TUESDAY
Rep. Grady Brown announced to the House that he was the next Grandmaster Flash. OK, maybe not, but he is spinning records on a weekly basis.
“Every Tuesday night, my son and I, we DJ at a place called Rust,” he said. “R-U-S-T. It’s in the Vista, right behind the Motor Supply [Company]. From 7 until 11 o’clock, if you like to shag, like a little R&B, we’d love to have you there.”
Rep. John King asked for the privilege of the floor be granted to the South Pointe High School football team. That led Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell to inquire about a certain highly-regarded safety.
“Mr. King, does this mean that I get to see that outstanding five-star recruit for Carolina,” he asked.
Former Speaker of the House and Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins made a cameo, briefly causing a stir in the back of the House chamber, and taking a few minutes to visit with Harrell before taking a seat behind the current Speaker and observing the rest of the day’s session.
Reaction to President Barack Obama’s decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay received almost instant reaction, considering that the brig at the Charleston Navy Base could be used as a new home for some detainees.
“Closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay is the wrong move for our country, it is better to have enemy combatants housed outside of the continental United States,” Sen. Ronnie Cromer said in a statement. “We have been very blessed over the last seven years, in that we have not had another terrorist attack in our country, but moving current detainees into the United States is just inviting trouble.”
One of the top priorities of Senate Republicans this session, spending caps, passed unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee and was sent to the full Senate. Sen. Glenn McConnell, the bill’s chief sponsor, said that the plan will make sure the state does not get into another tough fiscal fix like what is occurring this year.
Concurring, Majority Leader Harvey Peeler said, “Sen. McConnell’s plan caps spending and forces legislators to use every single tax dollar wisely. There’s no doubt that we are facing tough economic problems, but thoughtful senators like Glenn McConnell are moving past the problems and pushing conservative solutions.“
WEDNESDAY
Sen. McConnell wants senators and others to use their inside voices. Anyone that has watched the Senate, or the House, knows that at some times the din gets a little loud.
“Very quickly, what I wanted to talk with you about is where we seem to be starting out this year. And, that is, this chamber — I’m as guilty as anyone else — and that is the thing I was going to address. It is just getting so noisy in here, you cannot hear anything being read on these bills across this desk,“ he said. “We have rules now that require us to take votes on this uncontested call of the calendar, and it’s going to start picking up. We’re starting to get, in my opinion, myself included, into a bad habit here of too much loud talk going on, on this floor. Too much staff bringing too much business in here to connect with senators on this floor, and it just is getting to the point, if you’ve got to have these conversations, we need to be mindful to take them outside as much as we can.“
Sen. Lee Bright suffered a family tragedy, and Sen. Larry Grooms informed the chamber to the sad news.
Grooms said that Bright’s child, which was to “be born shortly after we adjourned this session, is not going to be born. His wife, they found news today, while at a routine visit to the doctor, that the baby’s heart was no longer beating. It was a time, thought to be of great joy to his family as he had his two little girls there to watch the first ultrasound to see their new sibling. His wife’s in the hospital right now. We hope for a quick recovery.“
Wolfe Reports joins the Senate in extending to the Bright family our condolences.
