Almost as soon as the state Senate passed a bill overhauling the Charleston County school system last week, House members began their crusade to kill it.

(There is, however, no truth to the rumor that state Rep. John Graham Altman III, R-West Ashley, was waiting for it with a sledge hammer in the House anteroom.)

The bill, sponsored by Sen. John Kuhn, R-Charleston, would give the district's superintendent more control over daily operations, restrict the board to policy decisions and have the nine members of the school board run in partisan elections from single-member districts. Also, the plan would replace the elected constituent school boards with four advisory panels appointed by the school board to handle whatever business the big board chose to delegate.

Altman, the bill's primary opponent, says that eliminating the constituent boards would bring in Justice Department officials to desegregate the system by implementing mandatory busing. As such, Altman has taken to addressing Kuhn as "Senator Busing."

Kuhn has struck back in print and over the airwaves, castigating Altman for criticizing the legislation.

"That's a scare tactic," Kuhn said. "I'm a lawyer, and I spent five hours of legal research on that very issue. It's a red herring. It's not a problem."

For now, Kuhn's biggest problem is securing House support for his sweeping legislation among Charleston County House members. In the last week, several of them have publicly and privately criticized the bill, Rep. Wallace Scarborough, R-James Island, even declaring the bill "D.O.A."

Stay tuned.

-- And the reviews are in: The Senate loves the new Civil War epic "Gods and Generals." Perhaps inspired by the movie's soundtrack, which can be heard playing in Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell's office, a group of senators took a field trip to a Columbia theater last week to catch the four-hour flick. While that might seem like a long time to regular folks, senators say it's just shy of a filibuster.

Organized by Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, the party included, among others, Sens. Arthur Ravenel, R-Mount Pleasant, and Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia. Of course, the outing also showed why senators have staffs. After quizzing concession stand employees on the lack of hearty fare, the entire crew walked into the wrong theater, sitting down halfway through the movie without realizing it. When it ended an hour and a half later, Ford and Knotts moved to the correct theater and caught the middle of the movie.

Ravenel, however, stayed in his seat and got to see the entire picture when it started over. The biggest problem for all of them, however, was that the seating snafu spoiled the ending.

-- After the House Ways and Means Committee passed out its version of the state's 2003-04 fiscal year budget last week, the debate will next shift to the House floor. Ways and Means Chairman Bobby Harrell, R-West Ashley, expects the biggest debates to center on a cigarette tax increase and the allocation of lottery proceeds.

The cigarette tax is expected to come up later, in a separate bill, and Harrell says that's where the debate should be (that is not an endorsement of the tax by Harrell, by the way). It's just that any law change in the budget bill is good only for that fiscal year. A one-year cigarette tax, which some lawmakers want to use to fund the state Medicaid program, would do little good.

The problem with the lottery is that budget writers have less money to deal with. It's not that people are playing the lottery less, it's that the lottery started midway through the budget year 2001-2002. The money collected in the last six months of fiscal '01-'02 was added to '02-'03. The difference is $259 million in last year's budget vs. $180 million in this year's budget.

"We knew it would be a problem when he did it, so we spent much of that on one-time things, such as the digitization of ETV," Harrell said.

Also, there is likely to be some debate on how best to use the lottery funds. Much of the money is earmarked for scholarships, but many lawmakers want to put more of that money to use in K-12, saying the foundation is the most important part of education.

Although state agencies took their share of cuts to fit into the tightest budget in 50 years, Harrell said he didn't expect strident debate. "Everyone understands where we are financially," Harrell said.

-- Speaking of budget cuts, the House is feeling the same budget pain of other state agencies. The House is cutting back on its printing, has enacted a hiring freeze and even has furloughed House members (but not staff) for the week of April 14.

The furlough will not affect lawmakers' pay, which compensates them for only 40 legislative days, but will cost them a week of per diem (nearly $100 a day) and mileage for travel to the state capital. In all, that will save about $41,000 for the week.

One interesting note: According to state law, the House and Senate are not subject to the across-the-board budget cuts that have been forced on every other state entity in the past year (illustrating one of the perks of writing the state's laws).

However, members of the General Assembly are politicians and realize that not sharing in the pain would not be a very astute move. Both the House and Senate have absorbed the nearly 9 percent in across-the-board cuts since December.

-- It is just one of those things you have to do when you're a lawmaker. Somebody from the hometown comes to visit, and every lawmaker in the county has to stand up there and wave at the balcony like The Beverly Hillbillies.

On Thursday, Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, spied some constituents and introduced them to the House, and the other Charleston area lawmakers made their way to the podium to give the ceremonial wave (do they go over that at orientation?).

House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, who never misses a chance to rib his flock, couldn't pass up the opportunity to comment on this particular gathering.

"It does my heart good to see the Charleston delegation standing there," Wilkins said. "It's the first time you've been together all year."

-- This week, the Senate will continue its debate of the at-will employment bill. When we last left the chamber Thursday, Sen. Kay Patterson, D-Columbia, was deliberating on the bill from the well. The House will take up predatory lending in committee (the Senate's version of that legislation, which is earning high marks from lawmakers and consumer groups, is sailing through that chamber). The House also will debate tightening the state's legal blood alcohol content level to 0.08 (from 0.10) and restructuring the Division of Motor Vehicles.

The real question, however, continues to be what the Legislature might do about Gov. Mark Sanford's decision to veto local and special legislation as unconstitutional. While most delegations just overrode the vetoes, the Charleston House delegation has yet to try overriding Sanford's veto of a bill to combine the county Election Commission and Board of Voter Registration.

It seems that delegation members who resisted the bill are now looking for something in trade to support the override.

Perhaps that's why Republicans have been much more critical of the new governor's veto pen than Democrats.