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House tackles full agenda

Published Tuesday, February 23, 2010 12:23 PM

By Rep. Jenny Horne
Summerville Journal Scene ®

Last week, the South Carolina House of Representatives returned from a furlough week with a full calendar of bills to be heard. We approved a sweeping reform of the Employment Security Commission just three weeks after an audit revealed widespread mismanagement. Reforms approved Wednesday include creating a new Department of the Workforce in the governor’s cabinet, and moving several workforce and unemployment responsibilities from the ESC and the Department of Commerce to the new agency. The legislation also abolishes the board of the ESC and puts an executive director in charge.

The audit, released at the end of January, showed the ESC did not warn the General Assembly that the unemployment system was running out of money and that the agency did not properly investigate mismanagement – among many other findings. From 2000 until today, the Unemployment Trust Fund plummeted from an $835 million surplus to an $800 million deficit. Noteworthy is that this is the second ESC reform bill to be approved by the House this year. The first was a series of procedural reforms that included restricting state payments to employees fired for gross misconduct or drug use and restricting claims by employers who cost the system more than they contribute.

In regards to election law, we shed more sunlight on campaigns and elections by approving a major expansion of online campaign finance reporting. Now, all local officials must file their campaign disclosures online – so anybody can see exactly who is funding their campaigns and what they are spending money on. Currently, only state-level candidates are required to file online. This bill is all about transparency and allowing the voters to see who is funding campaigns at all levels. With the technology available today, there is no reason that local candidates shouldn’t follow the same online reporting requirements that state officials follow.

We in the House Judiciary Committee will also debate the tort reform bill this week. H. 3489 will place a cap on punitive damages, allow the non-use of a seat belt to be admitted into evidence, and make it harder to “pierce the corporate veil.” This reform to our tort system is designed to make South Carolina a more business friendly environment.

The most important item was our economic development bill that was approved in committee this week and will be on the House floor next week. This bill has one goal: to create jobs. To do that, the legislation includes several tax and regulation changes businesses told us are necessary to help them create jobs.

The chief reform in the bill is the elimination of the corporate income tax. Eliminating that tax will entice more companies to locate here. Unfortunately, we don’t have the wiggle room in our state budget right now to eliminate it in one year, so it phases out over 10 years. We did accelerate that for any company that moves its headquarters here by including a provision that will immediately eliminate the corporate income tax for those companies.

A House subcommittee is also working on a companion bill for small business owners. As a small business owner, I am very interested in reducing some of the imposing governmental regulations that hinder small businesses from operating efficiently. I look forward to hearing suggestions for upcoming legislation to benefit small business owners.

The following are bills that will be heard in committee in the coming weeks that I have co-sponsored:

H. 4413 -- Licensure of In-Home Care Provider Act of 2010 – Protecting vulnerable adults is one of my top legislative priorities. In-home care providers in South Carolina currently are not required to be licensed nor are they required by law to have a criminal background check. As you can imagine, in South Carolina and across the country, vulnerable adults have been the victims of theft, abuse, and yes, even homicide at the hands of these non-licensed individuals. This bill will provide for the revocation of licenses for those persons who commit crimes against those individuals they are hired to protect. For more information about this problem, please review a July 15, 2008 Wall Street Journal article entitled Cases of Abuse by Home Aides Draw Scrutiny. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121608526216553105.html)

H. 4248 – Requires SLED background checks for substitute teachers and school volunteers – This week, an education subcommittee will hear a bill I sponsored to help protect school children from sexual predators. This bill is the result of a revelation at the state level that all school districts were not running background checks on substitute teachers and school volunteers. This bill is particularly timely as it is being heard on the heels of the recent arrest of a Lexington County substitute teacher and school volunteer for child molestation.

On a personal note, the Dorchester County Legislative Delegation hosted the Summerville High School Cheerleading Team at the Statehouse to congratulate them for winning the Class AAAA State Championship. This is the team’s second year in a row winning a state championship title. After 30-plus years of coaching and two state championships in a row, Coach Saundra Guerard has decided this is an excellent time to retire. I know the ladies on the cheerleading team and their parents will miss Coach Guerard. We wish her much happiness and enjoyment in her retirement.

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 873-1721 or jennyhorne@schouse.org.

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