Transparency check-in: streaming at the Statehouse (2026)

The best way to build citizens’ trust in government is through greater transparency, and few modern innovations embody transparency more effectively than livestreaming. 

For the fifth consecutive year, the SC Policy Council has tracked the livestreaming frequency of legislative committee meetings. Since then, several committees have improved their transparency efforts. 

Legislative committees play a crucial role in the legislative process, reviewing and amending bills before they reach the full chamber. Livestreaming and archiving these meeting offers citizens a way to engage in the process when driving up or down to Columbia daily is not an option. 

With the regular session over, now is a great time to check in on this year’s livestreaming results. 

Top performers 

Thanks to data provided by legislative staff, we measured how often each House and Senate committee, including subcommittees and ad hoc committees, streamed during the second year of the 2025-26 regular session, which ran from January 13 through May 14. 

The following nine committees maintained perfect streaming records in 2026: 

(Note: committees that don’t primarily deal with bills, such as the House and Senate Legislative Oversight Committees, are not factored into this report.) 

Last year, the Policy Council cited the Senate Education Committee as needing to work on transparency after only streaming 53% of its meetings. This year, we are happy to report that the committee maintained a perfect streaming record, demonstrating how quickly a committee can improve its transparency. 

A committee that continues to struggle with livestreaming its meetings is the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, who streamed just one of its 14 meetings in 2026. This continues a trend set last year when it only streamed one of its eight meetings. 

Another committee identified by the Policy Council as needing improvement with streaming was the Senate Finance Committee, which handles the annual state budget. Last year it streamed 81% of its meetings, but this year only 68% of its meetings were streamed. 15 of the 22 meetings not streamed were budget hearings.  

For comparison, its House counterpart, the Ways and Means Committee, which maintained a perfect record in 2025, missed one budget hearing and has a 99% streaming rate for 2026. These budget hearings serve as the basis for each chamber’s budget proposal, making their accessibility crucial to ensure lawmakers are spending tax dollars responsibly. 

Comparing the numbers 

The Policy Council has produced this report for the fifth consecutive year. This allows us to compare the numbers over the years and see if committees are trending in the right direction: 

• Nine committees maintained perfect streaming records in 2026, up from six in 2025, three in 2024, and two in 2023. 

• The average streaming rate across all House committees this year is 99%, while the average across all Senate committees is 76%. If we exclude the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, the average streaming rate across all Senate committees rises to 83%. 

• Big mover: the Senate Education Committee maintaining a perfect streaming record in 2026 after streaming just 53% of its meetings in 2025. 

Why this matters 

When a bill is introduced, it gets referred to a legislative committee where it is debated and typically amended before it is advanced to a full floor vote. Amendments that come out of committees often face minimal resistance, granting them significant influence over policy outcomes. 

While state law requires meeting minutes, these minutes lack the detail and context a video archive provides. Providing citizens with a video record of lawmakers’ actions allows them to hold their state representatives accountable for exactly what they say. 

 Our recommendation 

Currently, the choice to livestream is at the discretion of the committee chair. While several committees have shown remarkable improvement in transparency efforts over the past few years, others continue to struggle.  

We understand that external factors can hinder livestreaming abilities, such as a lack of equipment, and permanent solutions can take time. However, it is easy to set up a phone or a laptop with a secure internet connection to capture audio and video. 

The Policy Council has long advocated and will continue to advocate for legislation requiring all committee meetings to be livestreamed and archived.