COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – Democratic and Republican candidates for South Carolina governor made their pitches to members of the state\u2019s business community Tuesday night at a bipartisan forum held at the University of South Carolina\u2019s Darla Moore School of Business. <\/p>\n
Candidates who attended the forum were Republicans Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Ralph Norman, State Sen. Josh Kimbrell and Attorney General Alan Wilson. The Democratic candidates present were State Rep. Jermaine Johnson and Upstate businessman Billy Webster. <\/p>\n
Democratic candidate Mullins McLeod and Republican candidates Rep. Nancy Mace, Lowcountry businessman Rom Reddy and Jacqueline Hicks DuBose were not present. <\/p>\n
The event was hosted by the South Carolina Manufacturers and Commerce, one of the largest business advocacy groups in the state, and focused on business, infrastructure and tort policies.<\/p>\n
Republican candidates largely called for cutting taxes and overhauling what they described as \u201coutdated\u201d regulations. <\/p>\n
Evette and Wilson both suggested using AI and other technologies to make processes related to business regulations easier<\/p>\n
\u201cStart utilizing AI, utilizing technology, and let the hard work be done so that businesses can get permits and regulations become easier,\u201d Evette said. <\/p>\n
We need to use advanced artificial intelligence platforms that can cut the wait times down for permitting processes," Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Kimbrell called for a complete overhaul of the state\u2019s current business regulations. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot possibly keep up with that number of regulations, and we have regulations in the books right now that were passed when Harry Truman was president,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Norman said he would question businesses about the benefits they would bring to the state beyond jobs. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf their only statement is that they want to bring jobs here, then no. What\u2019s the return on investment? What are you going to bring here,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Democrat Jermaine Johnson said that a change in political party is needed to fix the state\u2019s infrastructure. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re driving from South Carolina to North Carolina, you can literally see the line from North Carolina to South Carolina in our infrastructure and our roads. We should be embarrassed about that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Fellow Democrat Billy Webster said that a statewide conservation and infrastructure plan is needed to fix the issues. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a statewide conservation and infrastructure plan. Those two things fit together; they fit together to promote smart growth,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
All candidates agreed that, if elected governor, a top priority is to fix South Carolina\u2019s aging roads and bridges, especially as the state continues to grow. <\/p>\n
Tort reform was also a large topic of conversation. State legislators passed reform laws last year that would limit excessive lawsuit claims while keeping the courts open to those with legitimate cases. <\/p>\n
Several candidates on stage said that they believed the reforms did not go far enough. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think what we do is sit down, bring insurance companies to the table, you bring lawyers to the table, you bring businesses to the table,\u201d Evette said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been burned by it as many of you have. If you\u2019re in the business arena, there\u2019s not a business person in here who hasn\u2019t been affected by just frivolous lawsuits,\u201d Norman said.<\/p>\n
Kimbrell said that if someone files a lawsuit that is not deemed legitimate, then the plaintiff should have to pay the defendant\u2019s lawsuit fees<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you file a frivolous, baseless lawsuit that\u2019s garbage, you should pay your opponent\u2019s legal fees,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Johnson said that the tort reforms just shifted the problem around, rather than actually fixing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you pass that tort reform, if it does not bring down the insurance premium cost, then that means we didn\u2019t fix the problem, only shifted it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wilson called the state\u2019s current tort system \u201can exploitable system.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re seeing a correlation between our tort laws, which is incentivizing more frivolous suits, because it\u2019s there, it\u2019s an exploitable system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Webster took a more neutral approach in his response, saying that tort reform needed to be balanced between fairness for plaintiffs and defendants. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to address them where we see inequity in the balance between fairness to a defendant and fairness to a plaintiff\u2019s access to a courtroom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Early voting begins May 26 and ends June 5. Election Day for partisan primaries is June 9. <\/p>\n
Feel more informed, prepared, and connected with WIS. For more free content like this, subscribe to our email newsletter<\/a>, and download our apps<\/a>. Have feedback that can help us improve? Click here.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WIS. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – Democratic and Republican candidates for South Carolina governor made their pitches to members of the state\u2019s business community Tuesday night at a bipartisan forum held at the University of South Carolina\u2019s Darla Moore School of Business.
\nCandidates who attended the forum were Republicans Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Ralph Norman, State Sen. Josh Kimbrell and Attorney General Alan Wilson. The Democratic candidates present were State Rep. Jermaine Johnson and Upstate businessman Billy Webster.
\nDemocratic candidate Mullins McLeod and Republican candidates Rep. Nancy Mace, Lowcountry businessman Rom Reddy and Jacqueline Hicks DuBose were not present.
\nThe event was hosted by the South Carolina Manufacturers and Commerce, one of the largest business advocacy groups in the state, and focused on business, infrastructure and tort policies.
\nRepublican candidates largely called for cutting taxes and overhauling what they described as \u201coutdated\u201d regulations.
\nEvette and..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tie-business","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}