Am I the only one who loves DVR on Time Warner? Ever since our little ones were born, it’s been the only way to really be sure we never missed anything because we might have been busy doing something else instead of staying glued to the TV.

Likewise, if you don’t have time to come to Columbia or watch SC ETV when we’re in session, you might miss a few things going on in state government.

Set your recorder to NathansNews and I’ll try to recap each week with information that may have made mainstream media and some that may not have made its way to your papers or TV.

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The Republican caucus unveiled our 2009 Agenda as well as named the following members to caucus leadership positions:

Finance Chairman – Tracy Edge
Floor Leaders – Annette Young, Jim Merrill, Murrell Smith
Majority Chief Whip - Bill Herbkersman
Assistant Majority Whips – Eric Bedingfield, Ted Pitts, Alan Clemmons

The House also elected Joan Brady (R-Richland) to the Ethics Committee and also saw the appeal of former Rep. Wallace Scarborough withdrawn. This withdrawal means that Rep. Anne Peterson-Hutto (D-Charleston) can finally enjoy a victory and means the Democrats picked up (net) two seats this past November. This also means freshman Rep. Mark Willis (R-Greenville) can now finally move into the office vacated by Mr. Scarborough.

This event (as well as the passing of Rep. Olin Phillips ) set in motion several committee moves in the House: Kris Crawford (R-Florence) moved from Judiciary Committee to LCI (filling the seat vacated by Wallace Scarborough). Freshman Mike Sottile (R-Charleston) moved from Agriculture to Judiciary (to fill Crawfords spot). Mike’s Ag spot is vacant, presumably to be filled by the winner in the special election to replace Olin Phillips House seat. Jackie Hayes (D-Dillon) moved from 3M to LCI (filling the seat left by the death of fellow Democrat Olin Phillips). Anne Petterson Hutto (D-Charleston) filed the seat on 3M vacated by fellow Democrat Jackie Hayes. (Did you follow all that?)

The House also strengthened the rule we previously passed at December’s Reorganization Session dealing with “Roll Call Voting”. The resolution (H 3138), sponsored by Rep. Nikki Haley (R-Lexington), me and Bill Wylie (R-Greenville), passed 115-0. Many of us still believe a law needs to be passed but are pleased to at least see the House (and Senate) make steps towards more transparency.

The week also saw the debut of “Tweeting” from the House Floor. Rep. Dan Hamilton (R-Greenville) has developed a website, SCTWEETS.COM , where the public can see live messages from House Members from the floor. Presently, many more Republican officials are “tweeting” than are the Democrats. I expect that to change as we move throughout the session.

Wednesday evening saw the seventh State of the State address for Governor Mark Sanford. The governor mentioned several individuals during his speech and laid out his agenda for this first year of a two-year session. Senator Vincent Sheehen (D-Kershaw) delivered the Democratic response immediately afterwards.

As far as legislation passed this week, the House unanimously (113-0) approved Rep. Tracy Edge’s (R-Horry) Resolution (H 2381) that will require the Department of Health and Services to maintain hospice services for our citizens.

Thursday saw the ogligatory recognitions of a few sports teams in our state (state champions or national champions) before we adjourned for the week.

Next week? We’re on the first of four furlough weeks this year but we’ll be back January 27th!

This weekend, a new website appeared that I believe truly puts our state and several elected officials at the forefront of political communications in the 21st century.

sctweets.com

From the site….

“…a simple site really. SC’s elected officials do all the work. We just combine all the feeds and publish them in one place.

This site was thought up by SC Representative Dan Hamilton and political operative Wesley Donehue when trying to find a creative way to showcase SC’s tech-savvy elected officials . Specifically, we expect the Statehouse crew to be twittering a lot from the floor and we thought it would be cool to see what they were saying. That goal somehow expanded and we decided to showcase all South Carolina politicos with our directory. We then gave them a way to interact through #sctweets.”

Last summer, I noticed Representative Hamilton was using a tool called “Twitter” and I decided to quickly join as well (it’s free, by the way). Then, shortly after that, I made the leap to “Facebook”.

Tonight alone these social-networking tools have allowed me to hear (within minutes) from constituents about the “one thing” they’d like to see from state government this year.

Paige Tillman Cooper posted the following reply to my Facebook status this evening: “I don’t really think this is something on the legislative agenda but I’d love to see everyday citizens becoming more involved with their state government. .Not all South Carolinians are political junkies like me but they need to be aware of what’s going on at their State House.”

I couldn’t have said it better, Paige.

That’s what a group of us have been trying to do through our push for roll-call voting, campaign finance reform, online registries for local governments, and…..social-networking sites.

Representative Hamilton says “(the site) was designed to give South Carolinian’s a play-by-play, real time look at what is happening inside South Carolina politics from the State House to the newsroom.”

When I asked Wes his thoughts on the internet and its importance to the democratic process, he told me “(Barack) Obama changed the direction of political communications. It’s amazing to me that South Carolina’s Republicans are implementing his strategies much faster than the Democrats.”

I imagine over the next few weeks, you’ll see more elected officials joining sctweets.com and that can only be a good thing for our state and you, the folks we were sent to represent in Columbia.

To see who all is sharing on Sctweets.com, visit the directory here .

As I have always said, elected officials that stay in touch regularly with their voters (and not just at election-time) have a much better chance of doing the job they were sent to do!

Get involved, South Carolina, and stay involved!

If you have events you’d like me to share on the website, please contact me directly through NathansNews and I’ll be happy to see how I can help pass along the news.

I hope everyone’s started their year off on the right foot and I wish everyone a very prosperous 2009 – personally and professionally.

STATE HOUSE

One week from today, the 118th General Assembly will convene for the first year of a two-year session. I am very excited to go back – even though we are in tough times here in our state. I believe this year will create our biggest challenges and biggest opportunities since I’ve been in office. We can and MUST work through these tough times, learn from them, and work quickly to get us on a better track (one that we can stay on for years to come).

There’s a lot at stake for South Carolina each and every year. Again this year, many of us are trying to lay the groundwork for government reforms that can benefit our state for years to come. It takes more than officials pushing bills and working for change, it takes you – the people.

Today, I was at a luncheon where a fellow House member mentioned that Immigration Reform would not have become law without the public’s outcry. I agree. While we are elected leaders, there are 170 of us in the state legislature. We each have our own vision and own ideas for where the state should go but YOU need to help us by also sharing your ideas and talking with us. If you find an issue important to you, call your representative. In order to have enough votes to pass common sense reforms and improve not only state government; but also, your quality of life, more than 60 members of the House must agree! (That’s no small feat either) Remember, the General Assembly is full of people from all professions but we all can use your expertise and opinions to help improve our state. It’s my resolution to be sure everyone remembers they have a voice and can and should be heard. Get involved and stay involved > www.scstatehouse.net

Over the past several months I’ve mentioned the changes we’ve seen since last session, the issues we continue to face, and have gone from not only doing regular blog entries; but also, beginning to “Twitter” and “Facebook.” I believe I can learn more about you, my constituents, and you can learn more about me and state government through these networks.

If you aren’t following me (or the other elected officials who twitter and facebook), feel free to start now. There’s bound to be lots of information to share in the next several months. As the push for more transparency continues, I’m pleased to share that the House Republican Caucus will soon unveil an improved website that should also incorporate many of the tools that I and others have been using to keep our constituents informed.

YOUR MONEY

Budget Committees have been meeting to begin the arduous task of constructing our state budget. A task further complicated by the fact that state revenues have dropped considerably (like other states in the country). [Read more...]