Senators worked until the early morning Saturday, putting the finishing touches on the state's $16.7 billion budget, $5.3 billion of which is state-controlled money.

Its passage freed up the Senate to begin addressing the remaining items on its calendar Tuesday, something senators have been unable to do for nearly two months thanks to the seat-belt debate that ended two weeks ago.

Senators returned to work, ready to tackle the calendar. However, leaders from both parties admit some legislative items are too hot to touch until the end of the session.

The legislative session ends June 3. Any bill not passed by then will have to start from scratch next year.

"Some of these bills have so much opposition, to bring them up now would be like a cork hitting a wine bottle," said Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston. "We have to focus first on what we can reasonably expect to accomplish."Local legislation, property tax reform and the governor's charter school legislation could all be discussed before the last week of the session. Tort reform, as well as the governor's income tax reduction and universal tax credit plans, will probably wait.

This is not good news for Sanford. For the past three weeks, Sanford has held weekly press conferences urging legislators to deal with his agenda items quickly.

Sanford held a press conference Tuesday to announce his signing of the small business regulatory flexibility act. The bill is the first of Sanford's 16 key legislative items to pass this year. He used the time to again urge the Senate to deal with his agenda.

Press conferences don't seem to change minds in the Legislature, though. So far, opposition to some of Sanford's key agenda items has been enough to keep the Senate from dealing with them.

"He needs to have 30 senators with him on his agenda, and he just doesn't have them," said Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Bonneau.

Senate rules allow a minority to influence legislation though filibustering. It is the very reason a dozen senators, led by McConnell, were able to kill the primary seat-belt legislation.

It takes 28 senators to vote a member off the floor during a filibuster, a tenuous proposition this late in the session.

"Right now, we owe it to the people of this state to deal with as many pieces of legislation as we can," said Sen. John Land, D-Manning. "One filibuster, and we're though. The rest of the session is wasted."

Tort reform, which deals with caps on damages and frivolous lawsuits, has languished in committee during its time in the Senate. There are those who say opposition to tort reform was behind many senators' refusal to buckle on the seat-belt issue. They didn't want the Senate to move on to other business. Its introduction is expected to be volatile.

The governor's income tax reduction bill, despite its alteration in the Senate Finance Committee, also faces heavy opposition.

Sanford's tax plan originally called for reducing the state's highest income tax bracket by .225 percentage points annually for the next 10 years, dropping the rate from the current 7 percent to 4.75 percent. The cut would not occur unless the state's general fund grew by 2 percent or more, based on projections by the state Board of Economic Advisors.

The Senate Finance subcommittee approved an altered version of the governor's income tax plan, increasing the amount of economic growth needed to initiate the cut and stipulating that some of the state's bills must be paid before any such cut could take place.

Still, support for the plan is lukewarm among Republicans and almost non-existent among Democrats.

The governor's universal tax credit plan, which has stalled in the S.C. House, was reintroduced in the Senate. The bill would give qualifying parents up to $4,600 in scholarships or tax credits to offset private school tuition, home-schooling costs or "tuition" for attending a public school in another district. Both private and public schools could receive the taxpayer dollars. Parents who qualify could take the tax credit against their property or income taxes.

McConnell said it is unlikely the Senate will give time to a bill that seems doomed in the House.

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