Biographical Information
name
Caroline Avinger
campaign phone number
864-979-1807
1. What are your top three priorities for legislative action?
Protect and strengthen public education by ending unconstitutional private school voucher schemes and ensuring public dollars are invested in South Carolina’s public schools, teachers, and students.
Expand Medicaid to increase healthcare access, strengthen rural healthcare systems, reduce uncompensated care costs, and support working South Carolinians who fall into the coverage gap.
Protect women’s reproductive freedom and medical privacy by restoring safeguards for access to contraception, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare, and evidence-based reproductive medicine.
2. What steps would you take to protect the current voting rights of all South Carolinians?
I would oppose unnecessary documentation requirements that make it harder for eligible South Carolinians to vote, especially those that burden women disproportionately when legal names may have changed through marriage or divorce. I support election integrity, but security should be both effective and efficient, not a paperwork trap for lawful voters. And I would work to protect access to early/absentee voters--that must not be endangered by restrictions that suppress turn-out.
3. How will you protect our state's water and power resources from the increasing demands of AI centers?
New legislation is currently being considered at this very moment. I feel strongly that any new legislation addressing protection of SC water and power resources be both prospective and retroactive in order to hold existing, expanding, and new data centers to the same rigorous resource standards. The corporations themselves should be responsible for the increased energy costs; those costs should not be passed on to residents.
4. Do you support current legal protections for IVF procedures and the rights of people to access contraceptives?
As I write this, both of these are endangered by current legislation being discussed in the SC Statehouse, in particular the legislation that is pushing to exclude contraception that prevents implantation of an embryo. There is also an act in committee since 2025 that would serve to protect IVF procedures and providers, H3652. I would fight to have that pulled out of committee and voted into law. I will fight for policies that respect patient choice, follow established medical standards, and provide timely access to the full range of fertility and reproductive health care.