Category Archives: Priorities

I believe in miracles

Praise the Lord, for this day I have been a witness to one of his Wonders.

Today, Sept. 4, 2007, the entire, unanimous 7-member board of Richland-Lexington School District 5 came in to visit with our editorial board to express its support for the proposed bond referendum to build new schools and renovate and expand old ones.

Yes, I had read the news that they had voted unanimously to support this effort to deal with the district’s growth while maintaining excellence and meeting new educational challenges. But reading it in black and white and seeing it, in real-life, up-close and personal in 3D — well, that’s a miracle.

The entire board sat and met with us for over ninety minutes, and there wasn’t a single firefight during the entire time. Total harmony. The above photograph, taken just minutes before this post, stands as proof. (Left to right, that’s Roberta Ferrell , Paula Hite , Jerry Fowler , Carol Sloop , Ellen Baumgardner , Ed White, Supt. Scott Andersen and Robert Gantt.)

Don’t tell me the cause is lost in Iraq. Don’t tell me John McCain can’t get back his momentum. Don’t tell me the Cubs can’t go all the way. I know better. I have been witness to a miracle.

‘No new taxes?’ How about, ‘No more collapses?’

5 Replies

Some folks I know who used to work in Minnesota sent me this link while I was at the beach last week. In light of the radical anti-government, anti-tax stuff that tends to hold sway in this state, I thought it might be worth sharing, even this late:

Nick
Coleman: Public anger will follow our sorrow
Nick Coleman, Star Tribune

The cloud of dust above the Mississippi that rose after the Interstate 35W
bridge collapsed Wednesday evening has dissipated. But there are other dark
clouds still hanging over Minneapolis and Minnesota.

The fear of falling is a primal one, along with the fear of being trapped or of
drowning.

Minneapolis suffered a perfect storm of nightmares Wednesday evening, as anyone
who couldn’t sleep last night can tell you. Including the parents who clench
their jaws and tighten their hands on the wheel every time they drive a carload
of strapped-in kids across a steep chasm or a rushing river. Don’t panic, you
tell yourself. The people in charge of this know what they are doing. They make
sure that the bridges stay standing. And if t! here were a problem, they would
tell us. Wouldn’t they?

What if they didn’t?

The death bridge was "structurally deficient," we now learn, and had
a rating of just 50 percent, the threshold for replacement. But no one appears
to have erred on the side of public safety. The errors were all the other way.

Would you drive your kids or let your spouse drive over a bridge that had a
sign saying, "CAUTION: Fifty-Percent Bridge Ahead"?

No, you wouldn’t. But there wasn’t any warning on the Half Chance Bridge. There
was nothing that told you that you might be sitting in your over-heated car,
bumper to bumper, on a hot summer day, thinking of dinner with your wife or of
going to see the Twins game or taking your kids for a walk to Dairy Queen later
when, in a rumble and a roar, the world you knew would pancake into the river.

There isn’t any bigger metaphor for a society in trouble than a bridge falling,
its concrete lanes pointing brokenly! at the sky, its crumpled cars pointing
down at the deep water! s where people disappeared.

Only this isn’t a metaphor.

The focus at the moment is on the lives lost and injured and the heroic efforts
of rescuers and first-responders – good Samaritans and uniformed public
servants. Minnesotans can be proud of themselves, and of their emergency
workers who answered the call. But when you have a tragedy on this scale, it
isn’t just concrete and steel that has failed us.

So far, we are told that it wasn’t terrorists or tornados that brought the
bridge down. But those assurances are not reassuring.

They are troubling.

If it wasn’t an act of God or the hand of hate, and it proves not to be just a
lousy accident – a girder mistakenly cut, a train that hit a support – then we
are left to conclude that it was worse than any of those things, because it was
more mundane and more insidious: This death and destruction was the result of
incompetence or indifference.

In a word, it was avoidable.

T! hat means it should never have happened. And that means that public anger
will follow our sorrow as sure as night descended on the missing.

For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of
Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It’s been popular with a lot of voters
and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax
increase – the first in 20 years – last spring and millions were lost that
might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas
tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it
comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in
coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government.

I’m not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It
is general.

Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have
dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums! while scrimping on
the basics.

How ironic is it that! tonight ‘s scheduled groundbreaking for a new Twins
ballpark has been postponed? Even the stadium barkers realize it is in poor
taste to celebrate the spending of half a billion on ballparks when your
bridges are falling down. Perhaps this is a sign of shame. If so, it is
welcome. Shame is overdue.

At the federal level, the parsimony is worse, and so is the negligence. A
trillion spent in Iraq, while schools crumble, there aren’t enough cops on the
street and bridges decay while our leaders cross their fingers and ignore the
rising chances of disaster.

And now, one has fallen, to our great sorrow, and people died losing a gamble
they didn’t even know they had taken. They believed someone was guarding the
bridge.

We need a new slogan and we needed it yesterday:

"No More Collapses."

Good news, bad news: Back to the political branches

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
AS THE ABOVE editorial indicates, the matter of whether young children will have a chance at a good education in South Carolina is back in the hands of the political branches. That’s very good and very bad.
It’s very good because such matters of fundamental policy are political in nature. The courts can and should do no more than give us the constitutional parameters within which to act. And what the constitution says isn’t much:
“The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free public schools open to all children in the State and shall establish, organize and support such other public institutions of learning, as may be desirable.”
Courts have elaborated on that slightly. In 1999, the state Supreme Court added “minimally adequate” in front of “system” (not literally, as in amending the constitution, but in terms of our legal understanding). Many education advocates today, just a very few years later, see that “minimally” as a damning sentence of inadequacy. The great irony in that is that the chief justice who presided over that addition saw it as a great step forward for the progressive approach to education, insisting that South Carolina not define “adequate” below a certain, minimal level. That’s not the proper purview of judges, but in any case he did not have the effect he’d hoped for.
Words can be slippery.
I am reminded of the late Douglas Adams’ hilarious series of satirical science fiction novels. One of his main characters was a researcher for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The universe being a big place, the Guide had devoted only one word to describing Earth: “Harmless.” After 15 years of intensive research here on our planet, the field man manages to get his editors to expand the entry so that it reads, in its entirety: “Mostly harmless.”
As it happens, 15 years is only one year longer than the life span of the lawsuit over where we will set the floor for educational opportunity in the poor, rural parts of our state. Abbeville County School District (et al.) v. the State of South Carolina was filed on Nov. 2, 1993. Almost 14 years later, it has added “minimally adequate” to our understanding of our constitutional obligation regarding education — and not even the people who agree on what they want our school system to be can agree on whether “minimally” is a good addition or a bad one.
On to the political branches. That’s where the “very bad news” part comes in.
Education is the biggest thing government does at the state level, which is why people who vaguely, but insistently, desire to “reduce the size of government” are always talking about vouchers and tax credits aimed at preventing the state from spending so much on public schools.
It also happens to be the one thing that government does that can most affect whether our state prospers. South Carolina hasn’t done it very well, relatively speaking, and so we have not prospered as well as other states. It’s not that we don’t know how to educate. It’s that we’ve never resolved to extend the sort of education available in our prosperous suburbs to the rural parts of our state that have been economically irrelevant since the end of slavery. The test scores from those areas pull down the state’s averages, scaring off economic development, which keeps those areas poor, which continues to scare off economic development, etc.
It’s possible to break the cycle, but it would take a tremendous mustering and focusing of political will to overcome certain rather powerful political barriers.
The Legislature won’t provide the answer, because it is the nexus of 170 political agendas. Many of the most adept of the 170 are from districts that see themselves as losing what they’ve got in any effort to focus resources on the poorest districts.
The one political figure in the state in a position to chart a course that steers around all those shoals of local interest — to articulate a bold vision of statewide interest over the heads of lawmakers and fire up the electorate — is the governor. And our current governor hasn’t the slightest interest in doing that. He’s one of the folks who wants us to spend less on public education.
(But “Spending alone won’t do it!”, you cry. You’re right. It will require implementing a comprehensive vision of reform, from classrooms to the state Department of Education. But if you’re not willing to spend, you can forget the rest. As long as the affluent parts of our state see themselves losing in a zero-sum game, you can’t turn around the poor parts with current overall spending levels.)
The alternative would be an uprising of the people, a grass-roots movement that would make it impossible for even the most parochial of lawmakers to ignore the broader view.
There is such a movement. A group called “Education First” plans to dramatize the need to get serious about improving public schools by putting up interstate billboards that will welcome visitors to South Carolina, the “home of ‘minimally adequate’ education.” This will humiliate us all, and effectively dramatize the moral indignation of the sincere, well-meaning liberal Democrats who lead “Education First.”
Meanwhile, the State House is run by Republicans. Fortunately, many of those Republicans are more interested in public schools than the governor is, at least within the contexts of their own districts. Unfortunately, for them to become emboldened to risk themselves for a broader cause, they need to hear a message that sounds like it came from the people who elected them, and might elect them again.
So much for the political branches.
This state of affairs is not “mostly harmless” to South Carolina. Tragically, it is not even minimally so.

DeMint splits with Democrats over earmarks

How they voted on the pork

1 Reply

No surprise: The "Competitive Grants" program was vetoed by the governor and easily survived said vetoes. There are a bunch of separate items that make up the Competitive Grants program — implementation items (one for the CG program in PRT, one for the CG program in Commerce and one for the CG program in the BCBoard and one administrative item), and three funding lines. What follows are:

1. The Legislature’s "fix" of the program.
2. The governor’s message explaining why he vetoed the implementation items.
3. The votes to override his vetoes.

1. Legislative "fix." The underlined language was added in this year’s budget, the strike-throughs were deleted, and the rest remains as it was laste year:

63.37.    (BCB: Grants Review Committee) On and after January 1, 2006, there is created within the Budget and Control Board the Grants Review Committee for the purpose of awarding competitive community grants to counties and municipalities. The committee shall consist of five members with one member appointed by each of the following officials: the Governor, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate, and the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives. The officials may make initial appointments to the committee and the committee members may organize prior to January 1, 2006. Members shall serve two-year terms coterminous with the appointing official. The committee must adopt rules of procedure and elect a chairman from the membership of the committee.
   The committee must meet at least twice annually to review applications for grants submitted by counties and municipalities. All applications must conform to and all grants must be awarded pursuant to criteria established by the committee. Grants must be awarded in amounts determined by the committee from funds appropriated by the General Assembly. Staff for the committee must be provided by the Budget and Control Board.
   Applications for grants of one hundred thousand dollars or less must be processed administratively by the staff pursuant to criteria established by the committee. Applications for grants to exceed one hundred thousand dollars must be reviewed for approval by the committee.
   The committee shall establish guidelines, which shall include but not be limited to:

1) Priorities for funding, to include but not be limited to, Department of Health and Environmental Control orders and consent decrees, the ability to match grant funds, and a focus on community festivals;
2) A signature of sponsorship on each application by a member of the General Assembly who represents the county or municipality applying for the grant or the signature of the Governor;
3) Applications for consideration must be in the form prescribed herein and adopted by the committee for any award made effective July 1, 2007;
4) Counties and municipalities must report annually on the expenditure of the funds received until the funds are expended;
5) Final financial reports must be received by the committee within ninety days of the completion of the project along with a description of the results achieved in the interest of the community; and
6) The Budget and Control Board Office of Internal Audit shall have access to all Grants Review Committee records as it deems appropriate.

The committee should ensure that its process is efficient and minimizes unnecessary or duplicative paperwork.

——————————————

2. Governor’s Veto message on the implementation items:

Veto 81 Part 1B, Section 9.44, Department of Health and Environmental Control, page 380; Competitive Grants.
Veto 82 Part 1B, Section 26.6, Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, page 400; Competitive Grants.
Veto 83 Part 1B, Section 27.23, Department of Commerce, page 404; Competitive Grants.
Veto 84 Part 1B, Section 63.35, Budget and Control Board, page 465; BCB: Competitive Grants.
Veto 85Part 1B, Section 63.37, Budget and Control Board, page 465; BCB: Grants Review Committee.

This program has been in operation for longer than a year now with more than $20 million being doled out to various entities around the state. Through the process, there have been questions linked to several of the awards and whether there were efforts made to circumvent the process established by the General Assembly.

Further, at the writing of this message, there are approximately 2,200 projects totaling over $350 million in requests for a program that would have, at most, $69 million to award. Half of the grants were submitted over a year ago and have not been considered by the Committee, and it does not appear that they will.

In a little over twelve months, this so-called competitive grants program has become backlogged at the rate of five times the allotted money without a merit-based review process. We believe that this program should be ended once and for all.

——————————————-
3. Votes

IN THE HOUSE

VETO 81– OVERRIDDEN

Part 1B, Section 9.44, Department of Health and Environmental Control, page 380; Competitive Grants.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 76; Nays 31

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Anthony             Bales                Bannister
Barfield             Battle                Bowers
Brady                Branham             G. Brown
R. Brown             Chalk                Chellis
Clemmons             Cobb-Hunter          Coleman
Cooper                Crawford             Davenport
Funderburk          Gambrell             Govan
Gullick             Hamilton             Hardwick
Harrell             Harvin                Haskins
Hayes                Hiott                Hodges
Hosey                Howard                Jefferson
Jennings             Kennedy             Knight
Limehouse             Loftis                Lowe
Mack                McLeod                Miller
Moss                J. H. Neal          J. M. Neal
Neilson             Ott                   Parks
Perry                M. A. Pitts          Rice
Rutherford          Sandifer             Scarborough
Scott                Sellers             Skelton
D. C. Smith          F. N. Smith          G. M. Smith
G. R. Smith          J. R. Smith          W. D. Smith
Spires                Stavrinakis          Umphlett
Weeks                Whipper             White
Whitmire             Williams             Witherspoon
Young

Total–76

Those who voted in the negative are:

Ballentine          Bedingfield          Bingham
Bowen                Cotty                Delleney
Duncan                Edge                Frye
Hagood                Haley                Harrison
Herbkersman          Huggins             Kelly
Kirsh                Leach                Lucas
Mahaffey             Merrill             Mulvaney
Pinson                E. H. Pitts          Shoopman
Simrill             Stewart             Talley
Taylor                Thompson             Toole
Viers

Total–31

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

VETO 82– OVERRIDDEN

Part 1B, Section 26.6, Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, page 400; Competitive Grants.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 83; Nays 20

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Anthony             Bales                Bannister
Barfield             Battle                Bedingfield
Bowen                Bowers                Brady
Branham             G. Brown             R. Brown
Chalk                Chellis             Clemmons
Clyburn             Cobb-Hunter          Coleman
Cooper                Crawford             Davenport
Frye                Funderburk          Gambrell
Govan                Gullick             Hamilton
Hardwick             Hayes                Herbkersman
Hiott                Hodges                Hosey
Howard                Jennings             Kelly
Kennedy             Knight                Limehouse
Lowe                Lucas                Mack
Mahaffey             McLeod                Merrill
Miller                Mitchell             Moss
J. H. Neal          J. M. Neal          Neilson
Ott                   Parks                Perry
Rice                Rutherford          Sandifer
Scarborough          Scott                Sellers
Shoopman             Skelton             D. C. Smith
F. N. Smith          G. M. Smith          G. R. Smith
J. R. Smith          W. D. Smith          Spires
Stavrinakis          Taylor                Toole
Umphlett             Vick                Viers
Weeks                White                Whitmire
Williams             Witherspoon

Total–83

Those who voted in the negative are:

Ballentine          Bingham             Cotty
Delleney             Duncan                Edge
Hagood                Haley                Harrison
Huggins             Kirsh                Leach
Mulvaney             Pinson                E. H. Pitts
M. A. Pitts          Simrill             Stewart
Talley                Thompson

Total–20

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

VETO 83– OVERRIDDEN

Part 1B, Section 27.23, Department of Commerce, page 404; Competitive Grants.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 85; Nays 18

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Anthony             Bannister             Barfield
Battle                Bowen                Bowers
Brady                Branham             G. Brown
R. Brown             Chalk                Clemmons
Clyburn             Cobb-Hunter          Coleman
Cooper                Davenport             Edge
Funderburk          Gambrell             Govan
Gullick             Hamilton             Hardwick
Harrell             Harvin                Haskins
Hayes                Herbkersman          Hiott
Hodges                Hosey                Howard
Jefferson             Jennings             Kelly
Kennedy             Knight                Leach
Limehouse             Loftis                Lowe
Lucas                Mack                Mahaffey
McLeod                Merrill             Miller
Mitchell             Moss                J. H. Neal
J. M. Neal          Neilson             Ott
Parks                Perry                Pinson
M. A. Pitts          Rice                Rutherford
Scarborough          Scott                Sellers
Simrill             Skelton             D. C. Smith
F. N. Smith          G. M. Smith          G. R. Smith
J. R. Smith          W. D. Smith          Spires
Stavrinakis          Taylor                Umphlett
Vick                Viers                Weeks
White                Whitmire             Witherspoon
Young

Total–85

Those who voted in the negative are:

Ballentine          Bedingfield          Bingham
Cotty                Delleney             Duncan
Frye                Hagood                Haley
Harrison             Huggins             Mulvaney
E. H. Pitts          Shoopman             Stewart
Talley                Thompson             Toole

Total–18

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

VETO 84– OVERRIDDEN

Part 1B, Section 63.35, Budget and Control Board, page 465; BCB: Competitive Grants.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 81; Nays 26

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Anthony             Bales                Bannister
Barfield             Battle                Bowers
Brady                Branham             G. Brown
R. Brown             Chalk                Chellis
Clemmons             Clyburn             Cobb-Hunter
Coleman             Cooper                Davenport
Edge                Funderburk          Gambrell
Govan                Hamilton             Hardwick
Harrell             Harvin                Hayes
Herbkersman          Hiott                Hodges
Hosey                Howard                Jefferson
Jennings             Kelly                Kennedy
Knight                Leach                Limehouse
Lowe                Lucas                Mack
Mahaffey             McLeod                Miller
Mitchell             Moss                J. H. Neal
J. M. Neal          Neilson             Ott
Parks                Perry                M. A. Pitts
Rice                Rutherford          Sandifer
Scarborough          Scott                Sellers
Simrill             Skelton             D. C. Smith
F. N. Smith          G. M. Smith          G. R. Smith
J. R. Smith          W. D. Smith          Spires
Stavrinakis          Taylor                Vick
Weeks                Whipper             White
Whitmire             Witherspoon          Young

Total–81

Those who voted in the negative are:

Ballentine          Bedingfield          Bingham
Bowen                Cotty                Crawford
Delleney             Duncan                Frye
Gullick             Hagood                Haley
Harrison             Huggins             Kirsh
Merrill             Mulvaney             Pinson
E. H. Pitts          Shoopman             Stewart
Talley                Thompson             Toole
Umphlett             Viers

Total–26

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

VETO 85– OVERRIDDEN

Part 1B, Section 63.37, Budget and Control Board, page 465; BCB: Grants Review Committee.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 77; Nays 24

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anthony
Bales                Bannister             Barfield
Battle                Bowers                Brady
Branham             G. Brown             R. Brown
Chalk                Clemmons             Cobb-Hunter
Coleman             Cooper                Davenport
Edge                Frye                Funderburk
Gambrell             Govan                Hardwick
Harrell             Harvin                Haskins
Hayes                Herbkersman          Hiott
Hodges                Hosey                Howard
Jefferson             Jennings             Kelly
Knight                Leach                Lowe
Lucas                Mack                Mahaffey
McLeod                Miller                Mitchell
Moss                J. H. Neal          J. M. Neal
Neilson             Ott                   Parks
Perry                Pinson                M. A. Pitts
Rice                Rutherford          Sandifer
Scarborough          Scott                Sellers
Simrill             Skelton             D. C. Smith
F. N. Smith          G. M. Smith          G. R. Smith
J. R. Smith          W. D. Smith          Spires
Stavrinakis          Taylor                Vick
Weeks                White                Whitmire
Witherspoon          Young

Total–77

Those who voted in the negative are:

Ballentine          Bedingfield          Bingham
Bowen                Cotty                Crawford
Delleney             Duncan                Hagood
Haley                Hamilton             Harrison
Huggins             Kirsh                Merrill
Mulvaney             E. H. Pitts          Shoopman
Stewart             Talley                Thompson
Toole                Umphlett             Viers

Total–24

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

VETO 195– OVERRIDDEN

Part IB; Section 73; Proviso 73.12; Page 516; Item Number 78(A); P28; Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism; Competitive Grants; $3,000,000.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 84; Nays 19

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Bales                Bannister             Barfield
Battle                Bingham             Bowers
Brady                Branham             Breeland
G. Brown             R. Brown             Chalk
Chellis             Clemmons             Clyburn
Coleman             Cooper                Crawford
Edge                Frye                Funderburk
Gambrell             Govan                Gullick
Hamilton             Hardwick             Harrell
Hart                Harvin                Haskins
Hayes                Herbkersman          Hiott
Hodges                Hosey                Huggins
Jefferson             Jennings             Kelly
Knight                Limehouse             Lowe
Mack                Mahaffey             McLeod
Mitchell             Moss                J. H. Neal
J. M. Neal          Neilson             Ott
Owens                Parks                Perry
Pinson                E. H. Pitts          M. A. Pitts
Rice                Rutherford          Sandifer
Scarborough          Scott                Sellers
Skelton             D. C. Smith          G. M. Smith
G. R. Smith          J. R. Smith          W. D. Smith
Spires                Stavrinakis          Taylor
Toole                Umphlett             Vick
Weeks                Whipper             White
Whitmire             Williams             Young

Total–84

Those who voted in the negative are:

Ballentine          Bedingfield          Bowen
Cotty                Davenport             Delleney
Duncan                Hagood                Haley
Harrison             Kirsh                Leach
Loftis                Lucas                Mulvaney
Shoopman             Thompson             Viers
Witherspoon

Total–19
———————————-
VETO 212– OVERRIDDEN

Part IB; Section 73; Proviso 73.12; Page 517; Item Number 79(A); P32; Department of Commerce; Competitive Grants; $500,000.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 86; Nays 12

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Bales                Ballentine          Bannister
Barfield             Battle                Bingham
Bowen                Bowers                Brady
Branham             G. Brown             R. Brown
Chalk                Chellis             Clemmons
Clyburn             Cobb-Hunter          Coleman
Cooper                Crawford             Edge
Frye                Funderburk          Gambrell
Govan                Haley                Hardwick
Hart                Harvin                Haskins
Hayes                Herbkersman          Hiott
Hodges                Hosey                Howard
Huggins             Jefferson             Kelly
Knight                Leach                Limehouse
Lowe                Lucas                Mack
Mahaffey             McLeod                Mitchell
Moss                J. H. Neal          J. M. Neal
Neilson             Ott                   Owens
Parks                Perry                Pinson
E. H. Pitts          M. A. Pitts          Rice
Rutherford          Sandifer             Scarborough
Sellers             Shoopman             Simrill
Skelton             D. C. Smith          F. N. Smith
G. M. Smith          G. R. Smith          J. R. Smith
W. D. Smith          Spires                Stavrinakis
Taylor                Toole                Vick
Weeks                Whipper             White
Whitmire             Williams

Total–86

Those who voted in the negative are:

Bedingfield          Cotty                Davenport
Delleney             Duncan                Gullick
Hagood                Kirsh                Mulvaney
Thompson             Umphlett             Viers

Total–12

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

———————————————

VETO 236– OVERRIDDEN

Part IB; Section 73; Proviso 73.12; Page 517; Item Number 86(F); F03; Budget and Control Board; Competitive Grants; $3,000,000.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 81; Nays 17

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Bales                Bannister             Barfield
Battle                Bedingfield          Bingham
Bowen                Bowers                Brady
Branham             Breeland             G. Brown
R. Brown             Chellis             Clemmons
Clyburn             Cobb-Hunter          Cooper
Delleney             Edge                Funderburk
Gambrell             Govan                Hamilton
Hardwick             Harrell             Harvin
Haskins             Hayes                Hiott
Hodges                Hosey                Howard
Huggins             Jefferson             Jennings
Kelly                Knight                Leach
Limehouse             Lowe                Lucas
Mack                Mahaffey             McLeod
Mitchell             Moss                J. H. Neal
J. M. Neal          Neilson             Ott
Owens                Parks                Perry
Pinson                E. H. Pitts          Rice
Sandifer             Scarborough          Scott
Sellers             Simrill             Skelton
F. N. Smith          G. M. Smith          G. R. Smith
J. R. Smith          Spires                Stavrinakis
Taylor                Vick                Weeks
Whipper             White                Whitmire
Williams             Witherspoon          Young

Total–81

Those who voted in the negative are:

Ballentine          Cotty                Crawford
Duncan                Frye                Gullick
Hagood                Haley                Harrison
Kirsh                Merrill             Mulvaney
D. C. Smith          Thompson             Toole
Umphlett             Viers

Total–17

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

IN THE SENATE
VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 81 Part 1B, Section 9.44, Department of Health and Environmental Control, page 380; Competitive Grants.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator ALEXANDER moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 40; Nays 5

AYES

Alexander                Anderson                Ceips
Cleary                   Courson                Cromer
Drummond                Elliott                Fair
Ford                   Gregory                Hayes
Hutto                   Jackson                Knotts
Land                   Leatherman             Leventis
Lourie                   Malloy                   Martin
Matthews                McConnell                McGill
Moore                   O’Dell                   Patterson
Peeler                   Pinckney                Rankin
Reese                   Ritchie                Ryberg
Scott                   Setzler                Sheheen
Short                   Thomas                   Vaughn
Williams

Total–40

NAYS

Bryant Campsen Grooms
Hawkins Verdin

Total–5

The necessary two-thirds vote having been received, the veto of the Governor was overridden, and a message was sent to the House accordingly.

VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 82 Part 1B, Section 26.6, Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, page 400; Competitive Grants.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator McGILL moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 40; Nays 5

AYES

Total–40

NAYS

Bryant Campsen Grooms
Hawkins Verdin

Total–5

The necessary two-thirds vote having been received, the veto of the Governor was overridden, and a message was sent to the House accordingly.

Message from the House

Columbia, S.C., June 28, 2007

Mr. President and Senators:

The House respectfully informs your Honorable Body that it has overridden the veto by the Governor on R.175, H. 3620 <http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess117_2007-2008/bills/3620.htm> by a vote of 85 to 18:

R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 83 Part 1B, Section 27.23, Department of Commerce, page 404; Competitive Grants.
Respectfully submitted,
Speaker of the House

Received as information.

VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 83 Part 1B, Section 27.23, Department of Commerce, page 404; Competitive Grants.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator McGILL moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 40; Nays 5

AYES

Total–40

NAYS

Bryant Campsen Grooms
Hawkins Verdin

Total–5

The necessary two-thirds vote having been received, the veto of the Governor was overridden, and a message was sent to the House accordingly.

Message from the House

Columbia, S.C., June 28, 2007

Mr. President and Senators:

R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 84 Part 1B, Section 63.35, Budget and Control Board, page 465; BCB: Competitive Grants.
Respectfully submitted,
Speaker of the House

Received as information.

VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 84 Part 1B, Section 63.35, Budget and Control Board, page 465; BCB: Competitive Grants.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator McGILL moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 40; Nays 5
AYES

Total–40

NAYS

Bryant Campsen Grooms
Hawkins Verdin

Total–5

The necessary two-thirds vote having been received, the veto of the Governor was overridden, and a message was sent to the House accordingly.

Message from the House

Columbia, S.C., June 28, 2007

Mr. President and Senators:

R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 85 Part 1B, Section 63.37, Budget and Control Board, page 465; BCB: Grants Review Committee.
Respectfully submitted,
Speaker of the House

Received as information.

VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 85 Part 1B, Section 63.37, Budget and Control Board, page 465; BCB: Grants Review Committee.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator McGILL moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 40; Nays 5

AYES

Total–40

NAYS

Bryant Campsen Grooms
Hawkins Verdin

Total–5

The necessary two-thirds vote having been received, the veto of the Governor was overridden, and a message was sent to the House accordingly.

VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 145 Part IB; Section 73; Proviso 73.12; page 514; Item Number 65(H); J04; Department of Health and Environmental Control; Competitive Grants; $2,800,000.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator ALEXANDER moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 39; Nays 6

AYES

Alexander                Anderson                Ceips
Cleary                   Courson                Cromer
Drummond                Elliott                Fair
Ford                   Gregory                Hayes
Hutto                   Jackson                Knotts
Land                   Leatherman             Leventis
Lourie                   Malloy                   Martin
Matthews                McConnell                McGill
Moore                   O’Dell                   Patterson
Peeler                   Pinckney                Rankin
Reese                   Ritchie                Scott
Setzler                Sheheen                Short
Thomas                   Vaughn                   Williams

Total–39

NAYS

Bryant Campsen Grooms
Hawkins Ryberg Verdin

Total–6

The necessary two-thirds vote having been received, the veto of the Governor was overridden, and a message was sent to the House accordingly.

VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 195 Part IB; Section 73; Proviso 73.12; Page 516; Item Number 78(A); P28; Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism; Competitive Grants; $3,000,000.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator LEATHERMAN moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 39; Nays 6
AYES

Alexander                Anderson                Ceips
Cleary                   Courson                Cromer
Drummond                Elliott                Fair
Ford                   Gregory                Hayes
Hutto                   Jackson                Knotts
Land                   Leatherman             Leventis
Lourie                   Malloy                   Martin
Matthews                McConnell                McGill
Moore                   O’Dell                   Patterson
Peeler                   Pinckney                Rankin
Reese                   Ritchie                Scott
Setzler                Sheheen                Short
Thomas                   Vaughn                   Williams

Total–39

NAYS

Bryant Campsen Grooms
Hawkins Ryberg Verdin

Total–6

The necessary two-thirds vote having been received, the veto of the Governor was overridden, and a message was sent to the House accordingly.

VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 212 Part IB; Section 73; Proviso 73.12; Page 517; Item Number 79(A); P32; Department of Commerce; Competitive Grants; $500,000.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator McGILL moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 39; Nays 6

AYES

Alexander                Anderson                Ceips
Cleary                   Courson                Cromer
Drummond                Elliott                Fair
Ford                   Gregory                Hayes
Hutto                   Jackson                Knotts
Land                   Leatherman             Leventis
Lourie                   Malloy                   Martin
Matthews                McConnell                McGill
Moore                   O’Dell                   Patterson
Peeler                   Pinckney                Rankin
Reese                   Ritchie                Scott
Setzler                Sheheen                Short
Thomas                   Vaughn                   Williams

Total–39

NAYS

Bryant Campsen Grooms
Hawkins Ryberg Verdin

Total–6

The necessary two-thirds vote having been received, the veto of the Governor was overridden, and a message was sent to the House accordingly.

SooeeeEEE!

1 Reply

Hey, did you wonder what legislators did this year about their farcically named pork machine, the "Competitive Grants Program?"

Well, I doubt that you’ll be shocked to learn that they left town with it still intact — DESPITE it being revealed this year for a sham, and DESPITE the governor’s vetoes of the program. The Legislature made quick work of overriding THOSE vetoes — even though the program had been initially broken up into eight separate pieces (three pots of money, and five provisos), probably so it would attract less attention when it was first passed last year. (That worked — at least until the checks started rolling out). … In a minute, I’ll give you the governor’s explanation for why he vetoed the program, followed by all eight roll-call votes in the House and in the Senate.

But first, you’ll be interested to know that on the very day the Senate was overriding those vetoes, the Legislature’s hand-pick grants committee was approving even more expenditures. You can find them at this address.

You can also check out an article in today’s Post and Courier about those latest grants.

Driving Mr. Bauer: The Sequel

5 Replies

UPDATE on Gov Lite Driver: The House by a smaller margin overrode the veto of the PROVISO for the chauffeur. The possible logic: The money line included other stuff; as long as the PROVISO was removed, there would be no security detail (Just an extra $90,000 in the lt gov’s office with no particular use, and possibly unavailable to be spent, although I’m not sure) … So here’s THe vote to override the PROVISO:

VETO 95– OVERRIDDEN

Part 1B, Section 72.110, General Provision, page 502; Lt. Governor Security Detail.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 77; Nays 21

Those who voted in the affirmative are:
Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Anthony             Bales                Bannister
Barfield             Battle                Bingham
Bowen                Bowers                Brady
Branham             Breeland             G. Brown
Chalk                Chellis             Clemmons
Clyburn             Cooper                Cotty
Davenport             Delleney             Edge
Frye                Gambrell             Govan
Gullick             Hardwick             Harrell
Harrison             Harvin                Haskins
Hayes                Hiott                Hodges
Hosey                Jefferson             Jennings
Kelly                Knight                Leach
Mack                Mahaffey             Merrill
Miller                Mitchell             Moss
J. H. Neal          J. M. Neal          Neilson
Parks                Perry                Pinson
M. A. Pitts          Rice                Sandifer
Scarborough          Scott                Sellers
Simrill             Skelton             F. N. Smith
G. M. Smith          G. R. Smith          J. R. Smith
Spires                Talley                Taylor
Toole                Umphlett             Vick
Weeks                Whipper             White
Williams             Witherspoon

Total–77

Those who voted in the negative are:
Ballentine          Bedingfield          Crawford
Duncan                Funderburk          Hagood
Haley                Hamilton             Huggins
Kirsh                Loftis                Lowe
Lucas                McLeod                Mulvaney
E. H. Pitts          Shoopman             D. C. Smith
Stewart             Thompson             Viers

Total–21

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

How they voted on Andre’s driver

10 Replies

How would you vote, if it were up to you, on whether taxpayers should supply a driver/security guy for Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer.

If almost anyone else — Nick Theodore, Bob Peeler, whoever — were the current Gov Lite, I would say "no way." Probably half the people I know need security more than the lieutenant governor of South Carolina. And I don’t know anyone outside the Oval Office who needs the army of armed guards Nick took with him to the 1988 Democratic Convention.

But Andre Bauer? One doesn’t have to be facetious to say that it might be in the public interest to keep him from behind the wheel. Our roads are deadly enough as it is.

In the end, I would probably have voted to sustain the governor’s veto, though, in the name of erring on the side of thrift.

Here’s how legislators who had the power to decide this actually did vote. As you know, they overrode the governor, so let’s just hope he gets a good, safe driver:

First the vote in the House, followed by the vote in the Senate.

A "yes" vote is to fund the driver. The amount is more than $90,000 because the driver was included on the same line in the budget with another item, so the governor had to veto both or neither:

House
VETO 39– OVERRIDDEN

Part IA; Section 57; Page 264; Lieutenant Governor’s Office; I. Administration; Other Operating Expenses; $112,173.

Rep. COOPER explained the Veto.

The question was put, shall the Item become a part of the law, the veto of his Excellency, the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding, the yeas and nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 92; Nays 16

Those who voted in the affirmative are:
Agnew                Allen                Anderson
Anthony             Bales                Ballentine
Bannister             Barfield          Battle
Bingham             Bowen             Bowers
Brady                   Branham          Breeland
G. Brown             R. Brown          Chalk
Chellis                Clemmons          Clyburn
Cobb-Hunter       Coleman             Cooper
Cotty                   Davenport          Delleney
Edge                   Frye                Gambrell
Govan                Gullick             Hamilton
Hardwick             Harrell             Harrison
Hart                   Harvin             Haskins
Hayes                Herbkersman    Hiott
Hodges                Hosey                Howard
Huggins             Jefferson          Jennings
Kelly                   Kennedy             Knight
Leach                Loftis                Lowe
Lucas                Mahaffey          Merrill
Miller                Mitchell             Moss
J. H. Neal          J. M. Neal          Neilson
Parks                Perry                   Pinson
M. A. Pitts          Rice                   Rutherford
Sandifer             Scarborough       Scott
Sellers                Simrill                Skelton
F. N. Smith       G. M. Smith       G. R. Smith
J. R. Smith       Spires                Stavrinakis
Talley                Taylor                Toole
Umphlett             Vick                   Weeks
Whipper             White                Williams
Witherspoon       Young

Total–92

Those who voted in the negative are:
Bedingfield          Crawford             Duncan
Funderburk          Hagood                Haley
Kirsh                   McLeod                Mulvaney
E. H. Pitts          Shoopman          D. C. Smith
Stewart                Thompso             Viers
Whitmire

Total–16

So, the Veto of the Governor was overridden and a message was ordered sent to the Senate accordingly.

————————————————————–

Senate
VETO OVERRIDDEN
R. 175, H. 3620–GENERAL APPROPRIATION ACT

Veto 39 – Part IA; Section 57; Page 264; Lieutenant Governor’s Office; I; Administration; Other Operating Expenses; $112,173.

The veto of the Governor was taken up for immediate consideration.

Senator LEATHERMAN moved that the veto of the Governor be overridden.

The question was put, "Shall the Act become law, the veto of the Governor to the contrary notwithstanding?"

The "ayes" and "nays" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

Ayes 39; Nays 6

AYES
Alexander                Anderson             Ceips
Cleary                   Drummond          Elliott
Fair                      Ford                   Gregory
Hawkins                Hayes                Hutto
Jackson                   Knotts                Land
Leatherman             Leventis             Lourie
Malloy                   Martin                Matthews
McGill                   Moore                O’Dell
Patterson                Peeler                Pinckney
Rankin                   Reese                Ritchie
Ryberg                   Scott                   Setzler
Sheheen                Short                Thomas
Vaughn                   Verdin                Williams

Total–39

NAYS
Bryant                   Campsen             Courson
Cromer                Grooms                McConnell

Total–6

Come and get it!

32 Replies

Readers of this forum will know that I am dismissive of most of the obsessions of libertarians, from their belief that screening communications to catch terrorists somehow steals our liberty to their never-ending blather about holding down the "size of government" — which is their bizarre (what’s the "right size" for government? no one could possibly say), ideological way of getting around saying that they just really, really don’t like paying taxes.

That’s one thing; this is another altogether. It strikes me as strange and funky and wrong to actually go out
and encourage the government to spend money, particularly to spend it on and with you, the one asking for it. And yet that’s what a July 9 symposium announced by Jim Clyburnbrochure Clyburn plans to do. I quote from the press release (which I was unable to find in text form, so I reproduce as a jpg):

The focus of the Expo is to provide a one-stop shop for small businesses, large prime contractors and federal agencies to meet and establish partnerships in pursuing the remaining federal contract dollars available for 2007.

Yes, I know what the congressman would say in defense of this approach. He would say that:

This is not encouraging federal spending that would not occur otherwise. This is money that has already been appropriated.
As long as it’s being spent, why not get more of it going to small businesses, particularly the minority-owned small businesses that might not benefit from the personal connections with officials that might come with a middle-class upbringing?

And I get all that, and it makes sense, but it is … unseemly … to call folks to the trough and instruct them in ways to elbow their ways to the front of the litter. And it seems hard to refute that members of Congress would hardly push hard for this spending in the first place if they didn’t hope — or even have the pull to ensure — that it would go to the pockets of their constituents. Another thing about contracting with the government — every dime that the private contractor makes in profit is another dime that taxpayer is paying that doesn’t go directly to the thing he is ostensibly paying for. (This is one reason I lament the passing of the draft; when soldiers picked up cigarette butts on the post, no one had to pay a for-profit contractor to do it).

Think about who will be in the room at this event — no participant has any motivate for containing federal spending overall. It’s in the interests — some legitimate, some not — of the politician, the agency official and the contractors that there be plenty of money for contracts and programs in next year’s budget as well. That means you’ve just put together a significant constituency for increased spending, independent of the needs of the nation as a whole.

I also understand that my objections on this point arise from a fastidiousness that is distinctly middle class, and that Mr. Clyburn is concerned with helping people who have never enjoyed membership join that class.

But I will never feel good about any amount of government spending that doesn’t go to something we truly need to spend it on as a nation. And somehow this symposium doesn’t seem at all likely to help us keep our expenditures focused on the necessary; quite the contrary.

Divided We Fail

12 Replies

Just about every morning, I run into my friend Samuel Tenenbaum at breakfast, and we talk about various wonkish things, and have a high old time ingesting caffeine and blueberries.

And just about every morning, he mentions that it’s past time I should write about AARP’s program, Divided We Fail. Essentially, it’s an effort by AARP to get candidates in the presidential campaign talking about important domestic issues such as health care.

Shortly after he started working at AARP — and Divided We Fail is his particular mission — I dropped by his office and shot this video (with my phone, sorry about the low quality), which is essentially his answer to my question, "What are you doing here?"

At around that same time, Jane Wiley and others from that organization came by to see the editorial board and talked to us about the same thing. And we have yet to write about it, whereas others who don’t run into Samuel all the time have already written about it. That’s Jane pictured below. (If I shot video at that meeting, I’m having trouble finding it now.)

Well, we’ve had the Legislature winding down, etc., and all sorts of other excuses. But Samuel (and Jane, in her lower-key way) is (are) right to nag me about it.

This is one of several efforts going on in our state that do the very same thing, only with different issues. I wrote previously about the folks trying to raise the profile of global warming in the campaign. There’s also something going on backed by Bono of U2 and saving-the-world fame, and something else pushed by Bill Gates and his lady. I plan to do a column on the whole phenomenon, now that it’s summer.

But in the meantime, check out the grainy video, as Samuel summarizes it better than I could, and then look at the Web site.

I will return to this subject. Yes, I will…

Jane_wiley

One ping only, Vasily…

9 Replies

"Dirty, rotten commies!," one of my colleagues has been muttering since yesterday. "The only thing worse than a commie is one with oil!" He refers to this news:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Venezuela is studying buying Russian submarines that would transform the South American country into the top naval force in the region, a military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.
Gen. Alberto Muller, responding to a Russian newspaper report that Chavez plans to sign a deal for five diesel submarines, said the government is "analyzing the possibilities" but that the money has not yet been set aside.
Oil-rich Venezuela has already purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and other weapons.

But he misses the silver lining: Now we can crank out those nifty new Seawolf-class attack subs. We’ve got the excuse now! We’ve got Russian boats to track and kill again! Right here in River City! "Top naval force in the region?" In our hemisphere? Shades of the missiles of October…

Just let those peace-dividenders stop us now! They can take their little Virginia-class toys and shove them where … but I must restrain myself. We readers of too many Tom Clancy novels must be magnanimous in our triumph.

I wonder if we can get Bart Mancuso and Jonesy to come out of retirement for this?

Anderson celebrates what little there is to celebrate

13 Replies

A colleague points out the editorial in which the Anderson paper over the weekend celebrated the demise of efforts to slip the whole taxpayers-subsidize-private-schools thing into the open enrollment bill. An excerpt;

An attempt to further frustrate improvements in public schools in South Carolina was defeated in the Senate last week. The addition of private school vouchers to a bill allowing open enrollment within the public school system was dismissed nearly two-to-one, according to published reports. Debate continues on the original proposal, despite this latest pass at – and latest failure of – supporting private education with public money.

That’s good. But isn’t it a shame how, in South Carolina, we almost never get to celebrate any really good, bold, positive measures passing our Legislature — such as real DOT reform, or a comprehensive tax revamp, or addressing the profound problems in the Corridor of Shame, or setting local governments free to govern locally, or anything really helpful.

No, the best we get to do is celebrate when something really, really awful fails to pass.

Sad.

Immigration most foul

15 Replies

OK, now I see why everybody gets so upset about illegal immigrants from Mexico. It’s because what they have done is so thoroughly heinous. A correspondent on a previous post responded, after I had noted the absurdity of the idea that a non-police state would or could round up 12 million people and deport them, thusly:

We can’t catch all bank robbers, so let’s bring them out of the shadows
and get paper work on them too, Brad. And child molesters. And
murderers. Sure, we’ll get some paperwork on ’em, make ’em pay a fine,
and everything is OK, right? Is that your logic? We don’t do what’s in
this "compromise" for any other class of criminal, and it’s really so
ridiculous that no one even proposes it for murderers and child
molesters. Why are we even contemplating it for illegal aliens?

Let’s see — bank robbers, child molesters, murderers, mother rapers, father stabbers, and what else do we have here on the Group W bench? Oh, yes — a few people who walked across an invisible line in the desert to do menial labor for a pittance.

At that point, everybody moves away from the illegal aliens there on the Group W bench, but then they say, "And creating a nuisance," and everybody moves back and shakes their hands and they all have a fine time together talking about father-rapin’ and bank-robbin’ and pickin’ vegetables in the hot sun, and all sorts of groovy things …

What an odd crime to hyperventilate about. Kind of like jaywalking, only without the immediate threat of causing a traffic accident.

Official Horse Sense, or “Dude! Where’s My Marsh Tacky?”

10 Replies

Do you remember the Marsh Tacky? If you don’t that’s understandable, because according to House Bill 3825, it "is an almost forgotten breed of horse in our State," despite their having played "a unique and pivotal role in the history of our State."

That may sound as though they came up with the idea to fire on Fort Sumter or something, but apparently all they used to do is run around wild on Hilton Head — a role now taken by transplanted Yankee condo owners.

Reps. Limehouse and Ceips proposed to do something about that by creating a registry to keep track of the feral critters, charging a fee to all Marsh Tacky owners to cover the cost of the service.

This was a sort of second-best approach for them. Last year their bill that would have made the Marsh Tacky the Official State Horse was sent to committee and forgotten, much like the poor Marsh Tacky itself.

You may not realize the full tragedy of this, but to the best of my knowledge, this leaves South Carolina without a state horse of any kind! This of course, is a great inconvenience to our State Cowboys.

But while that bill died ignominiously, the registry proposal actually got to the House Floor.

Unfortunately, Rep. Ken Kennedy sullied the bill with an amendment declaring that "The mule is designated as the official work animal of the State of South Carolina," and that caused this crucial legislation was defeated in the House. Bill’s like that just can’t reproduce, you know.

I apologize for having been so busy with DOT reform and cigarette taxes and the budget and the Confederate flag and presidential candidates coming through, that I failed to take the time to inform you about this crucial legislation before it was TOO LATE.

But here’s a full report now:

H. 3825

STATUS INFORMATION

General Bill
Sponsors: Reps. Limehouse and Ceips
Document Path: l:\council\bills\bbm\9926ssp07.doc

Introduced in the House on March 29, 2007
Last Amended on May 17, 2007
Rejected by the House on May 17, 2007

Summary: Marsh Tacky horse

A BILL

TO AMEND THE CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, BY ADDING SECTION 47-9-60 <http://www.scstatehouse.net/code/t47c009.htm#47-9-60> SO AS TO REQUIRE THE ASSESSMENT OF A FEE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR AN OWNER OF A MARSH TACKY HORSE TO REGISTER HIS HORSE WITH THE DEPARTMENT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PRESERVING AND TRACKING MARSH TACKYS IN THE STATE, TO REQUIRE THE FEES COLLECTED TO BE USED TO OFFSET THE DEPARTMENT’S COSTS OF MAINTAINING A REGISTRY, AND TO REQUIRE THE UNUSED PORTION OF THE FEES TO BE REMITTED TO THE GENERAL FUND OF THE STATE.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION 1. Article 1, Chapter 9, Title 47 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

"Section 47-9-60 <http://www.scstatehouse.net/code/t47c009.htm#47-9-60>. (A) The General Assembly finds:

(1) The Marsh Tacky is a horse with a unique history in South Carolina.

(2) The Marsh Tacky is an almost forgotten breed of horse in our State. Once existing in feral herds on the barrier islands and mainland of South Carolina’s Lowcountry, they have played a unique and pivotal role in the history of our State.

(3) Modern development of this State’s barrier islands slowly forced the Marsh Tacky’s removal from these islands where their breed had lived for more than three hundred years. Once existing by the hundreds on Hilton Head Island during the 1940’s and 1950’s, they are virtually unknown to the present day inhabitants.

(4) The pure Marsh Tacky now exist only in small numbers, and presently, there is only one known herd being carefully preserved in our State.

(5) A registry should be maintained by the State of the Marsh Tackys in South Carolina to help preserve and track these historically significant breed of horses.

(B) An owner of a Marsh Tacky may register the horse with the Department of Agriculture for the purpose of preserving and tracking the Marsh Tacky located in the State. The Department of Agriculture shall maintain the registry and record the name and address of the owner, the location of the horse, and any other relevant information about the horse, including any historical information available.

(C) The department shall assess a fee of ten dollars for each horse registered with the department. The fees collected must be used to offset the costs to the department of maintaining the registry and any unused fees must be remitted to the general fund of the State."

SECTION 2. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.

—————————————————————–

BUT The Ways and Means Committee wanted none of that. It decided instead to create a new designation. So it proposed to strike the original bill and replace it with this:

/SECTION 1. Article 1, Chapter 9, Title 47 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

"Section 47-9-60. (A) The General Assembly finds:

(1) The Marsh Tacky is a horse with a unique history in South Carolina.

(2) The Marsh Tacky is an almost forgotten breed of horse in our State. Once existing in feral herds on the barrier islands and mainland of South Carolina’s Lowcountry, they have played a unique and pivotal role in the history of our State.

(3) Modern development of this State’s barrier islands slowly forced the Marsh Tacky’s removal from these islands where their breed had lived for more than three hundred years. Once existing by the hundreds on Hilton Head Island during the 1940’s and 1950’s, they are virtually unknown to the present day inhabitants.

(4) The pure Marsh Tacky now exist only in small numbers, and presently, there is only one known herd being carefully preserved in our State.

(B) The Marsh Tacky is designated as the official South Carolina Heritage horse."
SECTION 2. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor./

Rep. LIMEHOUSE explained the amendment.

The amendment was then adopted by a division vote of 18 to 14.

—————————————————————–
Then Rep. Ken Kennedy proposed this additional amendment:

Rep. KENNEDY proposed the following Amendment No. 2 (Doc Name COUNCIL\MS\7332AHB07), which was adopted:
Amend the bill, as and if amended, by adding an appropriately numbered SECTION to read:
/ "Section 1-1-710. The mule is designated as the official work animal of the State of South Carolina." /
Renumber sections to conform.
Amend title to conform.

Rep. KENNEDY explained the amendment.

The amendment was then adopted by a division vote of 51 to 19.

———————————————————-

Then, as you can see below, all hell broke loose:

Pursuant to Rule 7.7 the Yeas and Nays were taken resulting as follows:

Yeas 29; Nays 52

Those who voted in the affirmative are:

Alexander             Anderson             Barfield
Battle                Brady                Branham
Brantley             Ceips                Chalk
Clemmons             Davenport             Gambrell
Harvin                Hodges                Hosey
Howard                Jefferson             Kennedy
Kirsh                Knight                Limehouse
Lowe                Rutherford          Scarborough
Sellers             W. D. Smith          Stavrinakis
White                Williams

Total–29

Those who voted in the negative are:

Agnew                Allen                Anthony
Bannister             Bedingfield          Bowen
R. Brown             Cato                Chellis
Cobb-Hunter          Coleman             Cotty
Dantzler             Delleney             Duncan
Frye                Funderburk          Govan
Haley                Hamilton             Hart
Haskins             Hiott                Huggins
Lucas                Mahaffey             McLeod
Moss                Mulvaney             J. H. Neal
Ott                   Parks                Perry
E. H. Pitts          M. A. Pitts          Sandifer
Shoopman             Skelton             D. C. Smith
F. N. Smith          G. M. Smith          G. R. Smith
J. R. Smith          Spires                Stewart
Talley                Taylor                Thompson
Toole                Umphlett             Walker
Weeks

Total–52

So, the Bill, as amended, was rejected.

How was your Confederate Memorial Day?

92 Replies

S.C. political culture
keeps flag up,
DOT unreformed

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
RECENTLY, I said state lawmakers refuse to find the time to deal with the Confederate flag’s implications for our state.
I was wrong. They’ve saved so much time by not reforming the Department of Transportation this session that they managed to take off a whole day Thursday to honor the flag and all that it stands for. They also paid state employees several million dollars to do the same.
They know just what they’re doing. They don’t declare state holidays for every failed insurrection that comes along. There’s no Stono Rebellion Day, for instance. That was when some black South Carolina slaves rose up violently to assert their right to live as they chose, and lots of people died horribly, and the rebels suffered much and gained nothing. Whereas the War Between the States was when a bunch of white South Carolina slave owners rose up violently to… OK, well, the rest of it’s just the same.
But you see, we have a Confederate Memorial Day holiday because the General Assembly had to do something for white people after it gave black folks Martin Luther King Day.
It was a tradeoff. Our leaders think in those terms. Something for you people in exchange for something for us people. The idea that Martin Luther King might be worth a nod from all of us just didn’t wash.
The Legislature’s refusal to reform the Department of Transportation is actually related. That agency is governed according to the principle of something for you people in exchange for something for us people, leaving out the needs of the state as a whole.
The power lies in the Transportation Commission. The governor appoints the chairman; the other members are chosen by legislators. Not by the Legislature as a whole: Each member represents a congressional district, and only the legislators who live in that district have a say in choosing that commissioner. Therefore the people in a position to set priorities on road-building have parochial notions of what roads need to be built — all except the chairman, who can’t vote unless there’s a tie.
So how are priorities set? Something for you people in exchange for something for us people — the balancing of narrow interests, rather than a statewide strategy.
Lawmakers as a whole aren’t even seriously considering giving up that commission. Even the idea of giving greater power over the commission to the governor — who in almost any other state would be running that executive agency outright — is utterly shocking to some of the most powerful legislative leaders.
“This Senate would rue the day that you turn that billion-dollar agency over to one person,” said Sen. John Land, who represents a rural district.
The scandal at the Transportation Department didn’t arise from former Director Elizabeth Mabry being a bad administrator. She was a bad administrator, but she was part of a system. A job for your relative, commissioner, in return for indulging the way I run my fiefdom ….
Something for you in exchange for something for me. It didn’t even have to be stated.
When I say the “Legislature” is like this, it doesn’t apply to all lawmakers — just to the decisions they make collectively.
There are some who want to fix the agency, and others who want to take down the Confederate flag. But the status quo runs right over them without breaking stride.
Sen. John Courson proposed to do away with the commission and put the governor in charge. He got support, but not enough; the idea was dropped.
After I wrote about “the Legislature” not wanting to talk about the flag recently, Rep. Chris Hart called to say he wants to talk about it, and that he and Reps. Todd Rutherford, Bakari Sellers and Terry Alexander have a bill that would take the flag down — H.3588. But it’s sat in committee since Feb. 27.
My grand unifying theory is not a simple matter of good guys and bad guys. Sen. Glenn McConnell is a champion of the monument for you, flag for me system. But he’s pushing the plan to give the governor more say over the Transportation Department.
What matters is how it comes out, after everybody votes. This legislative session will end soon. Significant reform of the Transportation Department is looking doubtful, while action on the flag is politically impossible.
Rep. Rutherford has some hope for next year on the flag, especially after recent comments from football coach Steve Spurrier, and the protest by United Methodist clergy. If that blossoms into a movement of the breadth of the one that moved the flag in 2000, H.3588 could have a chance.
But he warns that if it does start to gain support, a moribund proposal to declare a Confederate Heritage Month will likely be revived. Something for you people, something for us people.
The Transportation Department won’t be reformed until the culture changes, until the notion that there is such a thing as statewide priorities replaces the traditional balancing of the interests of narrow constituencies.
The flag won’t come down unconditionally until the notion sinks in that it’s not about whether your ancestors were slaves, or slaveholders, or neither. This is the 21st century, and the Confederacy hasn’t existed since 1865. “I’m not trying to disrespect anybody’s heritage,” Rep. Rutherford said on Confederate Memorial Day. “It just shouldn’t be there.”
That’s true no matter who your kinfolk were, and no matter what day it is in the year 2007.

No paved road, but a nice grant

5 Replies

Did you see this item in the paper Thursday?

Here’s the release, which is to be found on the Richland County Web site:

Rep. Jimmy Bales Presents $50,000 Grant
To The Bernice G. Scott Health Facility
Representative Jimmy Bales will present a $50,000 check to representatives of The Bernice G. Scott Health and Human Services Facility on Friday, May 11th, 2:00 pm, at 120 Clarkston Street in Eastover.

The $50,000 grant award is being presented by Representative Bales on behalf of South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. Representative Bales was instrumental in securing the funds. The funds will go towards improving the health care of rural residents living in Lower Richland community.

According to Rep. Bales "The people in Lower Richland need medical care and services, and as their Representative it is my duty to help ensure they receive adequate medical care."

Did it ring any bells? The last time we saw these two names together, Ms. Scott was trying to get Willow Wind Road paved, even though it was behind dozens of other roads on the county paving list. She was building a home on the road. She had bought the property from Rep. Bales. It was part of a larger piece of land he owned, and the road would run through it.

Anyway, he had sold his interest in the land after she bumped the road up to the top of the list, but long before the rest of County Council decided not to let Ms. Scott get away with her egregious abuse of power.

Both officeholders, longtime friends, have said the land deals and the attempted paving were unrelated. But that might be why the names seemed connected in your mind.

Don’t think unkindly of our lawmakers

17 Replies

You may have gotten the unflattering impression that our state lawmakers refuse to find the time to deal with the Confederate flag and its implications for our state.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and I hereby apologize for having created such a scurrilous illusion.

I had intended to go over and check out the activities at the Statehouse this morning, and didn’t get away before midday. At about that time a colleague returned from that august edifice, and I asked her what was going on this afternoon, thinking I might still go.

"They’re going home," she said, looking at me rather blankly.

But this is Wednesday, I protested. They don’t go home until tomorrow.

"Tomorrow is Confederate Memorial Day," she reminded me.

Our lawmakers aren’t too busy for the flag at all, you see. They’ve been so efficient in addressing all of our state’s legitimate needs that they could take off the whole day in order to honor the flag and all that it stands for. And, oh yes, pay all those thousands of state employees not to work tomorrow, either.

So don’t think they don’t have their priorities straight or anything.

Try reading the paper

30 Replies

I just wrote a response to a comment that makes a point that I want to make sure is communicated to as many readers of this blog as possible. In a nutshell, the message is this: This blog is extra. It’s Todayspage
dessert, whipped cream, lagniappe, a little something more for people who don’t get enough from reading the editorial page. It’s side thoughts, elaboration, stuff I didn’t have room for in a column… plus stuff that I would never bother people with in the newspaper, but that, since it interests me, I think might interest somebody else (sometimes I’m right about that, sometimes I’m completely wrong, so it’s a good thing I didn’t waste space in the paper on it, huh?).

There’s a certain assumption underlying this blog, in other words — that you already know what we say from day to day in the paper. Folks who don’t have trouble engaging this blog in a way that is rewarding for them and the rest of us here in this little corner of the blogosphere.

The dead-tree editorial page is the meat and vegetables your mama told you to eat before the dessert. You should listen to your mama.

Anyway, I was responding to this, from the ever-anonymous "LexWolf:"

I rarely see eye-to-eye with Bud but 8 posts or so each about the flag and the Nazis clearly is excessive…

Why don’t we see 8 posts about the apparent intent of our legislative piggies to spend virtually all of the $1.3 Billion
surplus instead of returning it to the taxpayers? That’s close to $300
for every man, woman and child in this state. And it’s all money for
things they didn’t think were important enough to include in the
current budget. A total windfall in other words. Now there would be a
subject with real meaning to South Carolinians!!

Get on the stick, Brad!

Here is my weary response:

That stuff is in the paper, Lex. That’s what I do most of the 24 hours of the day, by the way — edit and publish a newspaper. Anything on this blog is just a little extra that I do here and there when I find a moment.

Is this not clear to anyone?

Anyway, you and I live in different universes. You think that if a dollar comes into the state treasury, it should go to you. I think it should go to one of the many neglected areas in our state that most other states seem to find the will and means to address — public safety, our corrections system, education in rural areas, mental health, take your pick.

Our legislators disagree with both of us. They want the money to go to their absurd pet projects, their pork, their whatever you want to call it. Anybody who reads our paper knows this.

It would be nifty if we had a governor who would point out this gross misapplication of urgently needed resources. He’s about the only elected official in a position to do so. But our governor thinks like Lex. He thinks the money should go to tax cuts — and specifically, to income tax cuts (which, absurdly, is the only tax he seems to care about one way or the other) — rather than to the neglected obligations of the state.

Hey, where did I get all those links about state taxes and spending? They were all on the editorial page of The State — you know, the page you ought to be reading before you come to this blog for a little extra — within the past week.

And in case you’re confused, that newspaper is published in the actual, real world, instead of the alternative universes inhabited by LexWolf, and Michael Gass, and that Wallace/ChrisW/Chris White/Wally guy.

Folks, if you don’t read the paper, you’re wasting your and our time by coming here.

Column on the Nazis and South Carolina

88 Replies

Thanks to the flag,
we’ve got Nazis on our steps

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
HERE IS HOW one decent, earnest, sensible South Carolinian responded when I asked what he thought should be done about the Confederate flag flying on the State House grounds:
“On the flag, it’s such a tough issue. I do think there’s some wisdom in the old adage: ‘The best thing about a compromise is that nobody’s happy.’ …. I’d hate to have a renewed flag debate suck all the political oxygen out of the state. I’m afraid that could happen, and there are many issues that need/require attention. So… my instinct would be not to revisit the issue at this time.”
To which I impatiently reply, What political oxygen?
What exactly are we getting accomplished in South Carolina these days? What are we doing to catch up to the rest of the country? We compromise on compromises until we accomplish nothing — witness the DOT “reform” staggering its pitiful way through the General Assembly. If we can’t even reform that, what can we do in this state?
I’m sick of compromises. You know what the compromise on the flag brought us? Nazis, who believe, because of that flag, that we’re their kind of people.
I have video on my blog (the address is below; please go check it out) of American Nazis standing on our State House steps and congratulating white South Carolinians for having the “guts” to fly that flag and tell anybody who doesn’t like it, especially those whiny black people, to go to hell. They are very happy with the compromise. Before, the flag was a little hard to see up on the dome. Now, as one speaker says in the video, it’s “in your face,” and the Nazis are loving it.
One thing you have to hand to those pathetic losers who paraded around in silly costumes “Sieg Heiling” to beat the band on our state’s front porch Saturday: They just go ahead and say things that most South Carolinians won’t say out loud.
Personally — and I hope you won’t think less of me for saying this — I’ve always kind of hated Nazis. Until this past weekend, that seemed like a fairly pointless emotion, sort of like hating Phoenicians. But it was sincerely felt. Neo-Confederates have their way of living in the past; this was mine. I felt that I had been born too late to fight the one thing that got my blood boiling more than anything.
And yet there I was Saturday, surrounded by marching, shouting, racist, Jew-hating, uniformed jackbooted Brownshirts — and I had not the slightest urge to shoot any of them, except with my little Canon digital camera. I had a new urge, a powerful need to share what I was seeing with the world — particularly with my fellow South Carolinians, whose insistence upon flying that flag is what brought these guys out of their sad little holes of rejection all over this vast nation. They thought they were finally at home.
“Look at the flag, guys!” said one as they marched under it, thrilled at having his fantasy come true. He had never expected to see such a thing on public, government-mandated display. He was like a pimple-faced guy who’d never had a date, suddenly presented with the most gorgeous woman he’d every dreamed of, naked and willing. The situation was positively pornographic.
He had evidently never felt so welcome before. This was obviously a place that loved and valued white people. Oh, springtime for Hitler!
He was pathetic. They were all pathetic. Needy, too. Their messages of racial hatred and division were interspersed with plaintive entreaties to onlookers (the white gentiles, of course) to join them, accept them, see them as brave and praiseworthy.
I guess Hitler was sort of pathetic, too, seen in isolation — all those silly, over-the-top gestures at the podium. It was when you saw the thousands of perfect, ordered rows of mad followers willing to do anything he said that he succeeded in terrifying beyond imagination.
John Taylor Bowles, the Nazi “presidential candidate” who spoke at the rally Saturday, is no Hitler. No oratorical panache at all. He looked like what he was — a pudgy, middle-aged, mild-voiced notary public who just happened to have a few extreme ideas about people who didn’t look like the kind of Master Race that he wanted to see himself as part of. (His Web site describes him as “a devoted fun loving father of three daughters” and claims membership in the AARP.)
Sure, he’s one little whacko surrounded by two or three dozen “re-enactors” who like to play dress-up. But is he really that alone, that aberrant? How unusual is it today to hear indignant native whites talk about illegal immigrants the way he did?
Bowles was so ordinary, so banal, so nonthreatening. He had no army of storm troopers before him that I could see. But as far as he was concerned, he did have an army. He was there because he thought he could see two or three million white South Carolinians who were very receptive to a message like his. What else was he to gather from the presence of that flag?
One of the speakers said they would be back next year, and the year after that. They liked it here. Maybe we could do something to make them feel a little less welcome. Can you think of anything? I can.

See and hear Nazis praise South Carolina for flying the Confederate flag at http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/04/confederate_fla_1.html.

DOT reform prospects dismal

6 Replies

Tom Davis put it well on the phone this morning when I asked how his world was going in general. The
governor’s chief of staff said some things were going well, but:

"DOT was a disappointment, obviously."

Tom_davis No kidding. Tom said maybe it would be possible to get something halfway decent out of conference committee, but he shouldn’t hold his breath. With the Senate bill being less than useless and the House bill being, as he put it, "not as much as we would want, and not as much as y’all would want," we’re pretty close to being able to chalk up the DOT issue as a huge missed opportunity to improve the quality and accountability of government in South Carolina. My words, not Tom’s. He’s slightly kinder to the House plan than I am. For me, if you’ve still got a commission, you don’t have reform.

For a view that is a lot kinder to the House than either mine or Tom’s here’s the latest memo from Patty Pierce, who has been lobbying on behalf of the Coastal Conservation League‘s transportation reform coalition. The House approach is more or less just what the coalition wanted, which is one reason we don’t have reform. Both the private group wanting reform and the governor went to the table unwilling to fight for a straight Cabinet arrangement.

Anyway, that’s water under the crumbling, neglected bridge. Here’s what Patty had to say to supporters:

DOT
Reform Team,
In the
Senate: The Senate completed its work on S.355, the
Senate version of DOT reform, after four weeks of debate, and the bill has been
forwarded to the House for its consideration. S.355 includes four of our DOT Reform
Coalition’s priorities, but overall this bill is NOT as strong the House DOT
Reform bill, H.3575, by Representative Annette Young (R-Dorchester).

In
terms of justifying and
prioritizing transportation projects, S.355 requires the DOT to craft
a “methodology for determining how to design the Statewide Transportation
Improvement Program (STIP) that includes the schedule of priorities for all
major construction and funds allocated to complete those projects”. In crafting the methodology the following
criteria—which our Coalition supports—must be
considered:

a)
Financial viability, including the life cycle analysis of estimated

Maintenance and repair costs over
the expected life of the project;

b)
Public safety;

c)
Potential for economic development;

d)
Traffic volume;

e)
Truck traffic;

f)
The pavement quality index;

g)
Alternative transportation solutions;

h)
Consistency with local land use plans;

i)
Environmental impact; and

j)
Federal requirements for designing and setting priorities for the
STIP.

We are thankful that S.355 includes the above criteria, but the
bill does not clearly state that all projects will be justified and prioritized
according to the criteria as our Coalition has advocated. Also, the methodology will be a DOT internal
policy document as opposed to a regulation as required in H.3575, the good House
bill. H.3575, requires the DOT to
“establish a priority list within the STIP…when compiling this list of projects
or changing this list, the department shall use” the criteria that
our Coalition has advocated.

Public
hearings
are required in S.355 prior to adopting the “prioritization” methodology, prior
to adopting the STIP, and prior to moving forward with large road and bridge
projects; this last item was not included as a separate item in the bill as was
suggested to staff, so this section needs to be further improved. The additional public hearings required in
S.355 are great opportunities for the public at-large and individual communities
affected by major transportation projects to voice concerns/praise about the
proposed methodology, the STIP, and individual projects. Having real public
hearings where the public can address a panel and/or hearing officer regarding
projects is a great improvement over current DOT practices.

The
most troublesome aspect of S.355 is the creation of a new legislative review
process through the establishment of a Joint Transportation
Review Committee (JTRC)—a 10 member committee composed of 6
legislators and 4 public members. The
JTRC will review and comment on the “prioritization” methodology and the
STIP. After review of the STIP, the DOT
is then required to promulgate the STIP as a regulation which requires approval
by the General Assembly. Establishing road and bridge project
priorities has always been the responsibility of the SC DOT. This new review by the JTRC and mandated
approval of the STIP by the General Assembly could undermine the DOT’s objective
analysis of transportation projects guided by the criteria included in the bill
that should be used to justify and prioritize all STIP projects.

One
final concern is a provision that states “any project placed in the STIP at the
request of a metropolitan planning organization or council of government must
not be removed.” That means a community
that has proposed a project, may not later ask that such project be removed from
the STIP if the MPO or COG determines the project is no longer wanted or
necessary. To remove a project from the
STIP, the General Assembly must adopt a new regulation, which could easily take
more than a year if this provision were approved in a final DOT Reform
bill.

In
terms of governance, S.355 allows the
current
DOT
Commission to remain in place until a
new 7 member Board is
established. All seven members would be
appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. Six members would
represent congressional districts, and one member would be appointed at-large
to serve as
the Board
Chairman. The
Board would hire an at-will Executive Director to run the daily operations of
the DOT.

Also
in the Senate, Senator Ritchie (R-Spartanburg) recalled H.3575, the strong House
DOT Reform bill, from the Senate Transportation Committee and placed the bill on
the Senate’s contested calendar. This
action by Senator Ritchie is very helpful. H.3575 may be a vehicle to move a DOT Reform bill forward this
legislative session in the event a conference committee (3 House members and 3
Senate members) gets bogged down in its negotiations.

In
the House: One
minor glitch occurred last week just before H.3575 was adopted and approved by
the House. No need to worry. This will just give me one more thing to work
on next week. When the final amendment
was adopted during the House debate on H.3575, the amendment was not adopted as
a “perfecting” amendment, so two previous amendments hat had been approved by
the House were inadvertently deleted. First, the House approved adding Representative Loftis’ amendment that
required consideration of “congestion” to the list of criteria used to justify
and prioritize projects, which we support. Second, the House also approved our Coalition’s priority, “consideration
of alternative transportation solutions”. Unfortunately, I discovered this week that both of these amendments were
“accidentally” deleted in the final version of the bill, so I will work with the
House staff and Representatives to see if we can get these two amendments added
back into a House approved DOT Reform bill.

If
you have any questions about DOT Reform, or the two bills that have been
approved by the House and Senate, please do not hesitate to contact me. I’d be glad to help you.

I’ll
send out an update next week on the progress the House makes in regard to DOT
Reform. Until then, I’ll keep working to
encourage the House and Senate to include the strongest provisions of both DOT
Reform bills in the final compromise legislation.

Patty
Pierce
League
Lobbyist
pattyp@scccl.org

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: Priorities

I believe in miracles

‘No new taxes?’ How about, ‘No more collapses?’

Good news, bad news: Back to the political branches

DeMint splits with Democrats over earmarks

How they voted on the pork

SooeeeEEE!

Driving Mr. Bauer: The Sequel

How they voted on Andre’s driver

Come and get it!

Divided We Fail

One ping only, Vasily…

Anderson celebrates what little there is to celebrate

Immigration most foul

Official Horse Sense, or “Dude! Where’s My Marsh Tacky?”

How was your Confederate Memorial Day?

No paved road, but a nice grant

Don’t think unkindly of our lawmakers

Try reading the paper

Column on the Nazis and South Carolina

DOT reform prospects dismal