COLUMBIA--Finally, after nearly two months of talking about them, legislators this week rolled out the first two salvos in the war on taxes.
The ball started rolling Tuesday when the governor and the speaker of the House joined together to announce a bill that would cut income taxes from 7 percent to 4.75 percent.
Then on Thursday, Sen. David Thomas, R-Greenville, and Charleston Republican Sens. Arthur Ravenel and John Kuhn introduced a bill that would eliminate property taxes on owner-occupied residencies and private vehicles.
The income tax proposal came as a surprise to many around the Statehouse and with good reason. One month ago you would have been hard pressed to find a handful of legislators openly concerned about income taxes. Now try finding anyone who will admit to being even slightly skeptical of the plan.
It's almost as if some legislators consider opposing a tax cut, any tax cut, as un-American.
"Mr. Senator, are you now, or have you ever been, against a tax cut?"
There are a few lawmakers who think the Statehouse has gone tax-cut crazy. Sen. John Drummond, D-Greenwood, one of the longest serving senators, thinks the Legislature is courting trouble.
"We cut enough taxes already," he said. "That's why we're in the trouble we're in today. I think they're reading the people of this state wrong. The people of this state don't mind paying for education and roads and health care."
A TRUE BELIEVER
As spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, Will Folks has spent much of the past year touting the reforms taking place at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Until this week, however, those changes existed for him only in theory.
Long the butt of jokes about slow service and poor customer relations (the agency, not Folks), the DMV has undergone a transformation since Sanford made it one of his priorities.
The agency was moved out from under the Department of Public Safety; and a number of initiatives were undertaken, including customer service training for employees, implementation of Saturday office hours and greater use of online services to reduce wait times.
This week Folks, 29, went to the DMV office in Columbia to get a replacement license.
He was in and out in seven minutes.
"It's one thing to talk about that stuff, but it's another thing to experience it," he said. "It's actually happening. Those reforms are working. Honestly, it got me excited."
THE DOMESTIC HOMICIDE PREVENTION ACT OF 2004
A bipartisan effort to deal with the statewide problem of domestic violence was introduced this week.
Sponsored by state Rep. Joel Lourie, D-Columbia, and state Rep. Gloria Haskins, R-Greenville, the proposal seeks to close loopholes in current laws by preventing those convicted of domestic violence offenses from owning a gun. The measure also prohibits gun ownership by some people with restraining orders and orders of protection. Twenty-nine other states have similar laws.
"We lead the nation in domestic fatalities, and the time has come to take serious action to reverse this deadly and shameful trend," Lourie said. "More than half the women killed every year in our state are shot by an abusive partner."
Added Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, "We are not talking about gun control, we are talking about violence control."
BLACK JUDGES
The South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus introduced a bill this week to get more black judges on the bench in the state.
Caucus members want to revamp the 10-member Judicial Merit Selection Commission, which reviews candidates for judgeships and submits up to three nominees for election by the General Assembly.
The legislature recently elected 37 judges, none of them black. Blacks hold six percent of the state's 140 judgeships filled by the General Assembly. There are no black members of the state Supreme Court, and only one of nine Appeals Court judges is black.
The problem, say caucus members, is that blacks make up 30 percent of the state's population and therefore should make up more than six percent of judgeships.
According to state Rep. John Graham Altman III, R-Charleston, they are looking at it all wrong.
"Blacks make up only about 7 percent of our lawyers," he said. "And that's the pool we have to draw from. When there are more black lawyers, there will be more black judges."
SPEAKING OF ALTMAN
A bill that would allow state employees to take off from work for court appearances passed third reading in the House and is heading for the Senate. Sponsored by Altman, the bill is designed to allow employees to attend the court appearance of a person charged with a crime against them or their family.
"You shouldn't have to take a vacation day or a sick day to deal with something like that," Altman said.
WEIGHTY ISSUE
Speaker of the House David Wilkins, R-Greenville, has been turning heads lately.
The speaker returned to Columbia this year considerably lighter than when he left, about 30 pounds lighter.
According to Cristy Cox, Wilkins' chief of staff, the speaker did not try any fad diets. Cox said Wilkins just buckled down with regular exercise and healthy eating habits.
Like most health nuts, the speaker is not only watching his weight, he's watching everyone else's too. Cox said she figured turnabout was fair play; so once the session started, she patiently waited for the speaker to return to a diet of donuts and coffee.
The only problem was, Wilkins stuck to his regimen.
"I was ready to get him, too," she said. "I was going to be there to say, 'Look who isn't eating right now.' But he's sticking to it."
