The Buzz

Security lighting, good; cellphones, bad

This week, the Buzz brings you Part 2 of bills pre-filed by your hard-working lawmakers.

On the Senate side:

• Sen. Danny Verdin, R-Laurens, does not want S.C. citizens who do not like guns to feel left out. He has filed a bill to extend the list of items that qualify for the state’s annual Second Amendment sales tax weekend to include security systems, security lighting and security doors. Currently, only firearms are on the list. (As if a steel door could ever make you feel as safe as a Glock.)

• Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens, is worried about bodily fluids – at least the bodily fluids of drivers who may be drunk. His bill would allow the drivers’ saliva to be tested to determine if alcohol or drugs are in their system.

• Since lawmakers repeatedly failed to ban cellphone use by drivers, Sen. Vincent Sheheen, D-Kershaw, is trying a new way to get at least part of the issue. His bill would ban drivers from talking and texting on their cellphones while driving through active school zones.

Yucky playgrounds, bad; lobbying for schools, bad ... car lights, good

Not to be outdone, House members have big plans for the state, too.

• Rep. Mia Butler Garrick, D-Richland, wants to know how many germs are living in the McDonald’s playground. Her bill would form a study committee to study restaurant play areas and recommend to lawmakers new regulations to clean them up.

• Rep. Don Bowen, R-Anderson, has had it with school districts participating in education associations. (Some Republican lawmakers consider the groups unions, even though state law bans educators from collectively bargaining.) His bill would ban school districts from paying membership dues and fees to any such organization and instead redirect the money to “classroom instruction.”

• Rep. Joseph Jefferson, D-Berkeley, must think South Carolinians can’t see very well. His bill would require drivers to keep their vehicles’ lights on at all times – except when the vehicle is parked. (Alas, the Buzz actually has left the lights on even then before. Not good.)

Clyburn: Gingrich fine to listen to but would be lousy president

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., expects Newt Gingrich to win the state’s Jan. 21 Republican presidential primary, but not the GOP’s nomination. And, Clyburn adds, that’s for the better.

Clyburn ripped his former House colleague Gingrich last week, saying he “can’t quite envision” having to work with him again because he “tends to fly off the handle,” The Hill newspaper reported.

Speaking Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Clyburn said the former House Speaker doesn’t have the temperament to be president.

“I think that Newt is very professorial, and he’s always good to listen to – not quite as good to work with,” Clyburn said. “He tends to fly off the handle. He will say almost anything in order to get a charge. I’m sure that he’s not serious when he says a lot of these things.”

Clyburn recounted Gingrich’s reaction to hearing that Susan Smith of Union had drowned her two sons in 1994.

“The mother killing her two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change,” Gingrich said at the time. “I think people want to change and the only way you get change is to vote Republican.”

“That was just beyond the pale,” Clyburn said.

“It’s just the most amazing thing that he will just say these things, and then he figures out some way to justify it later,” he added. “I don’t think the voters in the Republican primary are going to reward him with the nomination.”

Clyburn also laid into Gingrich for his recent recommendation that “poor children” be put to work as janitors because they don’t know how to make money “unless it’s illegal.”

“I mean, how do you talk about poor schoolchildren the way he talks about poor schoolchildren after going around touring with Rev. Al Sharpton in these schools and seeing how energetic these young people were?” Clyburn said. “I cannot see him being president of the United States.”