Not too bright

For observers of the General Assembly, especially those without a long history analyzing the matters of our state legislature, some events that go on in the House and Senate chambers are especially telling.

That is, when the leadership is clearly doing its best to tolerate the missteps of an elected official that is clearly not thinking things through. Such is the matter with Sen. Lee Bright of Spartanburg.

Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, showing his frustration with the antics of the freshman legislator hindering the chamber’s business, said in The Herald-Journal, “If you want to point at one legislative issue that gummed up the works, that was it,” Peeler said of Bright’s resolution on the 10th Amendment. “It’s discouraging that Sen. Bright insisted on that. We attempted some amendments that would have made it more palatable to the body, but it was all or nothing with him.”

The bill would have reasserted South Carolina’s rights under the amendment, a process that seems time-wasting on the face of it, never mind Bright’s intransigence at seeing the bill altered.

While some people are attempting to defend one of the worst legislators of the term, it’s important to know that this isn’t the first time Bright has wasted an elected body’s time on a measure that holds no real consequence.

When he was on the Spartanburg District 6 school board, Bright, on Nov. 6, 2000, offered up a resolution opposing the lottery. According to the minutes of the meeting, “Discussion related primarily to the difficulty of making such a resolution meaningful the day before the election.” Mind you, the lottery had been a big deal for a couple years, but Bright had the brilliant idea to put forth this piece of work the day before the election. Naturally, it failed 5-3.

Then there is the funny thing that happened during the debate of getting international firm KPMG to oversee the construction of the new Dorman High School complex. While board members Michael Crook and Lynn Foster explained that KPMG would bring a level of expertise not easily found locally, Bright and board member Michael Thompson kept harping on about liability. Then, the KPMG representative had to explain to Bright and Thompson, multiple times, the difference between project management and contract management.

And, let’s not forget the campaign. He said to an audience that the whole reason he sent his kids to public schools was because of a bet he made with his wife over his election to the school board. If you remember, REAL ID was a major issue last Spring, as well. It was all over the newspapers, TV news, the blogs, the whole nine. Well, when questioned about the issue during a debate, the Roebuck Republican couldn’t answer and acted like he didn’t know anything about it.

Fortunately, as of late, it looks like Bright has cleaned up his disclosure reports. But, it was not always so easy before, with inaccuracies going from his 2004 race against former Sen. John Hawkins to early 2008. In ’04, there is a deficit of $386.88 that is unaccounted for, in two reports in ’05 there is a surplus of $749.67 that is not explained and in another two reports a deficit of $77.15 that is unaccounted for.

For his first report of the 2008 race, there is a magical $214.01 opening balance. For those who are not acquainted, a bank account does not usually come with a couple hundred in it. Usually, you have to open the account, then deposit money into it, hence Bright should have had a starting balance of zero. If this guy cannot keep his campaign accounts straight, it would seem like legislative malpractice to put him near a budget.

This is all without getting into his trucking company, which has had tax problems and a goodly number of lawsuits over the years. Not to mention, the fact that Bright said in 2007 that he started his own business 23 years ago, during the campaign he said it was 11 years ago. All the while, making it look like he was starting On Time Transportation/On Time Trucking on his own, while in reality he was one of three, and is a one-third stakeholder in both companies.

So, it comes of little surprise that Peeler isn’t happy with Bright’s states’ rights crusade this session and what it did to the normal flow of legislation. The bad news is we have three more years of Bright until the people of Senate District 12 get another chance to put a competent legislator in the seat.