GREENVILLE - A state lawmaker and the Rev. Jesse Jackson are trying to push Greenville County to approve a holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Both say Greenville County Council, which voted against the holiday last week, is out of step with the rest of the nation.

"It's just such an absurdity that a county as large as Greenville, with a population that is significantly diverse, to have a county council so recalcitrant that it wouldn't recognize it," said Rep. Fletcher Smith, D-Greenville.

Smith and Rep. Karl Allen, D-Greenville, have sponsored a bill to require all 46 South Carolina counties to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day each January.

Nine counties don't observe the holiday, according to a 2003 survey by the South Carolina Association of Counties. The others are Edgefield, Laurens, Lexington, Pickens, Saluda, Union, Williamsburg and York.

Greenville County officials estimate the new holiday would cost about $134,000. That money would cover "paying those folks that have to work on a holiday" such as sheriff's deputies and EMS personnel, county administrator Steve Stewart said.

He said the $134,000 would be in addition to what the county spends in salaries and fringe benefits for its 1,966 full- and part-time employees.

Jackson, a civil rights activist and Greenville native who was an aide to King, said the fight is personal for him.

"I brought him to Greenville, ate dinner at my mother's table," Jackson said Thursday by phone from his Chicago office. "And I watched him die. So Greenville is personal to me."

Jackson spoke to County Council last week along with about 250 others to show support for a paid King holiday.

The former Democratic presidential candidate will return to South Carolina this weekend to push for the holiday and will speak again at Tuesday's council meeting.