This week is critical for SC bills. SC bikers have two important bills to support S111 and S605. They address traffic signal that fail to detect motorcycles and allow for vertical tags on bikes. Learn more at http://www.abatesc.com/issues.php
FF
1) SC Red Light Bill S111 to have Hearing
2) Senator Dole vying for nomination in B.O.L.T. of NC?
3) Pending SC bills face critical week
4) House’s property tax ‘fix’ sidesteps the actual problem
************************************************************************
1) SC Red Light Bill S111 to have Hearing
************************************************************************
FF Note: Y'all have do great work getting this bill to the top of the agenda. Special thanks goes out to Reb for working this bill from the beginning and Ralph and Cliff for their current efforts. Please call your representatives and urge them to support S111. You can easily find your representative and his or her contact info at
http://www.abatesc.com/contactlegislators.php
House Criminal Laws Subcommittee
CRIMINAL LAWS SUBCOMMITTEE
The following is a list of bills that may be discussed at the Criminal Laws Subcommittee meeting on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. or 1 ½ hours after adjournment of the House, whichever is later, in Room 516 of the Blatt Building.
S. 111 Operation of Motorcycles or Mopeds - Sens. Leventis, Knotts, and Scott
S. 96 Penalties for Possessing Alcohol Inhalers - Sens. Sheheen and Fair
S. 472 Ignition Interlock Devices - Sens. Lourie, Courson, Vaughn, et al.
S. 110 Uniform Expungement of Criminal Records Act - Sens. Thomas, Elliot, Knotts, and Ford
This is not an exclusive list of bills to be discussed. The agenda is subject to change. The
members may bring up and discuss any bill presently in the subcommittee.
************************************************************************
2) Senator Dole vying for nomination in B.O.L.T. of NC?
************************************************************************
http://www.boltnc.org/
Senator Dole vying for nomination in B.O.L.T. of NC?
Raleigh, NC April 26, 2008
In the last few days, Jan got a ticket for allegedly not wearing a helmet in Raleigh, even though she was wearing one. Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity. Successful prosecution requires proof that a crime has been committed, and then proof that the accused did the crime. Well, we have proof that someone in Raleigh rode lidless this weekend. Here is proof positive of who was the actual perpetrator.
Hey, it’s Senator Elizabeth Dole! You go girl! Ride it like you stole it!
You must have figured out that the passenger cannot be cited. Sorry, but B.O.L.T. nomination usually requires more than one act of civil disobedience. No posers. We’ll be watching you though. You rock! Did a trooper from the NC State Highway Patrol tailgate you and suggest you move to South Carolina, like Trooper K.E. Jackson did to me? Hey, girlfriend, want to go to the Opening Day Rally? Let’s talk about it over a few beers! Call me, jan
************************************************************************
3) Pending SC bills face critical week
************************************************************************
http://www.thestate.com/politics/story/388636.html
Pending SC bills face critical week
It’s do or die time for bills pending in the General Assembly.
Thursday marks the crossover deadline. Legislation that has not passed either the House or the Senate by this date is unlikely to get approval before the session ends June 5.
That sets lawmakers up for a hectic week, fighting for passage of pet bills and searching for ways to delay or kill legislation they dislike.
House lawmakers are likely to spend time debating whether beginning drivers should be prohibited from using cell phones while behind the wheel and whether harassed students can transfer to another high school and maintain their eligibility to play sports.
Both the House and Senate will discuss green legislation, including the creation of a nonprofit to help low-income households conserve energy and exempting energy-efficient appliances from sales tax.
That doesn’t mean bills not scheduled for a vote in one of the chambers are dead. They’ll just have a tougher standard to meet.
After Thursday, bills passed in one house require a two-thirds vote from the other house before they may be debated.
When the session ends, the General Assembly’s calendar will be wiped clean, and all bills that did not pass this session would have to be filed again to be considered.
— Gina Smith
For a list of pending bills, see
http://www.thestate.com/nation/story/388628.html
************************************************************************
4) House’s property tax ‘fix’ sidesteps the actual problem
************************************************************************
http://www.thestate.com/opinion/story/382783.html
House’s property tax ‘fix’ sidesteps the actual problem
REMEMBER THAT 15 percent cap on reassessment that voters approved in 2006? The one that supporters promised would hold down everybody’s property taxes?
That was a lie, of course, and supporters knew it, and we told you so. What the 15 percent cap actually did was shift the tax burden off of the owners of homes in trendy neighborhoods, who would now pay taxes on only a fraction of their homes’ values, and onto the two-thirds of South Carolinians who own homes whose values don’t appreciate that quickly, as well as to business, rental property and car owners: Not only would these non-privileged folks pay a larger percentage of the total tax bill, but since cities and counties would no longer be able to collect taxes on the full value of property, many of them would raise tax rates to make up the difference.
But that tax shift was only part of the problem.
On top of that gross unfairness, the 15 percent cap was a market killer: The law also mandated that newly purchased homes would be taxed at 100 percent of the purchase price, and that higher tax value would set immediately, rather than after the next reassessment. That’s a shock to the system for people whose taxes had been artificially held down for years, which makes them less interested in leaving their current homes; it will become an even bigger shock each year, as the tax cap widens the gap between taxable value and actual value. Already, though, some even say the new law is driving down sales prices, because purchasers are calculating in the cost of a tax bill that will be based, from the start, on the actual value of a home, rather than the lowball “assessed value” we’re used to.
The timing on this law couldn’t have been worse, coinciding with the bust-up of the housing bubble. So barely more than a year after the law took effect, our legislators have realized they made a horrible mistake, and they are preparing to ... start us on a slippery slope towards making matters even worse.
A bill before the House this week would let home purchasers keep paying taxes on the old, artificially low assessment for up to five years. Under different circumstances, that might not be a bad idea: Newly purchased homes will eventually be taxed on the full purchase price, after the next countywide reassessment. But there are two conditions that would have to be met to make this a tolerable change: There should be reason to believe this would be the last special tax break doled out to people on whom the real estate gods had smiled, and it would have to change an otherwise sound policy. Neither applies in this case.
Not only is the underlying law capping reassessments at 15 percent a bad policy, but this change is only the first step. Give property owners this special tax break on new purchases today, and they’ll be back once those higher valuations set, demanding they be allowed to keep their subsidized-by-the-majority tax break. We had the special deal in our old house, they’ll say; we deserve it in our new home too.
The 15 percent cap is indeed adding insult to an already-injured housing market. But the way to fix that is to eliminate the cap and go back to the old system, where everybody paid taxes on the full value of their property (or at least on an equal portion of the value of their property), not to extend this unfair break to the select few.
************************************************************************
)
