New legislative voices offer helpful hints about electorate

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Four new state lawmakers, two in each chamber, may be able to give their colleagues the best inkling of what South Carolina voters really want today. Makes sense – these new legislators spent the fall knocking on doors and meeting closely with voters to get their support and learn their wishes for government.

More than anything else, people brought up concerns involving illegal immigration, noted Sen. Paul Campbell, a Goose Creek Republican elected to fill the vacancy left after the death of Sen. Bill Mescher. New Sen. Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, agreed, adding that lawmakers had several different proposals already in the hopper.

“Hopefully we can do something, with the ultimate goal, of course, to light a fire under the folks in Washington to get them to do something,” said Massey, who at age 32 is now the state’s youngest senator. “One of the problems we have in South Carolina is that an issue will come up – immigration for instance – and many times we overreact without having thought through the consequences.

“One thing I’m really concerned about is pushing through these things and there’s not enough debate and consideration and we end up with a situation that is worse than we had in the beginning.”

For new state Rep. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, education funding is a major issue state lawmakers need to deal with. She said while most folks were happy with recent changes that eliminated school property taxes on homes in favor of an increased sales tax, some counties like Beaufort County got short-changed in the deal.

“We’re using an old formula to come up with that dollar amount,” said Erickson, who operates three child care centers that serve more than 350 children. “Luckily, we have a group looking at that funding formula and it will be very interesting to see over that next session about what we should be looking at [for a better formula.]”

Campbell added most people in his area seemed to be opposed to school vouchers, but were interested in some kind of rational public school choice if it didn’t create school inequities.

For Rep. Heyward Hutson, R-Summerville, the key state issue for people from Dorchester County is management of growth.

“Most of the people out there feel that growth must pay for growth and that has not been the way it has been,” said Hutson, who captured Converse Chellis’s seat when he became state treasurer following the Thomas Ravenel cocaine indictment. “The situation has been favorable to the developers and the citizens over here are just tired of paying the tax burden for the developers.”

Hutson said he planned to introduce legislation that called for impact fees to be charged on new residential construction to help pay for construction of new schools needed for new neighborhoods.

Other key issues of importance to this new class of lawmakers:

Budgeting. Hutson said he favored zero-based budgeting to cut some of the fat out of government that no longer was needed. Under this method of budgeting, each agency would have to validate reasons for all of its spending, not just outline how new monies would be used.

Energy. Campbell said he would work to push for the construction of a new Santee Cooper coal-burning power plant in Kingsburg to ensure the state didn’t have brownouts and blackouts, which had the potential of hurting tourism.

Efficiency. Measures to improve energy efficiency would be welcome as they would help businesses be more competitive, Hutson said.

Accountability. Massey said the first bill he prefiled dealt with improving accountability. Specifically, he said he thought lawmakers should put their names on requests for funding earmarks.

“I’m not railing against earmarks. There are good earmarks; there are bad earmarks,” he said. “But people ought to able to know who is asking for $950,000 for a Green Bean Museum and why the state might need a Green Bean Museum.”

Sexual predators. Erickson said the state needed to be tougher on sexual predators and should tighten laws on those who molested children.

Columbia City Paper
By Andy Brack
1/18/08

Posted January 21, 2008 

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