April 6th Update

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Advancing Opportunity, Safety, and South Carolina Values:

With just four weeks remaining in this year’s legislative session, there is no time to waste to accomplish critical work for the people of South Carolina. This week, we continued delivering on our House Republican Caucus’s Pillars for Progress—supporting legislation that defends merit-based opportunity, expands career-ready education, and protects children and families from emerging threats. These aren’t just bills—they are promises kept to the people of South Carolina.

✅ House Passes DEI Ban, Restores Merit-Based Opportunity
As part of our commitment to remove harmful DEI programs from our educational institutions and state government, I proudly voted to pass H.3927, the Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity Act. This landmark legislation makes South Carolina the first state in the country to turn President Trump’s executive order on DEI into law—eliminating race- and gender-based preferences and restoring a fair, merit-driven system.

🔹 Bans DEI-based hiring, admissions, and contract preferences in public institutions
🔹 Prohibits forced DEI statements and mandates
🔹 Protects civil rights and enforces oversight through the Inspector General and Attorney General
🔹 Ensures public universities aren’t bound by accreditors that demand illegal DEI mandates
🔹 Preserves lawful veteran preferences, disability accommodations, and First Amendment rights

This bill is a critical step toward restoring fairness, ending illegal discrimination, and ensuring your tax dollars aren’t spent promoting divisive ideology. On a personal note, I would like you to know that the statements and testimony from Democrats in the House were very hard to listen to for seemingly endless hours. We were told over and over again in every offensive way possible how very racist we are for even considering this bill. Furthermore, they claimed repeatedly that talking about merit makes it seem like we don't think people in their jobs now due to DEI programs deserved those positions. What they do not seem to understand, even though a number of us tried to explain this one-on-one, is that this is the whole point. DEI programs reduce a person's achievement by making it seem as though they would not have been able to attain that job, promotion or opportunity on their own without that group identity initiative. Due to a very well-considered amendment brought by the Education Committee, the bill focuses strongly on upholding the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I never heard anyone say before this week that upholding the Civil Rights Act was racist. Finally, I want to give a special shout out to my colleague, a Freshman member this year from Dorchester County, Representative Harriet Holman. Harriet took to the Well as the last speech about the bill before it was passed. As a retired Lt. Colonel in the Army, her incredible, compelling story of determination, hard work, and grit was by far the most inspiring message of the entire day. As she said herself, although she is the first African American Republican woman ever elected to the SC State House, she is proud to stand up against DEI programs because she knows first-hand that it has been her own efforts and hard work throughout life, not group identity initiatives that caused her to achieve all that she has. She received a standing ovation from members of the House.

📚 Preparing Students for the Jobs of Tomorrow
Fulfilling our goal to expand educational opportunities and enhance outcomes, I strongly support two proactive thinking bills that cleared the House Education and Public Works Committee this week and will soon be headed to the House floor.

H.3201, the South Carolina Computer Science Education Initiative Act, will ensure that by the 2026–2027 school year, every public high school offers at least one rigorous, career-relevant computer science course. The bill also lays the groundwork for career pathways in high-demand fields like cybersecurity, information systems, and software development—starting as early as elementary school.

H.3863, the South Carolina STEM Opportunity Act, creates a statewide STEM coalition to align education and workforce development, particularly in underserved areas. It promotes hands-on learning, strengthens teacher training, and builds pipelines for South Carolina students to enter high-paying careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.
When these bills reach the House floor, I look forward to supporting them and helping South Carolina lead the way in workforce readiness.

🛡️ Strengthening Protections Against Child Exploitation
As part of our commitment to prioritize public safety and protect children from “deepfake” digital exploitation, the House passed H.3045, a bill I strongly supported. This legislation creates felony-level penalties for the production or possession of digitally manipulated child sexual abuse material—even if the child depicted does not actually exist. It also adds the offense to the sex offender registry and establishes a clear legal framework for prosecuting these heinous acts. This is a critical update to our laws in the digital age, and it ensures South Carolina has the tools to protect our most vulnerable.

H.3285 Passes the Judiciary Committee in Time for National Autism Awareness Day
My bill to require training for First Responders regarding autistic and neurodivergent individuals passed the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday was National Autism Awareness Day, and I was thrilled to introduce two mothers who both have autistic children and have been on the forefront of fighting for their well-being in numerous ways. Layla Luna, President and Founder of Just Bee, and Nicole Ortiz, the volunteer Latino Outreach Coordinator with Just Bee, were in Columbia to attend a major conference on this special day. Knowing we had passed the bill out of Judiciary on Tuesday, they agreed to come over to the State House. You have heard me write about Layla's tremendous efforts in prior newsletters. Nicole is responsible for having translated all of the Just Bee brochures and literature into Spanish. We expect the House to take up and hopefully pass the bill next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Here We Go Again With Ugly, False Attack Ads for No Reason:

Late this week, you may have received a terrible attack piece in your mailbox about me, stating that I might be hiding my "pro-abortion views." It has a person with a paper bag over his/her head, which at first I thought was a picture of me. It turns out it is a man with a suit and tie, but the metaphor is about hiding something. This is absolutely outrageous. I have voted for every single pro-life bill that has been presented to us in the House since elected in 2022, including an earlier version of the one described in the mailer. I gave a heartfelt speech at the Well on the night we voted for and passed the Fetal Heartbeat Bill, including the story about my grandmother who died in childbirth. She lives on today in her numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren due to her tremendous sacrifice. I worked as a volunteer for several years for the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Greensboro where we lived at the time. Who are these people who will stoop to lying about someone who has never done anything nor expressed any "pro-abortion views" in my entire life? I am sick and tired of all the lies, and will be looking into bringing a campaign reform bill designed to penalize anyone who knowingly brings falsehoods against someone. I expect attacks from the left because of my very conservative views and voting, but the attacks from far-right "holier than thou" PAC's have gone too far. Not only that, this mailer probably cost at least $3000-$5000 minimum. Wouldn't those funds be better used supporting our local Lowcountry Pregnancy Center than attacking a strong, pro-life conservative?

H. 4216 - Update on the Tax Cut Bill:

This week, the House Republican Caucus met several times to explore and discuss details about the tax cut bill. While it is true that the original bill needs work, which I stated last week in the email, it is misleading for the newspaper and other sources to keep saying that 60% of taxpayers will pay more. For one thing, by "more," in many instances we are talking about less than $100/year. Also, it was surprising to learn that some of the individuals and families paying 0% or very low taxes are earning $1,000,000/year! 

I have already received many emails urging me to vote against this, yet, we're still working out the math. Besides moving to a low flat tax that is lower than either of our neighboring states, this bill would remove the Federal Taxable Income figure as the determining factor for calculating your income tax. Since the standard deduction is currently $14,600/person federally, whereas the new SC State standard deduction is only $6000, it would seem like many people will pay more. But remember, the rate is dropping from 6.2% currently down to 3.99%. Only people in the 3% bracket currently would have almost a certainty of paying a bit more, equal to 0.99%, because many of the people who are in the 0% bracket will still not pay any taxes, unless they have massive federal write-offs to itemize, and those are not usually lower to middle income individuals and families. All the exempt incomes such as Veterans' Pensions, Social Security, some other Federal pensions such as Railroad Retirement, and others will still be tax-free. I am working on the math individually, and have already made several suggestions to Chairman Bannister of the Ways & Means Committee. I believe some combination of raising the income level at which the standard deduction would phase out to protect lower to middle income families, combined with cutting spending projections at least for the first year, would allow us to move forward with the flat tax cut that could pay tremendous dividends in terms of future revenue and investment in our State. 

Around the District and the Lowcountry:

We had a great group of visitors to the State House this week, and were so happy to welcome the Civil Air Patrol who were escorted by Kelly Rowe from District 80 in Mount Pleasant. There are a number of members of this group from the Lowcountry, and they provide a tremendous service to our area assisting the Coast Guard, Air Force and other government agencies in search and rescue operations when needed.

 Every year the SC Homebuilders Association hosts a dinner called "The Bird Supper." This is the longest running event hosted for legislators historically. I sat with a whole group of Charleston based legislators and guests as we heard about work being done to improve housing opportunities throughout the state. We are very crowded here in Mount Pleasant, but there are many areas in the Midlands (throughout the 6th Congressional District before redistricting) that need jobs, housing, and pretty much everything else to improve quality of life.

The East Cooper Republican Women met on Monday at the Hilton Gardens in Mount Pleasant for lunch. I was asked to provide a quick update on what we have been doing over the last month in Columbia. I always encourage folks to sign up for these emails so everyone can be kept up to date on what bills are coming to the House, what has been passed recently, and to make myself available to answer questions. This month, I mentioned how important it is that we get H.3643 brought to the Judiciary Committee for a hearing so that we can finally vote to close our primaries! I have pushed for this over and over, and will continue to do so. Please email WestonNewton@SCHouse.gov if you would like to help push for this bill to be heard. I feel certain we would have the votes to get it passed.