Good News & Bad News

The good news is that the Legislature has adjourned so your wallets are safe until January. The bad news is that we’ve adjourned with a lot more work to do.

The 1st year of our 2 year session has expired as of Thursday at 5 PM. While we will send a full breakdown of what did and didn’t happen this Session (that will come at a later date), we thought it would be prudent to focus this communication entirely on the last week of Session.

For starters, this last week featured House Leadership attempting to character assassinate and silence dissent in its ranks. Many will remember the House Republican Caucus rule change proposed in 2023 which would prohibit members of the Caucus from “campaigning” against other members. At the time, SCFC members highlighted the loose language and its potential implications. Instead of signing, our members were expelled from the Caucus. Now, House Leadership is attacking and making an effort to expel Family Caucus Chairman, Rep. John McCravey (Greenwood), for pushing for pro-life legislation as well as other legislation which would benefit our families and children. Instead of moving these bills, which are Republican Party Platform items, House Leadership has let them languish in committee. For his stance on these important issues and his refusal to condemn the advocacy of groups pushing for this legislation, Rep. McCravey has become the target of the dark money establishment apparatus. We want to be clear: we unequivocally stand with and support Chairman McCravey as he weathers these unfair, dishonest attacks, and as he continues to fight to protect our children and families.

Secondly, the House passed a tax reform bill which is better than their first proposal but still will result in a tax increase on 25% of the state, increasing taxes for taxpayers in every bracket. We took exception with the bill due to the increase, the time in which they expected us to analyze it and pass it, and because the authors of the bill couldn't explain who would actually see the tax increase. During these trying economic times, we can’t vote to increase taxes on the middle class and others when we still haven’t substantively cut spending. The Senate refused to bring up this tax hike bill this year and have intimated that they will attempt to fix the broken aspects of the bill. And of note, Freedom Caucus Chairman and other members did offer solutions to the bill in the form of spending cuts, but Democrats and Republicans defeated those proposals.

Freedom Caucus members also attempted to amend the Sine Die Resolution to include legislation like closed primaries, protecting girls’ spaces, medical freedom, illegal immigration, pro-life legislation, and much more. What this would have accomplished had these resolutions passed is allow us to return after May 8th to work on these key conservative issues, and deliver for the people results this year.

As you can probably tell, Columbia is still broken but we are making headway in three ways: first, we are further exposing the bad actors who are not upholding the Republican Party platform. Second, we and others are educating voters of the establishment’s actions or inaction, resulting in a more engaged and educated electorate. Lastly, we are beginning to see more conservatives outside of the Freedom Caucus take a stand and vote their conscience. Several votes took place both on the budget and the Sine Die Resolution amendments on which anywhere from a few to as many as 10 non-Freedom Caucus conservatives voted the principled and courageous way. This growth represents the work you are doing as grassroots leaders, and we would be remiss not to thank you and commend you for your tireless efforts and contribution to our movement.

For liberty,

SCFC