places where the canals may be cut.” Sherman’s objection reflected a concern with the potential abuse when responsibility is offloaded to a distant authority. The phenomenon whereby somebody else or some other entity absorbs the risk or cost of another’s behavior is referred to as “moral hazard.” Seeing Sherman’s logic, delegates from South Carolina voted with those from seven other states to reject Franklin’s proposal. By an 8-3 vote, the Framers made clear Congress would have no power to fund canals. Reflecting a similar concern over moral hazard, South Carolina’s Constitution wisely prohibits the use of general obligation bonds to fund infrastructure projects unless a special taxing district is created specifically for...