Thursday, May 9 marked the end of the 2024 regular session of the South Carolina General Assembly.

Items that did not pass include a hate crimes bill, a proposal permitting medical marijuana use, liquor stores being open on Sundays and expansion of private school vouchers.

The hate crimes bill survived the House and failed in the Senate.

Late last year, the Town of Lexington Police Department worked together with the FBI Columbia Field Office, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department and the Columbia Police Department on a case where two S.C. men were charged with hate crimes.

According to a release from the Office of Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of Justice, Charles Antonio Clippard, 26, and Michael Joseph Knox, 28, both of Columbia, were charged in connection with a “string of bias-motivated armed robberies targeting Hispanic victims.”

They “conspired to target people the defendants identified as Mexican or Hispanic at places of public accommodation, including gas stations and grocery stores,” the release read. “After identifying these targets, the defendants would rob their victims at gunpoint. The indictment alleges that the defendants committed three armed robberies as part of the conspiracy, including one carjacking, because of the victims’ race and national origin and because those individuals were using places of public accommodation.”

The Senate passed the medical marijuana bill but it died in the House.

The House was in favor of liquor stores being open on Sundays but the Senate did not hear it.

The House was also in favor of the expansion of private school vouchers but the Senate didn’t take it.

And the idea to combine state health agencies died in the Senate.

According to reporting from the Associated Press, anyone in South Carolina who can legally own a weapon can now openly carry a gun.

Awaiting Gov. Henry McMaster’s signatures include bills banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, removing the sales tax on feminine hygiene products and revising the state’s law about compensating college athletes.

Bills not passed may show up again during next year’s regular session of the South Carolina General Assembly.