FRIENDLY REMINDERS

The South Carolina Taxpayers Association put up large orange signs around the State House that read: “My pledge. No new taxes.”

Gov. Mark Sanford, 47 House members and 15 senators have signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s tax pledge. The signs are intended to remind legislators of that promise, said Don Weaver, president of the South Carolina Association of Taxpayers.

Taxes will be a key issue this year, particularly Sanford’s plan to cut the state’s top income tax rate to 4.75 percent from 7 percent. Some legislators will push plans to reduce property taxes.

While Weaver says Sanford’s tax plan will help the economy, “most of our members would say they want property tax relief.”

BIKERS RETURN

More than 100 motorcyclists from a group called ABATE gathered outside the State House on Tuesday to talk about an agenda that includes keeping the state’s seat belt and helmet laws as they are.

“We’re still opposed to that,” Clay Morris, the Barnwell County ABATE coordinator, said of tougher seat belt legislation.

HOUSE RULES

Much attention has been paid to changing Senate rules, but the House is working on changing rules of its own.

House Speaker David Wilkins wants to tighten rules that allow him to remove representatives from committees if they engage in “conduct unbecoming a member.” Last year, Wilkins removed Rep. Jerry Govan, D-Orangeburg, from the House Judiciary Committee after a heated exchange with the committee’s chairman.

“We should at least consider injecting some kind of recourse or some kind of due process to plead their case,” Govan said.

CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS

A bill that would allow the governor to appoint the education superintendent and agriculture commissioner cleared a House Judiciary subcommittee.

The original also allowed the governor to appoint the secretary of state, but the subcommittee dropped that provision.

COMMISSION OK’S BULL STREET PLAN

The state Mental Health Department will continue to serve the state’s most severely mentally ill children, but it won’t be at the historic Bull Street campus.

The agency’s commission voted Tuesday to continue caring for a group of children and adolescents who might not be able to find care elsewhere in the state. The vote is another step in the department’s quest to vacate the sprawling downtown property, which has been a Columbia landmark since the 1820s.

The agency is in the process of moving off the downtown campus by June 2006 so the state can sell the 178 acres.

A LATE START

The House and Senate were supposed to meet at noon. In the House, the gavel fell promptly at the appointed hour, but it was almost five past when the Senate started because Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer was running late.

An aide said Bauer was delayed because he was filming a public service announcement for the Office on Aging.

The Associated Press