Government Transparency

How to improve transparency in state and local government

Citizen engagement is vital to an accountable functioning government. Transparency empowers people to witness and participate in the decision-making processes. In today’s digital age, livestreaming public meetings is critical for fostering community involvement.  Livestreaming public meetings allows citizens who cannot attend in person to engage with and monitor discussions and...

Sam Aaron

Written by
November 11, 2024

  • How to improve transparency in state and local government

    Citizen engagement is vital to an accountable functioning government. Transparency empowers people to witness and participate in the decision-making processes. In today’s digital age, livestreaming public meetings is critical for fostering community involvement.  Livestreaming public meetings allows citizens who cannot attend in person to engage with and monitor discussions and...
    Sam Aaron

    Written by
    November 11, 2024

  • How a bill becomes a law in South Carolina

    The legislative process can often be complex. Upon researching available online resources regarding South Carolina's legislative process, we found that the primary resource was an overly complicated PDF that is almost a decade old.  To address this, SCPC has developed a new, easily understandable graphic. This graphic is designed to help...
    Sam Aaron

    Written by
    July 25, 2024

  • Transparency check-in: Streaming at the Statehouse (2024)

    Since 2022, the South Carolina Policy Council (SCPC) has annually tracked the livestreaming rates of state legislative committee meetings in an effort to encourage transparency. In this short time, we have seen a positive shift in consistency among several committees, some of which finished this year with perfect records.
    Sam Aaron

    Written by
    June 15, 2024

  • Release: SC Policy Council, SC Public Interest Foundation file ethics complaint against Scout Motors

    MEDIA RELEASE April 29, 2024 The South Carolina Policy Council and South Carolina Public Interest Foundation have jointly requested that the S.C. State Ethics Commission investigate whether Scout Motors Inc. violated state ethics law in connection with the nearly $1.3 billion state appropriation last year for the company’s assembly plant...
    Bryce Fiedler

    Written by
    April 29, 2024

  • Proposed House rules: committees must livestream, consider more bills

    Recently, several resolutions were filed proposing noteworthy changes to the S.C. House rules. Two of them (H.5219 and H.5221) seek to improve transparency and accountability at key moments when it comes to lawmaking and judicial elections. H.5219 would require all House committees and subcommittees to livestream their meetings on the...
    William Morton

    Written by
    March 15, 2024

  • Shedding light on South Carolina's murky corporate-welfare system

    South Carolina might be conservative, but is it a free-market state? It's an open question after the S.C. Legislature this year used $1.3 billion in public funds to recruit a single company, Scout Motors, to Richland County.
    Bryce Fiedler

    Written by
    December 01, 2023

  • Transparency check-in: streaming at the Statehouse (2023)

    With the 2023 regular legislative session concluded, now is a great time to follow up on transparency efforts made by the General Assembly to livestream their committee meetings, an initiative we began last summer.
    Sam Aaron

    Written by
    July 19, 2023

  • Cleaning up Columbia: How to fix South Carolina's broken campaign finance and ethics system

    Read the print digital version HERE. By Dallas Woodhouse and Bryce Fiedler When it comes to campaign donations, government ethics and pay-to-play politics, South Carolina has a shockingly corrupt and unaccountable system. Citizens can’t find out who is giving political money and why. Donations of all kinds are secret. Campaign...
    Bryce Fiedler

    Written by
    May 18, 2023

  • Seven steps to make S.C. government more transparent

    “Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show it can bear discussion and publicity.”- Lord Acton   THE TIME FOR TRANSPARENCY IS NOW
    Sam Aaron

    Written by
    December 01, 2022

  • Transparency check-in: streaming at the Statehouse (2022)

    To encourage more transparency in state government, SCPC has been examining how frequently legislative committee meetings are livestreamed to the public. These committees have the important job of reviewing and approving bills before they reach the House and Senate floor, and committee members will often propose changes in the process....
    Sam Aaron

    Written by
    July 27, 2022