COLUMBIA - Gov. Mark Sanford says he'll lower the flags to half staff to honor civil rights icon Rosa Parks the day the Legislature sends him a bill giving him the authority to do that.

Sanford took heat after Parks died Oct. 24 when he did not lower Statehouse flags to half staff, something that happened at federal buildings and capitols around the nation. Sanford said state law doesn't allow him to lower flags when the president requests that honor.

The honor should have been extended to someone as important to the nation's history as Rosa Parks, Sanford said.

"Let me be clear," Sanford said in a prepared statement, "the state's flags absolutely should have been lowered for Rosa Parks, and they will be lowered the day I sign a bill letting me do so."

Along with the flags on the Statehouse, Sanford's office said he'll urge all South Carolinians to lower flags at home or at their businesses.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell and House Speaker Bobby Harrell, both Charleston Republicans, and Rep. Ken Clark, R-Swansea, have filed bills that would allow the governor to lower flags on the Statehouse to half staff when Congress or the president have ordered that honor for federal buildings.