Do state actions concerning Columbia’s conversion therapy ban violate local rule?

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - A fight over how much control local governments have over their own communities versus the state’s authority to step in is brewing in South Carolina’s capital city.

It all centers around a local ordinance enacted in the City of Columbia in 2021, banning conversion therapy for minors — the use of counseling to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Last month, Attorney General Alan Wilson sent a letter to Columbia city council , claiming the local law is illegal and threatening to sue if it is not repealed.

Right after, state senator Josh Kimbrell, R–Spartanburg, proposed a measure that is likely to be included in the next state budget, called a proviso, revoking state funding from any local government that enforces this type of ordinance.

Columbia is the only place in South Carolina that has enacted that type of local rule.

“Now basically, the City of Columbia is faced with potentially very costly litigation, so I offered the City of Columbia an off-ramp,” Kimbrell said.

The chair of the House of Representatives’ budget-writing committee told reporters that city officials themselves ed the measure that could put their own money at risk.

Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said during a council meeting Tuesday that the City did not advocate for the proviso.

Ahead of that meeting, during which council opted for a second time in two weeks to defer a vote on repealing the ordinance, LGBTQ advocates urged them to keep it in place amid State House pressures, with an attorney for the ACLU of South Carolina decrying the funding threat as “a legislative act of extortion.”

“To put a budget proviso to say, we’re not going to give you money unless you enact or do something adverse to what you’ve put in place for the community you represent, I think is fundamentally unfair and usurps the legislative process,” Rep. Seth Rose, D–Richland, said.

Rose, who previously served on Richland County Council, said local officials are the ones who are in the best position to set local policies.

Rose noted the state constitution prohibits the General Assembly from enacting laws for a specific municipality, and it includes certain home rule guarantees for local cities and counties to govern their communities.

“There are legislators who think this is wrong, and we stand with the City of Columbia and ask them to please hold firm and fight this back,” Rose said.

The attorney general said this does not violate home rule, which he said is not a “blank check” for cities and counties to do whatever they want.

“Home rule allows local governments to govern themselves however they see fit, so long as it doesn’t contradict a general state law or the constitution,” Wilson said.

Wilson argues this local law contradicts both the Constitution’s First Amendment and a 2022 state law called the “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act.”

That law prohibits local governments from enforcing an ordinance that “interferes with the type and scope of health care services provided by a medical practitioner or the professional conduct and judgment of a medical practitioner when providing health care services.”

“This is not about being pro-conversion therapy because we’re not,” Wilson said. “This is about being pro-rule of law.”

The General Assembly will vote to give final approval to the state budget, including the funding threat provision, on Wednesday.

When asked last week if he would veto the measure, Gov. Henry McMaster said he would need to take a closer look at it first before deciding.

“But really, there are a lot of really important things that we need to be doing, and I would urge everyone to stick to the very important things that we must get done, and then we can think about other things,” McMaster said.

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