Harvey Peeler

A picture is worth a thousand words. This picture shows that I am backing our governor.

Last week, Governor Haley laid out for South Carolina the direction she intends to lead the state, and I’ll be right there to help out along the way. As I said after Gov. Haley’s State of the State speech, “I’m looking forward to being one of her legislative soldiers, and — you ask me why — because she asked us to, and that’s what that speech was tonight. She asked us to help her help South Carolina, and my answer’s going to be ‘yes.’”

Times are tough, and the decisions we have to make are hard. Gov. Haley is taking an aggressive stance in favor of cutting spending and improving efficiency. Our government can’t, and shouldn’t, be all things to all people, even in good times. The conservative agenda she rolled out is exactly what we need to be doing.

Restructuring government by consolidating agencies and eliminating redundant functions serves to both save taxpayer dollars and improve the function of state government. We need to simplify and make public school funding better, and get the state out of the school bus business. The state cannot keep looking to the federal government to fix our budget problems or provide incentive(s) for more spending. South Carolina has to depend on South Carolina, not Washington.

Standing up to Washington bureaucracy and union intimidation is part of making our state more business-friendly. Gov. Haley’s nominee, Catherine Templeton, to lead the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation is a good step. Now we’re having to fight the National Labor Relations Board to protect the constitutional amendment that our state approved by 86 percent last November. That amendment keeps the protection for our workers to vote by secret ballot in union representation elections.

In the Senate, we’ve been working hard to get things on the record. Since the session began, we approved a rules change to require roll call voting. We are currently working to pass a constitutional amendment to permanently implement on-the-record votes. We also approved a 72-hour waiting period before votes on any spending measure. That gives you, me and everybody enough time to read the proposal.

We’ve only just started. But I’ll be doing everything I can, and with Gov. Haley’s leadership, we can go forward with desperately needed conservative reforms.

To view my remarks after Gov. Haley’s speech, please click here.