COLUMBIA - Sen. Luke Rankin is using a senator's privilege to block any bill in an effort to hold up measures that exempt local school districts from the state Board of Education's uniform start date.

Recognizing that members customarily do not object to someone's local bill, Rankin, D-Myrtle Beach, said, "The question would be whether it truly is a local bill or if it is a rewrite of a state bill."

Local school start date exemption bills are moving through the House and to the Senate after a compromise on the issue failed last week.

That compromise was for a bill that overrode the state board's rule. The change makes the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test later, thought to encourage schools to start later.

Tourism interests want schools to start closer to Labor Day because they say nearly a month of vacation time has been lost with schools opening in early August.

Rankin said he also plans to attach the measure requiring later PACT dates to bills the House already has passed, hoping to pressure opponents to compromise.

He said the issue has become personal with Rep. Ronny Townsend, R-Anderson, who opposes the change.

Earlier in the session, Townsend accepted the later PACT dates, then changed his mind in conference committee.

Horry County House members, who cornered Townsend on Tuesday in an unsuccessful attempt to get another compromise, agreed.

"It's a pure ego thing for him," said Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach.

Townsend said he won't accept the later PACT dates because the House has not debated them, and they should be in a separate bill.

Rep. Tracy Edge, R-North Myrtle Beach, said such compromises routinely get passed without full debate.

Both Rankin and Viers said they expect Gov. Mark Sanford to help because he said he favors later school start dates.

"He's got to go out and use the bully pulpit to help us out," Viers said of Sanford. "He promised."

Sanford said he knows it's an important issue to the tourism industry but "the greater, full-blown issue for me, at this moment, is the budget and the cigarette-tax issue."

Horry County legislators said they will continue to put pressure on the House leadership to accept the compromise, but they don't know if it will work.

"I'm not giving up hope," Rankin said.

Gov. Mark Sanford