February 2 – February 4
NOTE: These updates relate only to the House of Representatives; not the “upper chamber” (Senate). Certainly there are several bills each body considers every day; however, due to space and time constraints, I try to mention what may be of more interest to the masses. (Oftentimes, I share information that may not have made it to the main stream media) If you have a specific bill that interests you, please go to www.scstatehouse.gov for more information.
This past week saw more debate on the House Floor as we finally voted on the Sovereignty Resolution (9th and 10th amendment) Tuesday. The concurrent resolution passed 85-27 after all but one amendment was defeated. The resolution does not carry the weight of law and many wonder why we do these sorts of things in Columbia.
Every committee and several subcommittees met this week. With legislation finally passing at the committee level, the next step is the full House of Representatives. Our calendar now lists several more bills for full debate when we return (February 16, 2010).
I’m pleased to report that one of those bills will be my Campaign Finance Disclosure bill that cleared the full House Judiciary Committee late Tuesday afternoon. I’ll report how the floor debate goes when we return in two weeks and I expect the full House to pass the bill.
Wednesday’s focus was mainly on the election of judges and, as usual, almost all the races ended up uncontested…except for two. The two races that “went to the board” were a circuit court and a family court race. Frank Addy defeated Don Hocker by 15 votes while Gwendlyn Smalls defeated DeAndrea Benjamin by only 6 votes. As I mentioned earlier, these races are always “interesting” and you can read more about this from my friend across the aisle, Representative Anton Gunn at his blog .
Thursday is always brief to allow members to return home. Thursday also is the day two teams/groups can be recognized from the House Floor. These recognitions are reserved for champions.
I was excited to join Representatives Huggins and McLeod in recognizing the Chapin High School Varsity Cheerleaders for their 2009 State AAA Championship. (Their second year in a row!)
Obviously having the Chapin squad at the State House this week allowed me a chance to see many constituents. In addition to the team, coach, principal and parents, I wanted to thank the following members of our community for stopping by this week: Lee and Janice Ayers, Jack Wolfe, Judge Allison Lee, Andy Schmidt, Hugh Ryan, Robert Crooms and Adelle Stanley.
I also want to say hello again to Abby Schmidt (Dutch Fork Middle, 7th grade). Abby sat with me on the House Floor for a few minutes this week and I enjoyed introducing her to my colleagues and letting her know what we do in Columbia.
With a week off from the State House (I’ll be in Charlotte for Wells Fargo ), I’ll only be on Twitter and Facebook the next few days but return to Nathan’s News the week of February 16th. Come to think of it, seems I’ve only been doing one post a week this year. I’ll get it revved up when we return!
Oh…for those curious….we may soon see “no cell phone/texting while driving bills” make it to the House Floor.