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Columns

  • Column: House members: Read resolutions before you vote

    Last week the S.C. House of Representatives adopted, with no objections, a resolution congratulating Gov. Henry McMaster on his ascension to the office – and encouraging him to expand Medicaid in South Carolina. This was unexpected, because the House, at least on paper, has been against expanding Medicaid.
    Clearly, no one other than the House member who introduced it and perhaps a few of the cosponsors had even glanced at the resolution.

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  • Column: Meet GOP candidates at county party meeting

    While Election Day is behind us, there is still a lot going on in local and state politics.
    The upcoming meeting of the Lancaster County Republican Party puts you in the middle of it, giving you a chance to meet the candidates, live and in person. The February meeting will be Thursday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. at Mike Williams Builders, located at 1351 Charlotte Highway, Lancaster. Here are some great reasons to attend our upcoming meeting.

    District 5 congressional candidates

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  • Column: Honoring Rep. Neal for a life of service

    We were saddened to hear about the passing of state Rep. Joe Neal of Hopkins.
    First elected to the S.C. House in 1992, Rep. Neal represented District 70 in Richland and Sumter counties. He also served as pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Chester.

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  • Column: County tax deadline is almost here

    An important deadline is approaching for Lancaster County taxpayers – the closing of the county’s 2016 tax books, which takes place on March 16.
    This is a key step in the annual budgeting process for our county government, as it allows those who serve on county council, the school board and the town and city councils to determine how much tax revenue they will have to work with as they finish their 2017-18 budgets.

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  • Column: 3 things to fix in S.C. education

    Today I bring you some thoughts from Jon Butzon, who has spent years working to improve and reform education in South Carolina. He believes that not only should we have great schools but we can have great schools for every child in South Carolina. Here is what he thinks we should do.
    There is no waltzing around it. K-12 public education in South Carolina is not working.

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  • Column: More money alone won’t solve state’s road problem

    Two weeks ago, the S.C. Senate passed a bill that would lay the groundwork for the governor to appoint the state superintendent of education — making the Department of Education a cabinet agency and fully accountable to the governor. The bill has yet to pass the House, but a similar bill passed the House last session.

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  • Column: My work is done on VW plan

    Last winter, the Committee to Incorporate Van Wyck, which I chaired, began advocating for the incorporation of Van Wyck as a defense against the involuntary annexation of Van Wyck by the proposed Town of Indian Land.

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  • Column: Peculiar thing called ‘the South Carolina mind’

    In 1929, Gaffney native W.J. Cash wrote his seminal book “The Mind of the South.”
    Every subsequent attempt to understand the mind (and soul) of the South necessarily starts with this book. It has been so since it was written and will probably continue to be so for generations to come. It is that good.
    The premise of Cash’s book is that there is a distinctive Southern mind, and I believe there is also a “sub-species” native to the Palmetto State that we could call the South Carolina mind.

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  • Column: I pray Trump cuts the roots of evil – judges, bureaucrats

    The Oxford Dictionary’s 2016 Word of the Year is post-truth. It is an adjective “denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”  Emotion and feeling are the source of facts today. So now you can have your truths, and I can have mine.
    The American bureaucracy is an example of post-truth because it has been poisoned with liberal false science, false news and personal beliefs. Universities are not teaching students to think, but what to think.

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  • Column: Busy first few weeks in House

    Since I was elected to the vacant House District 45 seat, the last few weeks have been busy ones, both for myself as well as the General Assembly and the state as a whole.
    This is the first of many updates I will be providing about what’s going on at the State House, as well as what I’m doing to represent the people of this region.

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