By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | A multi-billion canceled project, a corruption probe, big health care changes and a worsening teacher shortage top the honey-do lists for lawmakers when they reconvene Jan. 9 in Columbia.
The torrent of big issues comes during an election year for all 124 House seats and as lawmakers grapple with a budget expected to be tighter in a poor state full of budgetary needs.
According to College of Charleston political observer Gibbs Knotts, 2018 is poised to lean populist in decision-making by lawmakers. One of the biggest issues that lawmakers will have to deal with to remain popular with constituents will be the fallout from the canceled V.C. Summer project which saddled South Carolina ratepayers with $9 billion in debt for two nuclear reactors that remain unfinished.
↧