(Columbia) May 12, 2003 - Temperatures rise as we move closer to Summer and the same sometimes holds true for what happens inside the State House as well as outside.
   
It was the straw that broke the camel's back for Richland County Democrat Leon Howard. A vote defeated Howard's bill prohibiting restaurants from handing out unwrapped drinking straws.

Shortly after the bill failed last Thursday, Howard confronted Charleston Republican John Graham Altman on the House floor. Howard charged the white Charleston Republican's desk, calling him a "racist bastard" among other things.

A crowd formed and Howard challenged Altman to "step outside." House Sergeant at Arms Mitch Dorman broke it up.

Altman claims some lawmakers in the vicinity of the incident were appalled, "Some of the ladies around there were really offended and some of the gentlemen. And some folks grabbed him and then he wanted me to come outside with him."

Howard says he doesn't advocate violence, but he has had enough, "I'm not a violent person. I don't subscribe to violence, but as far as extending Mr. Altman some apology, I cannot apologize to a man who believes that segregation and wearing racial comments on his shoulder as a badge of honor."

Howard says his outrage was not fueled solely by the defeat of his bill. He says it was time to stand up to a lawmaker with a long record of obstructing and ridiculing legislation important to African-Americans, "My problem with Mr. Altman is his consistent disrespect for African-American leaders in this state."

Altman says Howard's straw bill was, "...a silly, frivolous bill not worthy of our time."

He says the maneuver to kill the bill on third reading was not racially motivated, "Leon Howard, like so many black politicians I regret to say, not the black community, but black politicians, think if you disagree with them, you must be a racist."

Defeating a bill on the third reading is a tactic seldom employed in the House.

Altman refuses to back away from the kind of comments that inflamed Howard and may have led to the scene last week. Altman in a phone conversation with WIS News 10 on Monday afternoon, "Martin Luther King was in fact a womanizer and he did in fact cheat his way through college."

It's not the first time Representative Altman has made that comment. Neither man indicated he's planning to apologize.

By Jack Kuenzie
Posted 6:33pm by BrettWitt with AP