These past few days I have been flooded with emails through the website here, several emails at the state house and a couple of comments on my original post from constituents and others around the area.
As my former campaign consultant once taught me, elected officials who stay in touch year round – instead of just at election time – are far better able to serve their constituents.
Thank you for your well thought-out feedback! Sure, I received several “form emails” for certain vetoes and, yes, several emails had cut/paste talking points supporting their cause or veto funding; but many emails were from the heart and with “real-life” experience and rationale behind them.
I have read them all and I’m appreciative of your taking the time to share your concerns and feedback with me.
Obviously with more than 30,000 constituents and more than 4,000,000 citizens in our state, my votes tomorrow can’t please everyone. I get that. That’s politics. Too often, when we cast our votes it seems like the simple pushing of a green “Yea” or red “Nay” button; but the reality is that people’s lives are impacted by those votes. In the case of budget vetoes, not only those people directly impacted by the veto; but also the taxpayers of our state whose hard earned dollars we are charged to protect and spend wisely in the SC General Assembly.