South Carolina General Assembly


The South Carolina General Assembly, also called the South Carolina Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of South Carolina. The legislature is bicameral and consists of the lower South Carolina House of Representatives and the upper South Carolina Senate. Altogether, the General Assembly consists of 170 members. The legislature convenes at the State House in Columbia.
Prior to the 1964 federal Reynolds v. Sims decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, the House of Representatives was apportioned so that each county had a number of representatives based on population, with each county guaranteed at least one representative, while each county had one Senator. Moreover, each county's General Assembly delegation also doubled as its county council, as the state constitution made no provision for local government.
Reynolds v. Sims caused district lines to cross county lines, causing legislators to be on multiple county councils. This led to the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1975, which created county councils that were independent of the General Assembly. However, the General Assembly still retains considerable authority over local government. As a result, the legislature still devotes considerable time to local matters, and county legislative delegations still handle many matters that are handled by county governments in the rest of the country.
There are 124 members of the South Carolina House of Representatives, who are elected every two years, and the South Carolina Senate has 46 members, elected every four years concurrent to the presidential election. For both houses, there are no term limits. The General Assembly meets in joint session to elect judges, with all 170 members having an equal vote in such elections.

Officers

Senate

House of Representatives

Historic Party Control

Below is a chart of party control in the South Carolina General Assembly since 1868.

ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:12
PlotArea = top:10 bottom:80 right:130 left:20
AlignBars = late
DateFormat = yyyy
Period = from:1865 till:2020
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1868
Colors =
id:canvas value:gray
id:REP value:red legend:Republican_Party
id:DEM value:blue legend:Democratic_Party
id:SPT value:purple legend:Split
Legend = columns:3 left:150 top:40 columnwidth:150
TextData =
pos: textcolor:black fontsize:M
text:"Political parties:"
BarData =
barset:PM
PlotData=
width:5 align:left fontsize:S shift: anchor:till
barset:PM
from: 1868 till: 1874 color:REP text:
from: 1874 till: 1992 color:DEM text:
from: 1992 till: 2000 color:SPT text:
from:2000 till: 2020 color:REP text: