The first several weeks of each legislative session are a flurry of activity – but mostly off the House floor.

Instead, House members sit in their committees and subcommittees debating legislation and holding multiple public hearings to learn more about the legislation before us. House committees held nearly two dozen hearings this week debating everything from restructuring the Department of Transportation to strengthening our Right to Work laws.

The House Ways and Means Committee split into its subcommittees and asked every state agency (or private entity looking for public dollars) to justify its budget requests.

Now, I won’t give you the full “How a Bill Becomes a Law” speech today, but several pieces of important legislation took first steps toward reality this week.

One major piece of legislation that moved this week was a new DOT reform bill that was approved by a House Judiciary Subcommittee.  This legislation eliminates the Department of Transportation Commission, eliminates the Joint Transportation Review Committee and makes the Secretary of Transportation as governing authority for the DOT.

The Secretary of Transportation would be appointed by the Governor and would become a member of the Governor’s cabinet. We began the process of reforming the DOT three years ago, and problems still persist at the agency.

The DOT reform bill is also part of our ongoing effort to streamline and reform our sometimes disjointed state government. Last year, the House approved a number of measures to consolidate agencies under a Department of Administration. The House also approved ballot measures that would give the voters of South Carolina the opportunity to make the state Superintendent of Education appointed by the Governor and to make the Lieutenant Governor appointed by the Governor. All of these bills are currently in the state Senate.

My House colleagues were pleased to hear this week that the Senate followed our lead and approved legislation that reverses the decision by the DHEC board to approve the dredging of the Savannah River to benefit the Port of Savannah. The bill will now come back to the House for a procedural vote before going to the Governor’s desk for her signature. The Governor’s spokesman said in a newspaper this week that she will veto the bill. Since the measure passed both chambers unanimously, the bill should be easily overridden.

The legislation reaffirms an existing state law requiring the DHEC Board to gain the approval of the Savannah River Maritime Commission before taking action on any matter pertaining to the navigability, depth, dredging, sludge disposal and other collateral issues in regard to the Savannah River.

One of every five jobs in our state is directly tied to our ports, and overwhelming evidence presented by DHEC scientists showed the dredging would cause irreversible environmental damage. With so much at stake for our state, it is no time to allow neighboring ports any advantage whatsoever in the important fight for every advantage for jobs.

I appreciate the opportunity to serve you. As always, you can contact me directly through this site if I can ever be of assistance to you.

**The building pictured above is the Blatt Building on the State House grounds. This is where all members of the House have offices as well as where all the committee work is completed.

Limiting the Growth of Government

One of the core, bedrock principles of the conservative philosophy I share with my constituents is that we should limit the size of government. That means letting people spend their own hard-earned dollars and ensuring government serves the people by getting out of our way.

As the House readies for the start of Budget Week on Monday, March 14, the House took a concrete step to ensure our state government doesn’t grow faster than your wallet. We passed key legislation limiting how much the state can spend.

This legislation still has a long way to go, especially considering that this is the eighth time the House Republicans have ushered such a bill through since 1994. None of them have ever made it out of the state Senate.

This bill is a critical part of our conservative commitment to restrain the growth of government in the face of a growing number of formulas that force spending. If we don’t follow a path of fiscal responsibility when times are good, we will be much worse off when we have economic trouble. We are witnessing that right now as we are forced to slash budgets artificially inflated by tax revenues collected during good times.

The legislation passed this week uses February 15, 2010 as the base and restricts future growth to the LESSER of 6 percent growth, or population growth plus the Consumer Price Index (a common measure of inflation). In addition, the bill allows the General Assembly to declare an emergency and suspend the restrictions with a vote of two-thirds of those present. According to the most recent report from the National Conference of State Legislatures, 30 states operate under spending or revenue limits.

The bill also creates a “Spending Limits Reserve Fund,” and requires funds in excess of the spending limit to be appropriated for replenishing the General Reserve Fund, temporary tax reductions, infrastructure, school buildings, school buses, and then expenses for natural disasters.

These spending limits are reasonable and give the General Assembly plenty of room to maneuver should there be a major crisis – like another Hurricane Hugo or terrorist attack – that would require us to marshal our state’s resources to respond.
But it also ensures that when state tax revenues start expanding again, it will either be refunded to the people who earned it, or pay for crucial infrastructure, education, and public safety projects that will help expand our economy.

As state tax revenues have fallen over the last several years, South Carolina has made a concerted effort to cut the size of government rather than increase taxes on citizens – as was done in several of our neighboring states. That process will continue next week as we debate the budget.

In future years, I hope these spending limits will ensure budget cuts will not be as severe as those we have witnessed over the past three years. The bill will arrive in the Senate next week.

As always, thank you for the privilege of serving you in Columbia. If I can ever be of assistance to you, or if you have ideas on issues you want me to share with the rest of the General Assembly, please don’t hesitate to contact me at 864-527-7685 in Greenville or connect with me on Facebook.