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Date Published: January 29, 2004
Senate passes 4-year USC Sumter
By BRADEN BUNCH
Item Staff Writer
bradenb@theitem.com
The South Carolina Senate has approved four-year status for USC Sumter, setting up a possible showdown with Gov. Mark Sanford.
By an overwhelming 35-3 vote Wednesday afternoon, the Senate accepted the amendments of the South Carolina Life Sciences Act coming out of the finance committee, which included USC Sumter as well as a four-year culinary arts school for Trident Technical College in Charleston.
Also added to the bill was a line designed to help protect USC Union and USC Salkehatchie by requiring that the General Assembly take a vote before closing any University of South Carolina campus.
“We’re delighted,” said state Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, adding the bill would be available for the final vote in the House as soon as today.
If approved by the House, the bill would head to the governor, who has pledged to veto the South Carolina Life Sciences Act if it comes to his desk with USC Sumter attached.
The governor has been outspoken against the proposal for the Sumter campus, mentioning it in his State of the State address last week, as well as reiterating his opposition earlier this week, saying the state needs to come up with a master plan for higher education before increasing the responsibilities of any location and possibly increasing overall costs.
Sanford has also proposed closing USC Union and USC Salkehatchie in his recently released executive budget.
So, while senators wait for a vote in the House, Leventis said leaders from both parties are now trying to meet with Sanford to persuade him not to veto the legislation.
“I hope that he (Sanford) understands that state government is a very practical matter, and it’s not about ideology,” Leventis said.
But if the governor does veto the bill, Leventis said, Wednesday’s vote is a strong indication that the executive decision could be overridden, at least in the Senate.
Whether the bill would receive the two-thirds support necessary in the House is another question, but Leventis said he feels that could be accomplished as well.
“The bill itself has so many positive features for the state that I don’t believe that a veto would be sustained,” Leventis said.
The House, which approved a similar version of the bill at the end of the 2003 legislative session, will hold a vote of concurrence, during which representatives will be unable to amend the proposed legislation.
Rep. David Weeks, D-Sumter, said he believes the bill will again pass the House.
“Most of the people I’ve talked to in the House that were with us before seem to be holding on. There are several folks that I’ve noticed have done some wavering, but I think we’ll still have enough power to hold it together,” Weeks said, adding, “If the governor looks at this senatorial thing as a setback, then he may very well turn his dogs loose.”
Should the measure fail to pass the vote in the House, it will head to a bicameral conference committee to come up with a compromise plan.
Senate Minority Leader Sen. John Land, D-Manning, has committed to appointing Leventis to the bicameral conference committee should the necessity for one arise.
Leventis, however, said he feels four-year status at USC Sumter is now close to being a certainty, rather than a possibility.
“I think that four years from now, six years from now, 10 years from now we’ll all look back at this time and we’ll realize that the professional staff and the administrative staff of the University of South Carolina Sumter took this mandate, treated it seriously, and accomplished very, very well for all of the people of this state,” Leventis said. “I know they will do a great job.”
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February 17, 2004
