McMaster signs SC’s judicial reform bill but urges lawmakers to enact more changes

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Changes are coming to the way most judges are selected in South Carolina, one of two states where the legislature picks the judiciary.

Gov. Henry McMaster signed the new law this week, following more than a year of calls for judicial reform.

But the governor also made clear to lawmakers: He does not believe their work on this issue is done.

“The status quo is unacceptable, and this bill does change a few things, but I view it only as the first few steps,” McMaster said at a State House news conference.

That’s the message he sent to legislators in a letter, telling them he would sign their judicial reform bill into law but that it is incomplete.

“They made some progress, but not nearly enough,” McMaster said.

The law focuses significantly on the Judicial Merit Selection Commission, or JMSC, the committee that screens judicial candidates and advances the names of those qualified for seats to the full General Assembly, which elects them.

It will expand the panel’s membership from 10 members to 12, four of whom will be appointed by the governor, who currently has no role in the judicial selection process.

But McMaster believes he should make at least half of the appointments, with the executive branch coequal with the legislature, which chooses the rest.

The new law will impose term limits on screening panel members for the first time and prohibit most current JMSC members from serving on this revamped version.

But it will still permit lawyers who are also legislators to serve on the committee, a ban some wanted to see. The governor told lawmakers he believes lawyer-legislators should make up less than half the panel’s membership if allowed to serve on it at all.

Chief among the areas where McMaster believes these changes fall short is the exclusion of any reforms to the current magistrate judge system.

“That is vitally important. Those magistrates — the magistrates court is where most of the legal business in the state is done,” McMaster said. “Most people don’t ever see the inside of a circuit court or sometimes family court.”

Senators entirely control magistrate selection, and the upper chamber’s majority leader said reform of some fashion isn’t off the table in the future.

“There are a number of people who are willing to talk about those things. There are some senators who are very protective of that — suits me to give it up completely. They’re a pain in my butt,” Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R – Edgefield, said. “But I think that is something that is likely going to be talked about into the future, especially if we continue to have problems in that area, there’s going to be more conversation.”

The changes this new law makes won’t go into effect until July of next year.

So McMaster wants to see lawmakers come back to the table when they return to Columbia in January and pass additional measures before that July 2025 implementation.

Ultimately, he favors a selection system akin to the federal model, in which the governor would appoint judges, with senators’ approval.

But that would require a change to the state constitution to implement,  and there is significant reluctance among lawmakers to do that.

You can read the governor’s full signing statement, including the further reforms he wishes to see the legislature enact, below:

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