Two-thirds of Americans say that President Biden doesn’t deserve to be re-elected, according to a new national poll.

Only 32% of those questioned in a CNN survey released on Thursday said the president deserves a second term in the White House, down from 37% in the cable news network’s December poll. Sixty-seven percent said Biden doesn’t deserve to be re-elected, up from 62% late last year.

Biden, whose approval ratings with all Americans in the CNN poll remain in negative territory, has repeatedly said that he intends to seek a second term in the White House, but he has yet to make any formal announcements. 

However, the president hinted towards a re-election campaign during a speech in early February to party leaders and activists at the DNC’s winter meeting in Philadelphia, when he emphasized that ‘we’re just getting started’ and that ‘I intend to get… more done.’

The 80-year-old Biden made history in 2020 as the oldest person elected president in American history. If he runs and wins re-election, Biden would be 82 at the time of his second inaugural and 86 at the end of the second term.

According to the poll, just 32% of respondents said Biden has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president, with two-thirds disagreeing.

Among Democrat and Democrat-leaning independents, 44% said Biden should be the party’s standard-bearer in 2024. That’s up from 40% in December’s survey. Fifty-four percent said they want a different presidential nominee, down from 59%. Of those who said they wanted a different candidate, 69% offered that they just want ‘someone besides Joe Biden.’

Of the 31% who named a specific alternative, 5% said Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the 2016 and 2020 runner-up in the Democratic nomination race, 4% said Transportation Secy. Pete Buttigieg, who ran for the 2020 nomination, with Vice President Kamala and former First Lady Michelle Obama each at 3%.

Democratic voters were evenly split at 49% on whether Biden represents the party’s best chance at winning the presidency in 2024.

Among Republican voters and GOP leaning independents, 52% said the party should nominate former President Donald Trump, with 47% saying a different candidate.

Support for Trump — who in November launched his third straight presidential campaign — is up from 38% in CNN’s December poll, with support for a different candidate down from 62% late last year.

Of those looking for a different GOP presidential nominee, 28% named Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and 4% named former Vice President Mike Pence.

Forty-nine percent said the GOP has a better chance of winning the 2024 presidential election with Trump as the party’s standard-bearer, with 50% saying the party would be more successful with a different nominee.

The CNN poll was conducted March 1-31, with 1,595 adults nationwide questioned. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Critics lashed out at the Biden administration Thursday after it unveiled its proposal for new Title IX rules to expand the meaning of sexual discrimination to include gender identity as it relates to the application for transgender athletes participating in women’s sports.

Under the Department of Education’s proposed rule, no school or college that receives federal funding would be allowed to impose a ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy that categorically bans transgender students from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Such policies would be considered a violation of Title IX.

‘As a woman who has made history breaking glass ceilings, we must protect women. Women and girls have fought tirelessly for their rightful place in sports, and Title IX has been a crucial tool in leveling the playing field,’ Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital. 

‘Allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports compromises the hard-won progress women have made in achieving equal opportunities in athletics. We need to find solutions that respect and protect the rights of all individuals while also preserving the integrity and fairness of women’s sports,’ she added.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox the proposed new rules ran in stark contrast to Democrats’ usual rhetoric on women’s issues. ‘For a party that claims to care about women, the left sure is intent on depriving them of the opportunity to fairly compete,’ she said.

‘This insane injustice cannot stand,’ Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., tweeted. ‘Mark my words: I will fight this woke nonsense through the appropriations process.’

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., mocked the proposal as ‘the Biden Easter present to America,’ and warned that the views of parents who have a problem with biological males playing on their daughter’s team and being present in their locker room wouldn’t count.

‘Title IX was meant to protect women’s sports. Now, Biden is using Title IX to destroy them,’ Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted.

Nicole Neily, president and founder of advocacy group Parents Defending Education, accused the Biden administration of ‘placing the onus upon school districts’ to determine whether injecting gender identity into athletics was ‘problematic or not.’

‘Without a doubt, institutions are going to err on the side of ‘inclusion,’ because they fear the wrath of the Education Department – thus, achieving the Department’s end goal while allowing them to maintain plausible deniability that they coerced districts into doing so,’ she warned.

In 2022, Biden’s Education Department proposed regulations on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to expand the meaning of sex discrimination to include ‘gender identity’ and said it would reveal more details in the spring of 2023.

The plan also earned pushback from many conservative groups who argue the president does not have the legal authority to make the changes to Title IX.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has said that he supports allowing biological male transgender people to compete in women’s sports. He said during his confirmation hearing that it is ‘critically important’ that educators and school systems ‘respect the rights of all students, including students who are transgender’ and that all students should be able to participate in activities.

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

Senate Democrats on Thursday renewed their call for a strict code of ethics to be imposed on the Supreme Court after a report claimed conservative Justice Clarence Thomas has enjoyed lavish gifts from a GOP mega-donor for several years.

A ProPublica investigation found that Thomas’ close friendship with real estate developer Harlan Crow allowed him to accompany the Texas billionaire on luxury vacations on his private jet and yacht, as well as free stays on Crow’s vast vacation property, among other perks. He reportedly failed to disclose the vast majority of Crow’s gifts.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thomas’ alleged actions are ‘simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a Justice on the Supreme Court.’

‘Today’s report demonstrates, yet again, that Supreme Court Justices must be held to an enforceable code of conduct, just like every other federal judge,’ Durbin said in a Thursday statement. ‘The ProPublica report is a call to action, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.’

Progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., shared similar sentiments in her calls for accountability.

‘The American people deserve a federal judiciary that is accountable to the rule of law, not wealthy Republican donors. Today’s news is a stark reminder that judges should be held to the highest ethical standards and free from conflicts of interest,’ Warren wrote on Twitter.

‘[A]s long as 9 justices are exempt from any process for enforcing basic ethics, public faith in SCOTUS will continue to decline, and dark money and special interests will maintain their relentless grip on our democracy,’ wrote Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who introduced legislation to tighten ethics requirements for Supreme Court justices in the last Congress.

Another senator took it a step further and reiterated calls to expand the court past its current nine seats, something President Joe Biden has opposed.

‘My take on this: Clarence Thomas has proven what we’ve suspected all along — the Supreme Court is beholden to right-wing corporate interest groups and billionaire mega-donors. The Court is broken. The constitutional remedy is clear — expand the Court,’ wrote Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn.

In a statement to ProPublica, Crow denied ever trying to influence Thomas or put him in positions where other influential people could do the same.

‘The hospitality we have extended to the Thomas’s (sic) over the years is no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends,’ part of the statement reads. ‘We have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue. More generally, I am unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case, and I would never invite anyone who I believe had any intention of doing that.’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other congressional progressive lawmakers called for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas amid reports he failed to disclose gifts he accepted from a Republican megadonor. 

‘This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of corruption is shocking – almost cartoonish,’ Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Thursday. ‘Thomas must be impeached. Barring some dramatic change, this is what the Roberts court will be known for: rank corruption, erosion of democracy, and the stripping of human rights.’

A report by ProPublica said Thomas took luxury trips on yachts and private jets owned by Texas businessman Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms. A 2019 trip to Indonesia, the story detailed, could have cost more than $500,000 had Thomas chartered the plane and yacht himself, the report said.

Supreme Court justices are required to file annual financial disclosure reports, which ask them about gifts they’ve received. 

Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., both called for Thomas’ impeachment, with Omar tweeting: ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached.’

Other Democrats said the high court should have higher ethical standards. 

‘Justice Thomas’ lavish undisclosed trips with a GOP mega-donor undermine the trust that our country places in the Supreme Court,’ Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said. ‘Time for an enforceable code of conduct for Justices.’

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., noted that federal judges are bound by a code of conduct ‘except 9.’

‘It’s no longer ok for the Supreme Court to be the only federal court without a binding ethical code,’ Murphy tweeted. ‘For over a decade, every Congress I’ve introduced the Supreme Court Ethics Act. It’s time to pass it.’

Fox News Digital has reached out to the high court. 

Last month, the federal judiciary beefed up disclosure requirements for all judges, including the high court justices, although overnight stays at personal vacation homes owned by friends remain exempt from disclosure.

Last year, questions about Thomas’ ethics arose when it was disclosed that he did not step away from election cases following the 2020 election despite the fact that his wife, conservative activist Virginia Thomas, reached out to lawmakers and the White House to urge defiance of the election results.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In a surprising display of cooperation and compromise, the narrowly divided New Hampshire House approved a two-year state budget Thursday, sending the $15.9 billion plan on to the Senate.

The total, which includes federal funds, would be more than 18% higher than the current budget. Republican Rep. Ken Weyler, chair of the House Finance Committee, said the increase reflects the high rate of inflation and that when federal money is taken into account, the actual increase is closer to 7 percent.

‘It’s more than I’d like to see as an increase. But the same thing happens when I fill up my gas tank or go to the grocery store,’ he said. ‘We have to face reality and adjust to it.’

Weyler also emphasized another key reality: With Republicans holding a miniscule 201-196 majority, bipartisanship was the smoothest path forward. Though party leaders were bickering over the budget as recently as last week, they ultimately came together with an amendment jointly sponsored by Republican Majority Leader Jason Osborne and Democratic Minority Leader Matt Wilhelm.

Wilhelm, who called Osborne ‘my good friend – no, my great friend’ in his floor remarks, said the proposal makes critical investments in housing, education and health care.

‘It’s also a testament to the fact that when we come together in good faith and we listen to one another, we disagree without being disagreeable and find common ground and compromise where we can, Republicans win, Democrats win, but most importantly Granite Staters win,’ he said.

Attendance for the votes was unusually high Thursday, with just a few lawmakers absent on both sides of the aisle. The Osborne-Wilhelm amendment was adopted on a vote of 326-63, with all 192 Democrats in favor. Republicans were split 134-63.

Compared with the version recommended by the Finance Committee, the proposed budget would spend an additional $40 million to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates, adds $15 million for the state’s affordable housing fund and maintains current eligibility guidelines for the Education Freedom Account program. Republicans had wanted to make higher-earning families eligible for the program, but Osborne said it wasn’t fair to include that in the budget. In exchange, Democrats agreed to go along with a provision that limits the governor’s power during a state of emergency.

The House also passed budget amendments to remove $1.4 million Gov. Chris Sununu had proposed to increase patrols of the Canadian border. State Rep. Alissandra Murray called the ‘Northern Border Alliance’ a ‘massive intrusion on local control.’

‘A program that allows our taxpayer money to pay police to run around unchecked on northern properties, stopping and racial profiling whomever they want is enough to keep families like mine from feeling welcome in this state,’ said Murray, a Democrat from Manchester. ‘This program is built on the wild assumption that northern New Hampshire has an extreme problem with illegal border crossings. Yet despite informal and formal requests, neither the governor nor any state agency has provided any data on unauthorized border entries into New Hampshire.’

The House rejected a budget amendment that would have legalized recreational marijuana, though it later passed a stand-alone bill. Though several marijuana bills have cleared the House in recent years, the Senate has blocked them, and Republican Gov. Chris Sununu also has been an opponent. The amendment was offered by Republican Rep. Kevin Verville of Deerfield.

‘If we’re going to spend all these greenbacks today, shouldn’t we send some green back to our constituents?’ he said. ‘Isn’t it high time we put some common-sense cannabis reform laws into place?’

Republican Gov. Jim Pillen named a former prosecutor Thursday as the newest member of the Nebraska Legislature, which has been largely hamstrung by progressive lawmakers who are filibustering every bill before the body this session.

Carolyn Bosn, of Lincoln, will replace Lincoln Sen. Suzanne Geist, who announced a day earlier that she is stepping down, effective midnight Thursday, to focus on her race for mayor of Lincoln. Bosn promised at a news conference that she would carry on Geist’s conservative positions on everything from cutting taxes to supporting new proposed limits on abortion access.

‘I believe that life begins at conception,’ she said when asked whether she would support the proposed ban.

Bosn’s connections to the top executives in the state run deep. She grew up in Columbus, where her family was close with Pillen’s. The governor said Thursday he’d known Bosn since she was a child. Bosn also worked as the deputy county attorney in Lancaster County from 2010 to 2017 under then-County Attorney Joe Kelly, who is now the state’s lieutenant governor. She left Kelly’s office in 2017 to become a stay-at-home mother to her four children.

Pillen has faced criticism from progressive lawmakers for not taking applications before filling the seat, as has been tradition. Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh — who has led the weekslong effort to filibuster every bill before the Legislature this session to protest a bill to ban gender-affirming care in minors — said the hasty appointment lacked transparency.

‘He’s purely plucking someone out of his roster and putting them in the seat without ever going through the perfunctory motions of saying, ‘The people of District 25, submit your names if you would like to serve,’’ Cavanaugh said. ‘It reeks of cronyism. Reeks. I don’t know why you would put that kind of stink on the person you’re going to appoint.’

Pillen said he moved quickly to fill the seat to ensure conservatives have enough votes to push through an agenda that mirrors those in other Republican-led states this year. In Nebraska, that includes several controversial bills that would target transgender people, further restrict access to abortion and drastically reshape public education.

Because 33 votes are needed to stop debate on a bill before it can advance, conservatives need every vote they can get in the officially nonpartisan Legislature. There are currently 32 registered Republicans in the 49-member body and 17 registered Democrats.

Pillen said Thursday that he began honing a list of potential candidates before he was even elected governor last November, when Geist announced her mayoral run in September. He began interviewing candidates from that list last week, he said. He brushed off criticism of his process.

‘No matter what decisions you make, people are going to criticize that,’ he said.

Bosn worked in five Nebraska county prosecutor offices as a clerk and attorney after graduating from law school at Creighton University in Omaha. She currently works as an adjunct professor in the University of Nebraska College of Law and coaches the law school’s trial team.

‘As a senator, I promise to listen, to learn and to lead in this new responsibility,’ she said.

Bosn will finish out the four-year term, which runs through the end of 2024, and said she would seek election to the seat next year.

In an attempt to attract semiconductor companies to Oregon, the state Legislature authorized the governor on Thursday to expand urban growth boundaries to provide land for chipmakers to build factories.

Lawmakers backing the bill, which also provides some $200 million in grants to chipmakers, said it’s needed to make Oregon more competitive among other states in luring more of the multibillion-dollar semiconductor industry to the state. Other lawmakers argued that the measure is an attack on the nation’s first statewide policy — created a half-century ago — that limits urban sprawl and protects farmland and forests.

‘These regulations have resulted in 50 years of success protecting our farm and forest lands, containing urban sprawl and protecting natural resources,’ said Rep. Anna Scharf, a Republican. ‘Senate Bill 4 throws that out the window.’

The bill, approved by the state Senate last week and passed by the House on a 44-10 vote Thursday, allows Gov. Tina Kotek to designate up to a maximum of eight sites for urban growth boundary expansion — two that exceed 500 acres and six smaller sites.

‘There is some extremely valuable farmland in the area that produces Oregonians’ food and provides those families and those employees jobs,’ Scharf said. ‘Farmland, once it is paved over, can never be reclaimed.’

Rep. Kim Wallan, a Republican and co-sponsor of the bill that a joint committee spent more than a month working on, said it gives Kotek only narrow authority and is aimed at expediting the process for setting aside land for semiconductor factories, called fabs, and related businesses.

State officials and lawmakers were stung by chipmaker Intel’s decision last year to build a massive $20 billion chipmaking complex in Ohio, and not in Oregon where suitable zoned land is scarce. Intel is the state’s largest corporate employer.

In Oregon, once land is included in an urban growth boundary, it is eligible for annexation to a city. Those boundary lines are regularly expanded. But the process can take months or even years. Under the bill, any appeals to the governor’s urban growth boundary expansions are expedited by going straight to the state Supreme Court.

The bill goes to Kotek for signing into law and takes effect immediately. In a statement Thursday, Kotek said the bill makes Oregon ‘poised to lay the foundation for the next generation of innovation and production of semiconductors.’

‘Oregon has been at the center of the semiconductor industry in the United States for decades,’ the Democrat said. ‘This bill is an absolutely essential tool for leading a coordinated effort with the private sector to ensure we can compete for federal funds to expand advanced manufacturing in Oregon.’

The CHIPS and Science Act, passed by Congress in 2022, provides $39 billion for companies constructing or expanding facilities that will manufacture semiconductors and those that will assemble, test and package the chips.

It was Republican Gov. Tom McCall, who served from 1967 to 1975, who had urged lawmakers to push for a tough new land-use law. In a 1973 speech at the Legislature, he denounced ‘sagebrush subdivisions, coastal ‘condomania’ and the ravenous rampage of suburbia.’ Lawmakers responded by passing the law that placed growth boundaries on Oregon’s cities.

Some opponents of the Oregon CHIPS bill objected on Thursday to changing a system that’s been in place for 50 years.

‘I cannot in good conscience give the governor what is essentially a super-siting authority to take lands and bring them into the urban growth boundary,’ said Rep. Ed Diehl, a Republican. ‘That is not the Oregon way.’

Several Republican politicians are criticizing the White House after it issued a long-awaited report on how the Biden administration handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but shifted the blame to the Trump administration.

The 12-page report released by the White House defends Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, calling it the ‘right thing for the country.’

When discussing the Biden administration’s execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the report pins the blame on the previous administration. The report does acknowledge that the evacuation, however, should have begun sooner.

‘President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor. When President Trump took office in 2017, there were more than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. Eighteen months later, after introducing more than 3,000 additional troops just to maintain the stalemate, President Trump ordered direct talks with the Taliban without consulting with our allies and partners or allowing the Afghan government at the negotiating table,’ the report states.

While efforts were underway to withdraw Americans and allies from Afghanistan, 13 American soldiers died in a suicide bombing outside the Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International.

READ THE WHITE HOUSE REVIEW BELOW. APP USERS, CLICK HERE

During a press briefing on Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the lack of planning by the Trump administration made the withdrawal difficult.

‘While it was always the president’s intent to end that war, it is also undeniable that decisions made and the lack of planning done by the previous administration significantly limited options available to him,’ Kirby said. 

‘President Biden inherited a force presence in Afghanistan of some 2,500 troops. That was the lowest since 2001. He inherited a special immigrant visa program that had been starved of resources. And he inherited a deal struck between the previous administration and the Taliban that called for the complete removal of all U.S. troops by May of 2021, or else the Taliban, which had stopped its attacks while the deal was in place, would go back to war against the United States,’ Kirby said.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, criticized Kirby for the comments.

‘John Kirby’s comments during today’s White House press briefing were disgraceful and insulting. President Biden made the decision to withdraw and even picked the exact date; he is responsible for the massive failures in planning and execution,’ McCaul said. ‘It is also unfortunate it took my subpoena threat to prompt the administration to finally provide the classified after-action reports from the Afghanistan withdrawal. I look forward to reviewing the report and call upon the administration to declassify as much as possible for the American public. 

‘Finally, Congress must be given access to the full and complete record of documents from the withdrawal in order to get the answers on why the withdrawal was such a disaster.’

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said in a statement that the Biden administration isn’t taking responsibility for the withdrawal.

‘Once again the Biden administration is refusing to take responsibility for its failures and is destined to repeat them. President Biden’s weakness on the world stage cost 13 American lives and is putting our national security at risk — he must be held accountable,’ Daines said.

On Twitter, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, called Kirby’s comments ‘sickening.’

‘Today White House spokesman John Kirby said he, ‘didn’t see’ chaos in the Afghanistan withdrawal. SERIOUSLY!? He’s the new ‘Baghdad Bob!’ Did he not see people hanging onto a C17 and falling to their deaths? REALLY!? He should tell this to the families of the 13 brave service members who lost their lives,’ Jackson tweeted.

Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., tweeted Kirby is ‘utterly detached from reality.’

’13 U.S. servicemembers were killed. Americans were left behind. This admin abandoned our allies to face the wrath of terrorists. The Biden admin is an embarrassment to this nation, to our military, and our allies across the world,’ he tweeted.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suggested on Wednesday that the charges brought against former U.S. President Donald Trump were politically charged and presented during an election cycle, adding he opposed such charges, according to reports.

Trump was indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree on Tuesday, while he continues to campaign for reelection to serve as the U.S. Commander in Chief.

López Obrador went on to explain the actions taken by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg were ‘the degradation of due respect for the law.’

‘I don’t agree with what they are doing to former President Donald Trump,’ the Mexican president said. ‘I do not know if crimes were committed, it’s not my place.’

López Obrador made the comments during a news briefing on Wednesday morning.

‘Supposedly legal, judicial issues should not be used for political, electoral purposes,’ he said. ‘Don’t make up crimes to affect adversaries.’

López Obrador made comments in March about Trump’s ongoing legal battle with Bragg’s office, appearing to side with Trump. López Obrador also suggested, before the indictment was handed down, that it was a way to prevent the former president from winning the White House in 2024.

López Obrador has served as Mexico’s president since 2018 and historically often disagreed with Trump.

But when it came to the indictment, López Obrador insisted the charges were fabricated, as he too has been the center of attempts to prevent him from obtaining political office.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.

The charge is typically a misdemeanor, though in New York it could rise to felony status when a defendant’s ‘intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.’

Bragg has accused the former president and his associates of using a ‘catch and kill’ scheme to hide potentially damaging information ahead of the 2016 election.

Bragg said Trump created 34 false entries in New York business records to conceal a $130,000 payment.

The indictment is the result of a multi-year investigation conducted by Manhattan prosecutors, into hush-money payments allegedly made by the former president to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The two women alleged they had affairs with Trump, though he denies the accusations.

The Associated Press and Paul Best of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.

The South Carolina House on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill allowing teachers or other school district staff up to six weeks of paid leave when they give birth or adopt a child.

The bill was passed 113-0 and faces one more routine approval before being sent to the Senate.

It mirrors a law passed last year that allowed parental leave for state employees. But the General Assembly didn’t include educators in that proposal and teachers were angry.

The House proposal allows teachers who give birth or are the primary caretakers of an adopted child six weeks of paid leave. The other parent can take up to two weeks and parents who foster a child in state custody also are eligible for two weeks of leave.

A number of school districts worried about how to pay for the leave, but supporters said they already have to pay for long-term substitutes and for sick leave. Plus, districts across the state have a total of about $1.5 billion in reserve accounts they can tap.

Teacher groups backed the bill, saying their surveys show teachers tend to begin looking to leave the classroom around the time they start families and providing leave could stem that tide.

If the bill becomes law, South Carolina would be the first state in the Southeast with parental leave for teachers, according to the Palmetto State Teachers Association.

A 30-year-old federal law allows up to 12 weeks of parental leave, but it is not paid.