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| South Carolina State House, (PE photo/Tony J. Spain) |
by Jessica Holdman, SC Daily Gazette
February 5, 2026
COLUMBIA — Senators unanimously passed an overhaul of state laws against driving under the influence in an effort to reduce deaths on South Carolina’s roads.
Wednesday’s vote wrapped up days of debate on one of Senate leadership’s top priorities this session. The measure, fast tracked to the floor on the session’s opening day, could bring the biggest changes to the state’s often loosely enforced DUI laws in decades.
Namely, the bipartisan legislation adds a layer of penalties when the intoxicated driver injures, rather than kills, someone to the point they lose consciousness or have to undergo anesthesia to be treated. It also toughens punishments, removes tripwires where charges get dismissed over videotaping issues and prods people to submit to breathalyzer and blood testing.
“We’re really coming down harder on repeat offenders,” Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey told reporters. “And we are making it more uncomfortable even for the first offense.
“The idea is to include enough of a deterrent effect that people aren’t going to want to do it,” the Edgefield Republican added.
South Carolina has one of the nation’s highest drunken driving fatality rates, according to a 2024 report from MADD’s state chapter. That includes 474 DUI deaths in 2022, the fifth-highest number overall and worst rate based on population, according to the report.
Nearly half of all fatal crashes in the state involve a drunken driver, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Safety.
Meanwhile, more than half of all charges for driving under the influence are pleaded down to lesser crimes, attorneys in the Senate said.
More prosecution and tougher penalties
The proposal seeks to combat that by mandating prosecutors handle court proceedings for even the lowest-level DUI cases. Across most of the state, those cases are prosecuted by police officers in traffic court.
“Candidly, it’s not a fair fight,” Massey said. “They are trained law enforcement officers. It’s unfair to expect them to go up against seasoned criminal defense lawyers. And I think if you have prosecutors involved there, you’re going to get a better resolution of cases.”
And while legislators cannot mandate breathalyzer or blood testing, those who refuse face steeper penalties on the back end if convicted.
Those who decline voluntary testing already have to give up their driver’s license while their case makes its way through the court system — officially, anyway. They can still rather easily get a temporary alcohol license, which is supposed to enable them to get to and from work. But it doesn’t actually prevent them from driving other places. The result is that people often refuse to take the test.
The bill adds a requirement for a temporary license: Drivers must install equipment, known as an ignition interlock device, that prevents a car from starting until the person blows into the machine to prove they’re not intoxicated.
“It’s inconvenient, embarrassing and costly,” Massey said.
The ignition interlock device would also be installed for drivers who avoid prosecution by going through pre-trial intervention, a program for first-time offenders that keeps their record clean if they successfully complete it. Participants would have to blow into a device for six months to start their vehicle. Other program additions include a DUI impact panel, where they’d hear from the victims and family members of people hurt or killed in drunken driving accidents.
“I fear that we’re not really teaching the lessons that we need to teach people,” Sen. Greg Hembree, R-Little River, said of the program.
“The goal is that is when they finish, they go, ‘That really stunk. That was no fun at all. That was aggravating. I’m calling an Uber,'” said the former prosecutor.
Incentivizing a voluntary test
Police need a warrant or consent for a blood test. In 2023, the state Supreme Court ruled mandatory blood draws conducted without a warrant in felony DUI cases are unconstitutional, violating a person’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
The bill seeks to incentivize voluntary breath and blood testing through harsher penalties. People who refuse would face a one- to four-year suspension of their drivers’ license, depending on how many times they’ve been previously convicted. That’s up from six to 15 months under existing law.
Sen. Margie Bright Matthews said people shouldn’t have to make officers’ jobs easy. She questioned whether the enhanced penalty infringes on due process rights through coercion, especially for people originally pulled over for a different reason.
“There are good police officers and bad police officers,” the Colleton County Democrat said. “If you stop somebody, you need to prove it. Not them prove themselves.”
But blood tests become particularly important with intoxicants that aren’t alcohol and don’t show up on a breath test, Massey said.
“Right now, almost half of all DUI arrests result in a refusal,” he said. “So we have to change that penalty structure to encourage people to take the test.”
Advocates celebrate
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| Antania Mingo-Lewis, who says she lost a leg because of a drunken driver, speaks during a news conference on strengthening DUI laws in Columbia, South Carolina on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (Photo by Adrian Ashford/SC Daily Gazette) |
Antania Mingo-Lewis shared her own tragic story during a press conference ahead of the vote. Her life was forever changed, she said, by an intoxicated driver who left her needing a leg amputation and killed her 11-year-old child.
“I still deal with that loss daily,” said Mingo-Lewis.
The driver who hit them was initially charged with driving under the influence causing both great bodily injury and death but eventually pleaded guilty to a hit and run causing great bodily injury and death.
“I don’t feel like I got justice,” Mingo-Lewis said.
Sen. Tom Davis, the bill’s main sponsor, called the bill’s speed through the Senate “extraordinary.”
After moving from subcommittee to the Senate floor on opening day, passage with unanimous agreement took just two weeks, which is impressive for a chamber that prides itself as the deliberative body. And that included a canceled day and late-start day due to wintry weather, as well as a short day due to the State of the State address. With more than three months remaining in the legislative session, Davis is optimistic about the bill’s chances in the House.
“I want to be standing here in May celebrating a bill signing by Henry McMaster that, for the first time that I’ve been involved in politics, results in meaningful reforms to our DUI laws,” said Davis, who was Gov. Mark Sanford’s chief of staff and legislative liaison before voters first sent him to the Senate 18 years ago.
The last major changes to DUI laws, in 2008, came after Davis’ former boss publicly accused senators of blocking the legislation.
‘Not always black and white’
Senators also acknowledged, for first-time offenders, that a terrible mistake upends the lives of drivers as well as victims.
“It’s time we do something,” said Sen. Russell Ott. “There are some that think we have to really, really, really be hard, as hard as we possibly can, on those that are caught driving under the influence … But it’s not always so black and white. There’s a lot of gray in between sometimes.”
The St. Matthews Democrat told a story of a family friend, who in 2016, drove while drunk and got in an accident that killed the man’s girlfriend. He pleaded guilty, taking full responsibility and throwing himself to the mercy of the court. Still, to this day he’s considered a violent criminal.
In prison, that violent designation for a felony DUI resulting in a death meant he could not participate in work or education programs.
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Ott said. “I would think that we’d want them to be productive members of society.”
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| Left to right, South Carolina Sen. Russell Ott, D-St. Matthews, huddles with Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, on the Senate floor Tuesday, Feb 3, 2026, during a debate over reforms to the state's DUI laws. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette) |
Those already convicted and in prison also can make petitions if the victim’s family consents, and it’s the only violent offense on their record.
Left out of the version passed Wednesday were felony penalties for certain cases of reckless driving, for example a person who causes an accident while drag racing and severely injures another person or their property.
Opponents argued it mixed reckless driving with intoxicated driving and could lead to police tacking on unnecessary charges.
Sen. Tom Fernandez, who is an attorney, shared the story of a client — an 18-year-old man — who missed the sign for a 10 mph drop in the speed limit. An elderly couple pulled out in front of him, cutting him off, and a bar he had mounted on his Jeep to keep it from tipping when off-roading sliced through the car killing the couple and their adult daughter.
“The (man’s) family called me crying, saying that their son was just arrested and charged with reckless homicide, three counts,” the Summerville Republican said. “I went into the courtroom. I asked for a bond and the family of the victims asked for mercy on the young man. Highway Patrol instead said no.”
It took 4½ years before the charges were dropped, Fernandez said. He called it an example of how enhanced penalties can go wrong and drag someone down personally and professionally.
Work remains
Amid the debate, Massey also warned senators there’s likely more work to be done in the coming years when it comes to South Carolina’s alcohol laws.
The Legislature passed a law last year intended to relieve bars and restaurants facing massive liquor-related insurance premiums. But since the measure went into effect at the beginning of the year, early signs point to the law falling short of its intended outcome.
“The feedback that we’re getting early on is (insurance companies) are looking at it and saying, ‘this ain’t gonna work,’ which I think should not be a surprise to anybody who was really paying attention,” said Massey, who warned last year that the compromise wouldn’t do much for premiums.
It gave bars and restaurants options, as well as requirements, for reducing their minimum insurance coverage for serving alcohol. It also reformed state rules for personal injury lawsuits and how financial responsibility in a lawsuit are doled out among all those involved.
Under state law known as “joint and several liability,” businesses could be required to pay the full amount of a court-ordered award even if they we’re just 1% responsible for whatever happened.
Personal injury lawyers, including those in the Legislature, argued the law needs to ensure victims can be fully compensated for their loss following a tragedy. But if plaintiffs only sue whoever or whatever can pay the biggest award, as often happens, business owners said it forces insurance payouts for things that aren’t their fault.
“We got about halfway there in the newest law update,” said Andrew Reina, CEO of The Ragnar Group.
Under the new law, bars and restaurants bear responsibility if they “knowingly” serve alcohol to someone who is intoxicated.
But Reina, an insurance broker who sits on the board of the South Carolina Bar and Tavern Association, said major insurance carriers aren’t likely to return to doing business in the state until they see how judges and juries interpret the new standard. That could take two or three years.
“Insurance carriers, they’re like a big cruise ship,” he said. “It takes them forever to change course and it’s still debatable whether the new law will have any impact or not.”
Reina said the golden standard that would make insurance companies more likely to return is if liability was based on ‘visible’ intoxication instead of ‘knowing.” It’s easier to judge by reviewing security footage.
“If a bar serves someone who is staggering, visibly intoxicated, they 100% should be held liable,” Reina said “That is the definition of negligence. It’s the middle ground where you’re leaving it up to a jury interpreting and weird things happen when you do that.”
Reporter Adrian Ashford contributed to this report.
Jessica Holdman is a journalist for the SC Daily Gazette. She was previously a business reporter for the Post and Courier.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsrooms, the nation’s largest state focused nonprofit news organization supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: Info@scdaily.gazette.com
