INTERVIEW: Gov.-elect Alan Wilson on his priorities, goals after election win

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Alan Wilson, South Carolina’s governor-elect, sat down with WIS Anchor Judi Gatson for an interview on Thursday following his election win earlier in the week.

In a nearly 40-minute interview, Wilson laid out his priorities and goals for when he takes office in January. You can watch the full interview in the video above this story.

A transcript of the interview can also be read below:

Judi Gatson: Well, we are honored to have South Carolina’s governor-elect, Alan Wilson, joining us in the WIS studio. Congratulations. I’ve got to imagine a big sign of relief for the campaign to be over and even more excitement over actually winning the election. Tell me about election night, where you were. What happened when you found out the race had been called?

Alan Wilson: Oh, wow. Well, first off, we were at the state fairgrounds behind the Moore Building, and we had, I don’t know, over a thousand, probably twelve hundred people in the building. I was actually in our tour bus behind the building, and I was out there with one or two friends and everyone was in the war room, so I didn’t even hear them call the race. And all of a sudden I was on the phone with someone and they said we think they’re about to call the race. Your kids just ran out of the room. And then between the time that my kids ran out of the room and they ran into the bus, the race had been called, and my daughter and son just ran up to me and threw their arms around me. And my daughter started crying, which made me start crying. And that’s how I learned that I was going to be the next governor.

Judi Gatson: And during your victory speech, and I heard a number of people from both sides of the aisle talk about the tone of unity in reaching out to those who did not support you, and even talking about your opponent. Rep. Johnson, you said he made you a better candidate. How did he make you a better candidate? What did you mean by that?

Alan Wilson: Well game respects game. I mean, obviously when you compete with someone, they make you better because you have to—you have to work harder for something. You don’t just get anointed or handed an office like this in South Carolina. Look, Jermaine and I had different points of view. We obviously come from different parties. We have different views, but that doesn’t make us bad people. It just makes us people with different views. And we’re in the we’re in the boxing ring of ideas, right? Which is a sport. And we had a we had a boxing match of ideas. And I was fortunate to come out. But he loves his state. He wants a better life for his children, just like I want a better life for my children. And he called me that night. He couldn’t have been more gracious and magnanimous, and I just wanted people to know that it’s time we got to stop competing and fighting. We have to start governing and living together. And that’s what I was. I was trying to pivot from the competition side of politics to the living together side of politics.

Judi Gatson: When you look at the results on election night, not just in your race. I mean, people debate on the reliability of polling, right? But a lot of the polls thought the spread would be a lot wider. And then even down the ballot, there were a lot of races that were either much closer than expected or even breaking the supermajority at the [State] House. I think a lot of people were surprised by that. What do you interpret as that being? What message are you interpreting from the voters through those?

Alan Wilson: First thing, our internal polls actually had the race a lot closer. We had a poll that had had me up five or six percent, and I think I ended up just shy of five percent. So I was within the margin of of Jermaine. The other polls that I saw had me like ten, twelve points. I never believed it was going to be a 12, 16 point. The polls that I saw that I just didn’t believe him. I knew it was going to be a more competitive race. Obviously, I didn’t see the I mean, I knew the national mood was working against Republicans. Midterm elections party in power. We all see the historical trends. I knew it was going to be closer than it than it than people were assuming. But for me, what I take away from it is, and I hope the Republicans in South Carolina learn a lesson from this months people have been calling me governor and governor-elect. Congratulations. And I keep telling them, wait a second, there’s another election to go. I haven’t won this thing yet. I don’t want people in my party to be complacent and just assume they’re going to get anointed and crowned, because this is considered a red state. It used to be a blue state and it went red about 25, 30 years ago. It can go back blue again. But the reality is, I think Republicans need to quit assuming that we’re going to win just because we’re Republicans and we need to start delivering the results. We need to start governing. And to my friends across the aisle, the the Democrats. Congratulations for the races you won. But I think it’s important not to get cocky because pride cometh before the fall. And it could happen to the Republican Party. It can happen to the Democratic Party.

Judi Gatson: Well, Ralph Norman made some comments about that, but we won’t get off track. Let’s come back to looking forward to your administration. Obviously, every governor inherits problems and also hopes to create a legacy, in your view, based on the thought that you’ve given about this transition, your priorities and your agenda, what do you think are the three biggest problems you’re inheriting?

Alan Wilson: Well, first off I think our government is outdated. I think we can be more modernized the way that we handle and manage and track money and predict revenues in the future. It’s all siloed in government. I know government can’t be run completely like a business because it doesn’t have to live under market forces like businesses do. But there are certain structures we can do. There are certain government reforms we can do on on managing our money. There are certain technologies we can use to make government more transparent, more innovative, more efficient. People shouldn’t have to FOIA government agencies and get reams of spreadsheets and then have an accountant look at them to be able to figure out how money is being spent. You should be able to go to a dashboard. There should be clearly read and understood, understandable graphs and charts that let you know how your government’s spending your tax dollars. I campaigned on and you saw the commercials for eliminating the state income tax. I do believe we can do that. Not everyone agrees with that. But that is a priority of mine. That is one that I ran on, and I’m going to do everything I can to see it come to fruition. But government accountability, transparency, affordability if I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times - people struggling to pay bills and provide for their families. And every day I’m going to wake up and try to figure out, what can I do today to make life better for South Carolina families.

Judi Gatson: And I think you’ve talked about a lot of that on the campaign trail, really all of that on the campaign trail. As you drill down on specifics for South Carolinians and you look at maybe just even the first one hundred days, what are three measurable things that you hope to accomplish or at least see some progress on?

Alan Wilson: Well, obviously you can’t manage a problem until you measure a problem. So conducting or at least getting in—getting started, the, the process of getting audits done that will give us a roadmap for the long-term reforms that I want to implement. I just don’t want to go in there and start doing things for the sake of doing things. I want to be able to you can’t manage a problem until you measure the problem. And so we got to get in there and figure out what needs to be done. Now that’s going to start personnel is policy, getting the right people. Obviously, the first one hundred days I got to—I got to have established my cabinet. I got to establish government. There’s hundreds of boards and commissions. There’s cabinet agencies. I’m not saying everyone’s leaving, but I’m sure some will stay, some will go. But we’ve got to put our cabinet together. And then from that, the policies and the legislation and the priorities that I intend to implement are going to flow from there.

Judi Gatson: So you say some will stay, some will go. What will your process be? I mean, will you look at a clean slate to decide in each individual person? Are there some automatic people you want to stay or what is that process look like to you? Is there a probability that some of those key cabinet appointments could be from across the aisle?

Alan Wilson: Everything’s possible. I mean, look, this is all of our state, right? I have—look, I have great relationships with many Democrats in the legislature. As attorney general, some of the key legislation I’ve championed have come from across the aisle, working with Democrats and Republicans alike. So absolutely, that’s a possibility.

Judi Gatson: You talked a little earlier about some advice for your party about not taking things for granted and advice for the Democrats in terms of being willing to work together. What is one area where you already believe you have some common ground with Democrats to make some positive change?

Alan Wilson: Well, historically, when it comes to public safety, on most public safety issues - not all, but most Democratic and Republican parties have been very helpful to me on promoting victims’ advocacy, victims’ rights, making sure there’s funding there for victim services public safety, the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, human trafficking task force. There’s been a lot of overlap there and I’m very grateful for that. Judicial reform, there was bipartisan opposition to judicial reform. There’s been bipartisan support for judicial reform. Some of there are some Democrats in the legislature that share my views on ensuring that we have a more balanced approach to electing judges to the judiciary. Likewise, there are Republicans who oppose that. I don’t want to say names because some of my Democrat friends probably don’t want me to, but there have been some people who have encouraged me, Democrats who say, don’t give up on judicial reform. And so, and Republicans like also have said that. So we’re going to revisit judicial reform. We got some movement on it two years ago, but I’m not done with it.

Judi Gatson: Where are you expecting a significant, significant fight? And how do you plan to approach that on a major initiative? You want to tackle?

Alan Wilson: I mean, look, any time you’re implementing change, it is natural for people not to like things that they’re not used to. People resist change. People like the status quo. And when the status quo is working, then I’m not—I’m not going to just upend things just to say I upended them. But sometimes the status quo is stuck in the mud. It’s spinning its wheels. It’s not moving forward. But people like it because it’s what they know. People who live in government or live in a political system and they benefit from that system, don’t want to change it because they benefited from it. But the problem is, is to move South Carolina forward. You have to be open to change. Years and years and years ago, I was talking to a guy who worked in the attorney general’s office in the nineties, and he says everyone was still on typewriters when they got there, and they were afraid of implementing the computers they were scared of. They said it would be expensive to teach classes and put them all on networks. And his idea was, well, how expensive will it be for us not to use computers and stay on typewriters. So sometimes I ask the question, how much does it cost? Don’t ask the question. What does it cost to do something? Ask what it costs not to do it. And it’s going to cost us greatly if we don’t embrace change in a positive way. Better technology, more innovation. More efficiency. More transparency. More accountability. More buy-in from the people, from all parties and all walks of life.

Judi Gatson: After serving...what 16 years as Attorney General? What do you believe at this point that you need to learn about governing that you didn’t necessarily have to understand as AG.

Alan Wilson: First off, the AG is a very powerful position in government, and it has a very strong focus on a narrow portfolio of issues. The governor’s office has a and a lot of people view the governor’s office as less strong relative to other governors in the country.

Judi Gatson: I heard that during the campaign.

Alan Wilson: And here’s what I tell people. The office of the governor. Yes, there are constitutional constraints and statutory constraints and benefits of being in the legislative branch of government. But the governor is not a weak office. It might be weaker relative to other branches, but it can be a very strong office. It is the singular, most powerful office when it comes to a bully pulpit. It. I mean, we command the microphone of the state and we can move public opinion. We can move legislation when the governor gets behind it. And I do believe that there needs to be a better a rebalancing of the three branches of government. I intend to do that as governor over the next four years.

Judi Gatson: You talked about your plan, your hope, your desire to want to eliminate the income tax. Right? But that’s not something the governor can just do unilaterally. So what is your specific approach to be able to. What does that plan look like? If you could just put a plan in place, what would that look like? How would it be structured over time? And then how do you plan to build some kind of consensus to actually bring it to life and make it reality?

Alan Wilson: Right. Well, that’s a great question. And Judi, I think the first thing that people understand is when I talk about the income tax, I get pushback. Well, how do we fund government when forty five forty seven percent of state government revenue comes from the income tax? And I tell people all the time, when you eliminate the income tax, that revenue is still going to come in because people are still going to buy things with the money that they’re keeping in their pocket, they’re going to invest, they’re going to grow their businesses. There’s going to be outside capital coming into the state. The issue isn’t that we don’t have a revenue issue in South Carolina. We have a spending problem in South Carolina. My goal is, is to constrain state government spending, allowing more money to go back into people’s pockets, go back into the economy. The economy grows in South Carolina, which increases more government revenue, so that you can continue to provide those same services that people rely on. So I don’t want to cut vital services to people and people here, cut the income tax. They hear cutting government services. No, I actually want more revenue for government services. But I believe when you allow the economy to absorb that income, to absorb that revenue from people’s pockets, you actually—you can actually provide better services and more services.

Judi Gatson: So let’s flip the script on that a little bit. Instead of looking at what services would have to be cut, if you look at that goal of eliminating the income tax? Would you be able, do you believe you can do that while making the commitment that it won’t result in higher property taxes or higher sales taxes or other fees that might increase to offset?

Alan Wilson: So anything that you do over here on this tax could have an impact on another tax. So I have made a commitment that I do not want to shift the burden to the property taxes. I do think we need to reform Act 388, which as you know, 20 years ago was the act that created our current property tax structure. And while we have one of the lowest property taxes for homeowners in the in the country and people, they’re shocked when they come here and they pay their property taxes on their home businesses. Commercial districts, industries pay some of the highest property taxes in the country. And of course, the cost of the goods and services they provide get increased to absorb that, and that gets passed on to the end user, the consumer. So I do think we need to reevaluate property taxes, but whatever we do with income and property taxes, they have to be done in conjunction. They have to complement each other. So I don’t want to shift the burden to another form. Like, like, I certainly don’t want to raise taxes on homeowners. I would like to see property taxes lowered for, for people on fixed incomes. But I also the Senate is currently doing they’re doing an ad hoc committee on it. They’re studying it right now. And I’m talking to state senators who are very interested in my plan. And they’re very interested in also addressing the property tax issue in South Carolina. I’m excited about it.

Judi Gatson: Before the campaign, you did talk about act three eighty eight during our interview, and I got some feedback or questions from some viewers or voters who were asking in terms of your specific plan. They like the idea that you put on the table, but what would that look like? And the question they asked is, why hasn’t South Carolina done something? What’s what’s been the obstacle? What’s been the reason that South Carolina hasn’t reformed that already.

Alan Wilson: Before I started talking about this. And by the way, to be fair, candidates that ran for governor and the Republican primary talked about it, too. I want to give them credit. But like, have you heard people talk about it before? Like, like with this level there, it hasn’t been a priority. People haven’t talked about it. People haven’t pushed it. For me, it’s a priority. It hasn’t been pushed before. Now it’s being pushed. It’s being prioritized. And now you’ve got a governor, an incoming governor who’s going to make it a top priority.

Judi Gatson: You talked about the family first audit, and that is an initiative that you want the lieutenant governor to lead. What convinced you? You spoke earlier about the fact that you’ve got to measure a problem right before you can come up with an effective way to address it. What convinced you that that needed to be a priority? That there’s enough fraud, waste and abuse there to make that a priority for him?

Alan Wilson: So there are dozens of examples that I have experienced as attorney general, where we would prosecute some official, at some level of government who was stealing money or abusing the system or doing something corrupt. And here’s the thing you can prosecute corruption, but you can’t prosecute bad government. There were times we would investigate something and we would say, this person isn’t committing a crime. They’re just really bad at their job, or they lack the resources to do their job better. You can’t prosecute that. Then there have been times that we would investigate have a criminal case and I would see horrible ways to or abusive practices. A case in point. A year and a half ago, we uncovered the largest Medicaid scam in South Carolina history, twenty million dollars that should have been going to minor meaning children, beneficiaries for Medicaid, twenty million dollars stolen by about nine co-defendants that we have prosecuted. They had a they had a racket where they would create fake LLCs, like mental health counseling center, and then they would go invite doctors and mental health service providers to join their practice as independent contractors, and they would get their medical license information. And then they had access to hundreds of thousands of beneficiary information with real doctors, and they would File, fake billing. And every time that somebody would raise a red flag on that business, they would shutter the doors and they would create a new LLC at the Secretary of State’s office. Our investigators went over there and said, why don’t you go and make sure that this brick-and-mortar building exists at the address on the Secretary of State’s website? And they were like, well, we don’t have the bandwidth to do that. My people went and got on Google Maps, pulled it up, and one of the LLCs was using the same address as DHHS, HHS Regional Office in that area of the state. It was the very office they were working out of. And so the whole point of that is, is that a we didn’t have the technology in place to deter the fraud. We didn’t have the technology in place to catch it early. And then we didn’t have the right personnel in the place who just made the assumption we can’t go verify. They didn’t even get on Google Maps to see if those addresses existed. So that’s the kind of stuff that’s not criminal conduct on behalf of the state actor, the bad guy that stole the money. We got them. But the people in the government, it’s like at night, you lock your doors, you cut on your alarm system. If someone breaks into your house over there, that’s one thing. But if you leave your doors wide open and you have no security system, they come rob you blind. You’re partly to blame. So I want to secure the house. I want to make sure that we can deter fraud and abuse from coming into our government. And that’s one of the things that we’re going to try to do with the family’s first audit initiative.

Judi Gatson: So what will that audit process look like, and does putting that process in place come along with a commitment to make the findings independently reviewed and publicly?

Alan Wilson: Yes. The whole point is, is to have a report that can be reviewed by you, anyone in South Carolina, but also, and most importantly, the state legislature. We want to give them a roadmap. I don’t want to just ask them for money or for laws to be passed. I want to say, guys, this is what we found. Some of the things can be fixed with executive orders or internal agency policies, right? Not everything’s a law, but some things might require a law to be passed or some funding measure for whatever technology is needed, but we won’t know until we do this audit.

Judi Gatson: South Carolina continues to attract major employers. We talked about this a little bit at some of the debates throughout the campaign season, and a lot of economic development projects, but those projects don’t automatically always translate into financial security for families. How would you change that equation?

Alan Wilson: For people coming into the state?

Judi Gatson: Well, yeah. Well, promises we have announcements all the time of companies coming in their big headlines about the jobs promised. But quite frankly, a year from that point or a couple of years from that point, average South Carolinians have no idea whether these companies delivered on the promises for the jobs or the economic development to the state.

Alan Wilson: I don’t want to get over my skis, but I’ve read the paper, and you have a major company coming into the state that says they’re going to generate this much revenue, have this economic impact, they’re going to hire this many people. And if you give us the incentives we ask for, we’re going to be able to do that. And I haven’t been sitting at the table, so I don’t want to speak out of turn. But for me, it’s like we’re giving them the money on the front end, hoping that they will meet their metrics on the back end. Whereas I would want to maybe say, look, we’re happy to we’re happy to give you the incentive, but show us the metric first, meaning you’re going to hire five thousand people or five hundred people or fifty people, whatever the number is; let’s see that you need us to build an interchange. Well, let’s see. Let’s see you deliver first and then we can we can then meet the incentive. That’s something I would like to look at.

Judi Gatson: Well, let’s talk now about strengthening the power grid, expanding energy production and holding utilities accountable. Let’s start first with what infrastructures you believe need to be prioritized.

Alan Wilson: Well, first off, finishing V.C. Summer has got to be a priority. That is so important. I’m a pro-nuclear person, and I really think that is something that we really must prioritize right now. We’re putting together a group of stakeholders on energy and nuclear policy here in South Carolina. And these are people from every single sector that touches it to help advise, to come up with a comprehensive plan to build out our infrastructure. One other area that I want to focus on is there’s been a huge debate about data centers who take a significant amount of energy off the grid, but not just data centers, but all manufacturing or companies. There’s a lot of them out there. The technology is now where we can incentivize business companies that, that take energy off the grid to produce their own energy. And we can incentivize them to produce their own energy and surplus excess energy they don’t use can be put back onto the grid. When you increase the energy supply, you lower energy prices and utility rates for families. So I’m, I’m looking at ways that we can incentivize the private sector to help produce energy. Working with our energy producers.

Judi Gatson: In talking about data centers, that’s a perfect segue to my next question, because you did talk on the campaign trail about thinking that those data centers should really pay their own way. How do you think that can be enforced? Should there be state standards?

Alan Wilson: Yes. 100%. Look like well, obviously. I mean, it should be scalable. First of all, when people talk about data centers, is it a 25 megawatt data center? Is it a 500-watt data center? Data centers could be the size of ten football fields. They can be the size of this room. Right. So, I mean, obviously, whatever the law is, you want it to be scalable based on what their impact is in the region that they’re wanting to be developed. So obviously, smaller data centers should probably have less onerous regulations that govern them coming on. And larger ones, as they get larger, they should be more tightly controlled and regulated and have more requirements. But that requires a thoughtful policy and or law that be that is implemented. There should be predictability. Local governments and local communities should be at the table. There should anyone who doesn’t want a local data center, you shouldn’t have a local data center. But if they are going to come and by the way, data centers aren’t going to places that can’t meet their requirements for water, land or energy infrastructure. They’re not going out to deserts and just throwing them down. They’re being thoughtful on their side, too. But I’m seeing states, other states, where they are putting in hundreds of billions of dollars into investments in communities, and they’re coming there and they’re building schools, they’re building highways and bridges. They’re building out the energy grid. They’re they’re injecting hundreds of millions of dollars annually into local economies. And they’re providing a service while they’re doing so. And those communities love that. I want to make sure that if we’re going to have that in South Carolina, that there’s a there’s a cooperative relationship between the state and local governments and the stakeholders, like the data centers coming into our state. There needs to be predictability, transparency, and accountability.

Judi Gatson: So when it comes to that, I think there’s pretty much agreement. A lot of people say they should pay their way. But when it comes to transparency, what do you think about the idea of requiring data centers and facilities like data centers to publicly disclose their resource consumption.

Alan Wilson: I think that’s a necessary variable we need to know about. Right. You can’t make I mean, like I said, you you can’t make good decisions if you don’t have good information to base those decisions on. So these are the conversations that we will have with that industry, the tech industry who primarily uses data centers. And that is the conversation I’m going to have with the legislature there. I’ve already seen some really good drafts of bills that address this issue, that just haven’t made it through the process yet, and I’m looking forward to having those conversations with members of the legislature.

Judi Gatson: On the healthcare front, you have talked extensively about concerns you have related to the cost of Medicaid expansion and just the inefficiencies in the system. And in your word, saying that the system is broken. Just in layman’s terms, easy-to-understand language. What’s the alternative, then for us in South Carolina, in your view, to provide coverage for working low-income adults?

Alan Wilson: Well, first off, there are lots of rules that restrict where areas where doctors can go based on if they’re in a hospital system and there’s a potential non-compete clause. There’s also areas in South Carolina where we’re not using telehealth efficiently. There’s also, and I’m going to be meeting with the medical association and the various trade associations that represent doctors. But like, for instance, you may not have areas where there’s a doctor that can work, but you might have a nurse practitioner there, right? You have people who can provide medical services, but they’re not allowed to because it goes beyond their scope of practice. So people have an option between zero access to healthcare, right? Or you have a rule that requires there be a doctor in the room. And a lot of these times, that’s not necessary, depending on where you are in the state of South Carolina. So I think we need to kind of do a couple of things. We need to implement technology to support telehealth. We need to remove the constraints that allow doctors and or people who are in the medical industry to be able to provide services to people, especially in rural areas and poor rural areas. And we need to open up the floodgates. There’s things that we can do also; South Carolina has some rules on the books that are preventing us from getting access to some federal grant dollars in the healthcare community. And I’d like to go and remove those barriers so that we can get more federal dollars into those areas.

Judi Gatson: So a lot of those ideas seem to support better access. But will they also provide better insurance so that people can go to the doctor?

Alan Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? I was—I was talking to a person the other day who’s in healthcare, health insurance expert. And he was like when we were having the Affordable Care Act debate and that was the mandate that forced people into the industry so that you could then regulate them, which was which is what I opposed. It wasn’t people having healthcare. It was forcing people to buy something so that you could then regulate them. But he said we already had something in place in South Carolina and other states did too. They were like uninsured. They were high risk uninsured pools where. But you had to pay two and a half times the premium of a of a market insurance rate to be able to get into it. That was set by statute. We could have lowered that down. And then people who had preexisting conditions or who were at risk or poor or in rural areas, could have bought into a state-sponsored plan at a at a market rate, not an increased rate. But we never—we never did that. So there are lots of things that we can do to be innovative. And look, I am open to people who have different points of view from me. I’m always open to having my mind changed. But my concern about Medicaid expansion is that it cost a lot more down the road than than people realize. And you’re actually like North Carolina suffering from it right now. The expansion of Medicaid is outpacing the growth of their of their revenue, and it’s going to overtake their budget one day.

Judi Gatson: I think a lot of people understand those arguments. They’re just wondering, what are we going to do in South Carolina to make sure that people who right now don’t have any insurance or can’t afford insurance? What avenues do we have to make that better?

Alan Wilson: Well, remember, we had the Affordable Care Act. We implemented it a dozen years ago. And that was supposed to fix everything. Insurance is still going up.

Judi Gatson: Well, and it got defunded. But that’s a federal issue. So let’s not get off track.

Alan Wilson: But there are innovative things we can do.

Judi Gatson: At the state level.

Alan Wilson: At the state level. And I’m looking forward to talking to folks in the hospital industry, the medical industry, state stakeholders, community groups. Everyone is welcome at the table with me. All ideas are valid and I’m willing to consider any and everything. I have my own ideas, but I’m willing to hear yours.

Judi Gatson: In education, teachers say they appreciate everybody saying they love our teachers, they appreciate our teachers, but they want to want everybody to know that. What ideas do you have in terms of improving teacher compensation or any other reforms in education that you think would really be a game changer in South Carolina?

Alan Wilson: Well, I mean, teachers are so important. I mean, they’re educating our future and the people who are small people, right? And ensuring that teacher wages keep, keep on track with inflation and don’t fall behind is something I know Gov. McMaster and the legislature, bipartisan, bipartisan, Republicans and Democrats, they funded it. I want to continue to keep pace with that. So I’m not going to leave them out. That is something that’s very important to me. But also I want to make sure that we are encouraging teachers that it’s not just about people talk about the school choice movement. It’s not just about choice for parents and students, but choices for teachers, for charter schools and for private sector schools giving them options. Because right now we have a robust charter program here in South Carolina that is providing access to educational opportunities that kids didn’t have before, but it’s also providing opportunities for teachers. And so feeding that and expanding that is something else I’m very interested in.

Judi Gatson: I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but we have a Road to Repair investigative series that has really shown that there’s so much pressure being put on our roadways and our bridges, which obviously affects everything from communities to schools. What are your top infrastructure priorities and how would you decide which communities get that funding?

Alan Wilson: So you jumped a couple steps ahead. What I want to do is when we get into office and we’re starting this during the transition, but it’s there has been some significant reforms in the Department of Transportation, namely the Secretary of Transportation is now a direct report to the governor, not a commission. And I thought that was a good, good idea. And I’m glad that the legislature did that. But there’s other things that we can do internally to reform that agency. And I would like to conduct an audit to see what technologies are being used or not being used to track funding. Why does it take so long for projects to get off the ground? I mean, the longer that a project waits, the more expensive it becomes, right? The cost of building a road or a bridge or a structure goes up astronomically over time. And so when we fund a project today, but it takes two years to get it started. And all of a sudden two years, there’s been a twenty percent increase in the cost of the project. Why is that? I don’t know the answer to that here sitting with you today, but I want to know the answer and I want to know what can we do to shorten that amount of time. But those are questions we have to get answered before we can then talk about how we’re going to do the next thing. And that’s, again, it goes back to auditing government. How can we be be more innovative, more efficient in the delivery of our services, which includes building roads? There’s also things, Judi, we can do that are innovative. I’m a big believer in supporting choice lanes. Other states are doing it. The the medians between the interstates, the grass medians, that’s state owned property. It’s just grass in the middle of the interstate. Why are we not monetizing that? Privatize it. Let private companies come in, build a choice lane. You can call it express lane. Charge a fee for it. It’s right between the two interstates. If you don’t want to pay the fee, stay on the interstate, right. Otherwise, use the pay the two or three dollars to go however many miles. Others. In fact, North Carolina is doing it and they have an MOU with the state of South Carolina to come about ten miles into South Carolina. So they’re actually doing it in North Carolina, and it’s being done in South Carolina. It’s a North Carolina Express lane. But why are we not doing it?

Judi Gatson: Would you support? One of the complaints that we get is that, and there are a lot of factors, to be fair to D.O.T., there are a lot of factors that determine the order of these projects. But would you support a dashboard that would show the timetable and the cost? And just accountability in terms of how these projects are being prioritized?

Alan Wilson: Yes, yes and yes. 100%. Dashboards that allow the average citizen to see how their government is spending money and how long it’s taking to do these things is something I’m one hundred percent supportive of.

Judi Gatson: Okay. Let me ask you these last few questions. When you decided to run, I mean, and you talked publicly about your wife’s battle with breast cancer. I mean, you’re a dad. You’re a husband. What made you ultimately decide that this was the right time?

Alan Wilson: We all have chapters in our life. And for me, I was in a chapter of my life where I tell the story about how I survived a tour in Iraq, nothing, nothing crazy. But you come home from an experience like the one we lived through. And I said, hey, look, I don’t want to live my life with any regrets. I don’t want to leave anything on the field. So if I live my life, I just decided I decided to run for attorney general because I saw a need and I wanted to fill it. And I don’t want to live with a regret that I could have been attorney General and didn’t. I served four terms as attorney general, and I’m like, okay, what is left to do? There was going to be a vacancy in the governor’s office. I thought that I did a really good job as attorney general in innovating the office and turning the office into a technological juggernaut and to expanding it and providing more services, recovering billions of dollars for the state. I’m like, well, I want to try to do this on a higher level. And I knew that if I did not put my name into the hat, I would regret it. And so I live my life for the last 20-plus years, not wanting to live with regrets for the second chance I’ve had in life. And so I made the decision, along with my wife and kids, that there’s an opportunity here for me to serve as governor, to have a broader portfolio of issues that I could impact. And honestly, the idea of making people’s lives better, it really appeals to me. I grew up watching people talk about my father, who serves in Congress, and how he had helped them do something that changed their family. And I just love that. That really appeals to me, just being able to help people. And so if I can make people’s lives better as governor, then I would, I would, I would have a life well lived.

Judi Gatson: There’s one issue that I skipped over inadvertently, but I had promised to ask them. For some viewers who reached out, it said, you spent years defending South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban as governor. What role do you envision playing in reproductive healthcare policy?

Alan Wilson: First off, everyone talks about the issue of life and abortion strictly with the delivery of the child, right. But the issue is far bigger than that. I’m a big proponent of reforming our adoption and our foster care system. That’s something we don’t talk about enough. And I have families that I’ve talked to who have adopted or, excuse me, fostered multiple children, but they said, Alan, whether it’s our first foster child or our eighth foster child, the ability to get into the system is onerous and difficult, and it should be streamlined, and we want to take in more children to provide those children with opportunities. It’s great that we want to save babies and I’m all for it. And I am pro-life. But what about when they’re born and people don’t talk about that enough? So that is something that I would also like to focus on.

Judi Gatson: Last two questions we started. We’ll go back to where we started at the beginning, asking about how you found out about winning and going back to your kids, Anna, Grace and Michael. Obviously, they’re very proud of you. They were featured in one of the campaign commercials. They are moving into young adulthood now. Obviously, a lot of privilege comes with this, but also a lot of responsibility. What is it that you want for them as you move into this role of governor? That puts them in a bit of a spotlight also. But I know they’re so incredibly proud of what you’ve accomplished so far. And just how do you want them to manage? I guess this new public life that your role of new public life that you’re moving into?

Alan Wilson: Well, we’ve had conversations about this and I said, look, your dad has chosen a career that’s going to create problems for you. I get that people are going to judge you because of me. There are people that don’t like me, so they’re not going to like them. They’re going to be people who think, oh, you think because your dad’s the governor, you’re better or whatever. That’s what kids do. I’ve told my kids, I’m like, first off, this is a great honor. And they’re going to be they’re going to be a lot of benefits to this. But there’s going to be far more drawbacks to it. You have to be very thoughtful about how you conduct yourself in public. We’ve talked about how they treat people. I’m like, you need to be very cognizant that there’s a spotlight on you and it’s not fair and people are going to prejudge you. But I’ve just told them, treat everyone the way you would want to be treated if the roles were reversed. And just be grateful for the privilege and the opportunities God has given us and, and just live your best life. And my wife and I are going to do everything we can to keep our children out of the spotlight. I want them to have a normal life. And I think for the most part they are. But they’re great kids. They’re very grounded. They really are grounded. They’re not pretentious at all.

Judi Gatson: Well, it can be a lot of pressure that comes with this. So I know that will be a concern. Making sure, like you said, that they stay grounded. Final question. We talked at the beginning about governors’ inherent problems, but also look to leave a legacy. What is the legacy that you ultimately want to leave as governor of South Carolina?

Alan Wilson: I want people twenty, thirty, forty years, however many years from now removed. They look back and they see there was South Carolina before Alan Wilson, and there was South Carolina after Alan Wilson, meaning government changed. There was a—there was a mark in line. You can look at historical figures at the national or state level, and there are people you can identify. Before this person came on the scene, the world was this way. When they left, it was a different way and it was better. So as an Eagle Scout, we used to learn in our troop leave every campsite better than you found it. I’ve lived by that mantra for 40-plus years, and I want to leave this state better than I found it, and that’s what I hope my legacy is.

Judi Gatson: Governor-elect Alan Wilson, thank you so much for your time.

Alan Wilson: Thank you, Judi.

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