Category — Events

At our forum tonight, we held a straw poll for the Senate candidates. Here are the results:

District 3
- Kevin Bryant: 100%
- Don Bowen, Jr.: 0%

District 4
- Billy O’Dell: 4%
- Riley Harvell: 64%

Bryant and Harvell were the only candidates present at the forum. Video will be posted soon.

Note that this is simply a survey of those present and does not constitute an endorsement.

Click here to RSVP

Friday, April 27th from 6pm-7:30pm
Anderson YMCA, Community Room (map)

The Anderson TEA Party will host a forum for the candidates for SC Senate District 3 and District 4. The following candidates have been invited to attend:

• Incumbent Senator Kevin Bryant, 3rd district (confirmed)
• Challenger Don Bowen, Jr., 3rd district
• Incumbent Senator Billy O’Dell, 4th district
• Challenger Riley Harvell, 4th district

The forum will begin promptly at 6pm and will last for 90 minutes. Afterward, there will be a straw poll for attendees who are registered to vote in the 3rd and 4th Senate districts. The results will be announced on http://andersonteaparty.com.

If you would like to ask a question, you may submit it in writing to jhill@andersonteaparty.com by 12pm on Friday, April 27th.

We had a great March meeting! After last month’s meeting there were several requests for a recap which never quite materialized so I wanted to be sure to get this out for those of you who were unable to attend.

Bad bills

H4451, Texting-while-driving ban

• Sponsored by Rep. Don Bowen
• This bill has passed the House, and is now in the Senate
• Rep. Joshua Putnam was one of only 15 Reps to vote against the bill
• Some allowance can be made since this is a controversial issue, but we would rather err on the side of liberty, and feel that current laws against reckless driving are sufficiently enforceable without adding new laws

H4740, FOIA loophole for law enforcement

• This bill gives legal cover to law enforcement agencies to withhold information from the public
• Reps. Bowen, Thayer, Putnam, Hearn, Hamilton, Stringer, Owens, and Taylor have withdrawn their sponsorship of the bill; Rep. Brian White did not
• One Representative told us the following: “Here’s the real story. This legislation was requested by a low country sheriff’s department after an embarrassing incident where they held a suspect in cuffs and allowed the K-9 to attack the suspect. This was caught on dash-cam and was released due to FOIA. Yep, that’s where it started!”
• The bill has stalled, best we can tell, but we’ll keep watching it.

S235, “Property Police” bill

• Sponsored by Sens. Massey(!), Cleary, and Ford
• This egregious bill would allow cities or counties to make it illegal to fail to maintain your property to the community’s satisfaction (i.e. failing to cut your grass, leaving junk laying around, etc)
• Recent, real-life example: “Woman jailed for messy yard gets helping hands“, The Post and Courier, 01/13/2012
• After much public outcry, Sen. Massey finally pulled his sponsorship
• The bill has died in subcommittee

H4628, “Property Thieves” bill

• This even more egregious bill would allow cities or counties to file suit against a property owner for multiple code violations, and would allow the judge to confiscate the property and give it to an entity whom the judge chooses
• Currently in committee
• ACTION ITEM: call your representative to stop this bill!

Good bills

H4894, School Choice

• Offers certain tax deductions and credits to help make other educational choices more affordable for parents
• Was passed out of the Ways and Means committee, and is being debated in the House

H3110, Registration by Party

• Closes primary elections to people who are not registered with the party of their choice; would prevent Democrats from swaying Republican primaries in favor of moderate or liberal Republican candidates
• Recently passed out of subcommittee and reported favorably to the full committee

H3066, Budget & Control Board restructuring

• Fatally flawed in six key areas, as passed by the Senate
• Harry Kibler of RINO Hunt explained some of these issues in detail, and shared information about a FOIA campaign to discover who the opposition was in the Senate to proper, common-sense restructuring
• ACTION ITEM: call your representative to fix this bill!

Candidates

We heard from two candidates who will be filing on Friday:

• Mr. Denny Floyd, candidate for Anderson County Council District 5 (incumbent is Tommy Dunn)
• Dr. Craig Gagnon, candidate for SC House District 11, Abbeville area (incumbent is Dem. Paul Agnew, who is retiring)

Both of these gentlemen were well received. We hope that this is a sign of things to come, and that we will see many more candidates file in the next two weeks.

State Representatives Anne Thayer (District 9) and Joshua Putnam (District 10) will hold a joint town hall meeting in Williamston on Thursday, Feb. 16th, at 6pm at the Williamston Municipal Center.

WHEN: Thursday, 2/16 at 6pm
WHERE: Williamston Municipal Center
12 W Main St, Williamston, SC (directions)

Rick Santorum:

Sunday, January 8th @ 4:00pm
Chief’s Wings and Firewater
723 Congaree Rd, Greenville SC 29607

Rick Perry:

Monday, January 9th, @ 8:00am
Dutch Treat Breakfast
Mama Penn’s Resturant
2802 North Main Street, Anderson, SC 29621