(The Center Square) – South Carolina is ranked No. 29 in the country in economic outlook in the 18th annual Rich States, Poor States ranking.

Fifteen state policy variables are measured in the ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index, released Tuesday by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Better scores go to states spending and taxing less to attain higher growth rates.

A year ago, South Carolina was 24th. The drop of five spots was matched by four other states and eclipsed only by the 10-spot drops of Mississippi and Virginia.

South Carolina is No. 8 in economic performance rank, a measure that measures 2013-23 for state gross domestic product (11th), absolute domestic migration (5th), and nonfarm payroll employment (8th).

In the 15 variables, South Carolina is top five nationally in just three: estate/inheritance tax levied (none, tied 1st); minimum wage ($7.25 an hour, tied 1st); and right to work (yes, tied 1st). The state was 20th or worse in nine measurements.

The worst categories were each 44th: personal income tax progressivity ($21.43) and state tort system costs (2.54%)..

Among nearby states in the South, Tennessee was No. 2, North Carolina No. 4, Georgia No. 13, Florida No. 15, and Virginia No. 32.

(The Center Square) – For the second time in 36 days, a firing squad execution has been carried out in South Carolina.

Mikal Mahdi, 42, died Friday night in Columbia less than four minutes after shots were fired. Mahdi is the 12th inmate executed in the United States this calendar year, and fifth in eight months by South Carolina following an unintended 13-year pause.

Brad Sigmon was put to death on March 7, also in Columbia and by firing squad.

David Weiss, assistant federal public defender at the Capital Habeas Unit for the Fourth Circuit, which is part of the Federal Public Defender’s Office in the Western District of North Carolina, said in a statement Mahdi was a “smart, creative, intellectually curious person” that never got the chance to do more with his life.

“Tonight,” Weiss said, “the state of South Carolina executed him by firing squad – a horrifying act that belongs in the darkest chapters of history, not in a civilized society.”

South Carolina allows inmates to choose firing squad, lethal injection or electric chair. In a firing squad execution, the inmate is strapped to a chair in the death chamber. A hood is placed over the head, a target put on the heart. The shooters, three volunteers, all have live ammunition and fire from an opening about 15 feet away.

The state has encountered issues with lethal injection. The electric chair has been described as being “cooked alive.”

Mahdi admitted killing an Orangeburg Public Safety officer, shooting him eight times and burning his body.

Sigmon, 67, had been on death row for the 2001 beating death with a baseball bat of his former girlfriend’s parents in Greenville County.

Prior to the two in South Carolina, all three firing squad executions since 1976 happened in Utah. That state’s most recent had been 2010.