My opponent is trying to say that I’m part of the problem. The truth is that I’ve been in Columbia just over one year. I’m not one of those long time politicians who has been sitting by while our state climbs the nation’s unemployment rankings. I’ve been working hard over the last year serving as Our Voice for coastal issues. If you’ll give me just a few minutes, I’ll tell you about our biggest accomplishments this year.
In January, the House Republicans unveiled a conservative agenda that we believed would create jobs, help improve education, and streamline our government. We have completed that agenda.
The House returned to work this week after our annual Easter furlough. This year, the furlough was a two-week break that saved taxpayers more than $150,000. Our top priority for 2010 was creating jobs, and I’m happy to report we have approved several pieces of legislation that accomplish that goal.
Last month, the House approved an economic development plan that will make South Carolina more competitive when recruiting the next Michelin, BMW, or Boeing to our state. It will help every business in our state by eliminating the corporate income tax and will give the Department of Commerce new tools it needs to aid in business recruitment. Eliminating the corporate income tax will allow businesses to keep more of their hard-earned money so they can re-invest in their business and their employees.
We are still hopeful this job creation tool will be approved by the Senate. Giving the Department of Commerce more help in recruitment is vital since South Carolina competes with the world in attracting the high-quality jobs we all want to improve incomes and our quality of life.
We approved two pieces of legislation reforming the broken Employment Security Commission. We gave control of the agency to the governor and broke down barriers between the ESC and the Department of Commerce. The new Department of the Workforce will be more efficient and more accountable so businesses can find the workers they need and workers can more easily find the jobs that are out there.
We also approved a sweeping tort reform package that protects small businesses from frivolous lawsuits while protecting your rights to our legal system if you are wronged.
The Republicans’ second agenda item was improving our public education system in our state. In this era of tight state budgets, we gave our schools unprecedented flexibility from state mandates. Legislation that will help our active charter school movement will be on the House floor soon. And we were able to ensure our state’s students continue to receive the scholarships they need to attend college.
Our third agenda item for 2010 was ensuring responsible and limited government – values that are clearly not shared by our current Congress. The House approved new requirements for online campaign finance disclosure. We also gave you – the voter – the opportunity to decide if the Governor and Lieutenant Governor should run as a ticket, and whether the largely administrative position of Secretary of State should be appointed by the governor. Both the Lieutenant Governor and the Secretary of State are currently elected.
Finally, we told our constituents we would protect our state’s rights under the U.S. Constitution. We approved a state constitutional amendment that will ensure a secret ballot in union organizing elections and strongly protested the recent federal healthcare takeover.
In the first 10 weeks of the legislative session, we completed our agenda — an agenda built after close consultations with our constituents. And it’s an agenda we believe moves our state down the positive, common-sense, conservative path that you have asked us to travel.
I look forward to the final weeks of the 2010 session and working with the Senate to push these conservative initiatives into law. I also pledge we will continue to represent the conservative values of our constituents.
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 843-224-9260.
Thank you,
Mike Sottile
