Republican State Rep. Thad Viers took 57 percent of the vote over challengers Helen Smith and Steven Neeves with all precincts reporting.

The tally bypasses a runoff and no Democrat has filed to run in November, likely returning Viers to Columbia for a fourth term.

“My commitment to the conservative revolution and bringing about conservative change in the state will be the mantra of my next term,” Viers said.

This election was Viers’ first contested election since his 2006 guilty plea to leaving obscene and threatening messages on an answering machine owned by a man dating Viers’ estranged wife. While neither of his opponents this year said the charges were the reason they ran, both made character central elements of their campaigns.

“My district understood that my personal issues in the past had nothing to do with how I represent them in the state legislature,” Viers said. “They moved on.”

Viers said Smith had made too many personal attacks in her campaign and they backfired - she took 35 percent of the vote. Smith, an 18-year Horry County School Board veteran who lost to Viers in a runoff in 2000, countered that she had merely put Viers’ record out and didn’t know what cost her the election.

“I just won’t have the opportunity to serve the voters like I was hoping I would,” Smith said, wishing Viers well in his term.

While thanking their voters, both Smith and Neeves said they had hoped for higher turnout.

Neeves, a small-business owner and governmental liaison for the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors, garnered 8 percent of the vote in his first run for political office. He said he kept his campaign positive, and he did not rule out future bids for office.

“We’ll wait and see what opportunities are there,” Neeves said.

S.C. House of Representatives District 68
Republican primary

(100 percent of precincts reporting)
Steven Neeves, 274
Helen Smith, 1,154
Thad Viers (i), 1,889

What’s next |
Viers said his legislative agenda for the next two-year term includes school choice which he said may or may not involve vouchers lowering insurance prices and making the state internationally competitive for jobs.

The Sun News
By Robert Morris
June 11, 2008

COLUMBIA –The House agreed Thursday to the Senate’s latest compromise on illegal immigration control, and the governor said he will sign it.

After wrangling back and forth all session, lawmakers finally came to agreement on an immigration control bill that sets up an implied business license for anyone who hires other people.

Even though they don’t have an actual paper license, they can have their right to hire people revoked if they willfully employ illegal immigrants.

“We sent a very clear message to illegal immigrants in the state to leave,” said Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach. “The welcome mat is no longer out.”

Viers sponsored about two dozen bills starting last year that were aimed at illegal immigrants and their employment and receipt of state services and education. He was on the House panel that worked on the final compromises with the Senate on its versions of the bills.

“This will be one of the toughest illegal immigration bills in the nation,” Viers said.

It forbids illegal immigrants from receiving most state services, including higher education and scholarships.

Rep. Alan Clemmons, R-Myrtle Beach, tried to add a clause that would forbid an illegal immigrant from being released on parole or into the community after completing a sentence. The person would have to be turned over to federal immigration authorities for deportation.

The amendment was because of what happened to Joyce Dargan, Clemmons told House members. It was “a very dark October day in Myrtle Beach” when Dargan was killed by one of two illegal immigrant youths who were racing their cars on Kings Highway. One ran off the road and smashed into Dargan as she was checking her roadside mailbox.

A few weeks ago, one of the drivers was almost released by juvenile authorities, but a Myrtle Beach member of the youth parole board insisted he be held for federal immigration police.

The House declined to add the Dargan amendment, but Horry County members will continue to look for ways to make the proposal law, Viers said.

Lawmakers wrestled with how to craft a law that the state can enforce because immigration is a federal matter. They also wrestled with the growing demands from constituents.

John Wierszewski
Myrtle Beach

Published in the Myrtle Beach Sun News
Editorial
May 16, 2008

Joyce Dargan was struck by a car and killed as she went to her streetside mailbox on Oct. 13, 2005.

Two 15-year-olds were racing their cars on Kings Highway when one swerved off the road and struck Dargan.

Both were sentenced two years ago to up to six years in juvenile prison. Both were also illegal immigrants who would be up for deportation when they got out of prison.

Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach, said he and Rep. Alan Clemmons, R-Myrtle Beach, asked for an investigation and demanded that the governor remove members of the Board of Juvenile Parole who allowed the youths release.

“This is outrageous. This is a slap in the family’s face,” Viers said.

He said he was told that the board was going to release the boy without supervision but that board member Greg Killian of Myrtle Beach, who voted against the parole, insisted he be held for deportation.

A spokesman for the governor’s office said the incident will be investigated.

The Sun News
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/story/443113.html
By Zane Wilson
5/08/2008

COLUMBIA -The fight over an immigration reform bill heightened Thursday after the governor blasted the compromise the Senate thought he would support.

Gov. Mark Sanford said senators engaged in “political cowardice” when they adopted the latest compromise Wednesday night on a voice vote after a few hours of discussion, prompting the Senate’s leader to take the floor and say he had had it with the governor.

“What occurred yesterday crossed the line,” said Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, the Senate’s leader. “I’m extremely disappointed in him.”

He said the governor does not understand the Senate process. The vote was unanimous because an agreement was reached. It did not require hours more of discussion or a recorded vote, he said.

McConnell said the Senate has taken the forefront on the issue, while the governor was “over in the bushes” taking potshots, McConnell said.

Sanford called a news conference at midday to reiterate his stance. He called the Senate’s proposal weak because it gives employers the use of the federal I-9 form, which is simply filled out and kept in a file.

Sanford said he wants only the federal online verification system to be used, adding he might veto anything else that comes to his desk.

The penalties the Senate added to the compromise are not enforceable because they encroach on federal authority, Sanford said. He said his staff talked to federal Homeland Security representatives about it Wednesday night.

The Senate needs to push “quite a bit harder” to come up with the right proposal, he said, asking that voters call senators over the weekend to demand that they change the compromise again.

Sanford said he was not concerned with senators’ complaints about his criticism of the way the vote was taken.

“A stuck pig squeals,” he said. “We must have struck a chord.”

McConnell took the floor again after Sanford’s news conference, saying the governor apparently did not read the bill and does not understand it.

The penalties are enforceable by the state because they apply only to a state law, McConnell said. Federal law would forbid the state from imposing penalties for violation of federal law.

People will still have to abide by the federal law and fill out the I-9 form, but they can also use a state system that includes a driver’s license or photo ID card and a form similar to the I-9.

“What does it take for them to understand that?” said Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens.

McConnell said that to do what Sanford wants and require only the federal online verification system would be a weaker law because there is no way for the state to impose a penalty if an employer fails to do it.

The Senate did what Sanford had called for since the beginning of the session, McConnell said. But at his news conference, the governor said he had changed his mind from his earlier support of a state verification system.

He said he had been talking to Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, leader on the immigration bill in the Senate, about the measure all week and that he wanted nothing but the federal online verification.

“We’ve been very emphatic about Everify,” Sanford said, using the name of the program.

McConnell said no one had heard from the governor about his wishes.

“That’s why he gets very little done, because it’s a moving target,” McConnell said.

The governor may be trying to prevent passage of a bill by confusing the issue, Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, said. Or, McConnell said, Sanford is seeking the limelight for some reason.

The public should call the governor’s office instead of senators, demanding that he support the compromise, McConnell said.

Sanford is “deliberately trying to mislead the people out there as he does in so many things,” said Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence.

But Sanford said it may be the Senate that is trying to avoid passing a bill. Some people don’t want to pass a real law that can be enforced, he said.

True enforcement starts with determining if a Social Security number is valid, and that is done with the federal online system, Sanford said.

Sen. Dick Elliott, D-North Myrtle Beach, said Sanford has “failed to work with this Senate.”

Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach, a member of the House conference committee on the immigration bill, said the spat was unfortunate but he is still optimistic that a good bill will be passed.

The governor could have helped more by refraining from insulting the Senate, Viers said.

“I think he muddies the process,” Viers said.

The Senate’s proposal is a good step and he thinks the House is open to it. If it is true that Homeland Security believes the fines can’t be enforced, the agency needs to come and speak to lawmakers about it, not through the governor’s office, he also said.

The House will discuss the compromise Tuesday.

Myrtle Beach Sun News
Zane Wilson
5/2/08

COLUMBIA -The Senate passed a new immigration reform compromise Wednesday evening that adds teeth to violations by employers and demands online verification of eligibility for employment.

If the House agrees to it, the measure will be “the toughest anti-illegal-immigration bill in the country,” said Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston and leader of the Senate.

“They’re going to get what they wished for,” and more, McConnell said.

“We’ve tried to incorporate everybody’s concerns.” Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach, one of three House members assigned to work out the differences between the two versions, said it sounded good.

“I’m really kind of surprised,” he said.

Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, said he was happy with the compromise.

He said he has been campaigning for next month’s primary elections and voters have told him “this is the No. 1 issue with them.”

The move came at the end of a day in which opponents tried to stall action by filibustering an attempt to add previous compromise language to a House bill sponsored by Viers that called for a study committee on immigration.

Sen. John Land, D-Manning, started the filibuster, saying the proposal was unfair to small businesses, especially farmers who need migrant labor.

“This would put the farming industry in South Carolina out of business,” Land said.

When a truckload of laborers arrives at dawn, “you can’t be running around e-verifying,” he said, referring to the federal online immigration status database.

He also objected to provisions that deny public services to illegal immigrants, saying he does not want to live in a state that would deny medical care to a sick child.

Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms, said the farmer does not have to do the verification.

The labor supplier would have to do it.

Land said that would still create an unreasonable burden.

Others noted the proposal did not include any penalties or means of enforcement against employers who hired illegal immigrants.

Land moved to table the amendment but members refused, 40-5, to table it.

McConnell then brought out the compromise version.

It adds civil, not criminal, penalties that range from $250 to $10,000, depending on the offense.

State Labor, Licensing and Regulation will handle the enforcement and checking of employer verifications.

The enforcement of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants would take effect as soon as the bill is signed.

In July, a notice would be sent to all employers that on July 1, 2009, the law would apply to businesses with 100 or more employees.

Those who hire fewer would have another year, to 2010, to comply.

McConnell said that gives all employers plenty of notice of what is coming so they can make arrangements to comply with the law.

The Senate proposal also puts back in place a provision that workers who are laid off and replaced by an illegal immigrant can sue and be repaid all damages, not just lost wages.

The changes passed on a voice vote with no audible opposition.

Gov. Mark Sanford immediately issued a statement criticizing the compromise and the Senate for not taking a recorded vote on the issue.

The measure will have a routine third reading today before being sent to the House. Viers said he is not sure if that will be in time for the House to take it up today. If not, it will be considered on Tuesday.

Lawmakers on Wednesday also expressed their indignation over the Rev. Philip Miles being held in prison in Russia and demanded his release.

Miles, pastor of Christ Community Church in Conway, was sentenced to three years in prison for taking rifle bullets as a gift to a friend he was visiting.

A resolution passed first by the House, then the Senate, says it is obvious that Miles was not attempting to commit a crime, and that legislators wish to express “great concern” for the welfare of Miles.

The resolution will be sent to Russian government officials.

Myrtle Beach Sun News
Zane Wilson
5/1/08

COLUMBIA -The Senate’s leader on immigration reform took a new tack on breaking the logjam Tuesday when he attached the legislation to a bill the House has already passed and tied up all other debate until the issue is resolved.

Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, used the maneuver to force debate and a vote on the House bill to which he attached his immigration proposal.

No vote was taken Tuesday, but Ritchie will have the floor when the Senate convenes at 11 a.m. today.

Ritchie, author of the legislation and chairman of the Senate’s three-person conference committee to work out differences with the House bill, said it was the best thing he could think of to try to end the two weeks of back-and-forth blaming and demands between the two chambers over who should act first and how on a point in the bill most agree on.

“I’m asking the Senate to lead on this one for the people of South Carolina,” Ritchie said.

The two houses mostly agreed on the bill, but the House, after first refusing to impose employment verification rules on private employers, changed its mind.

House conferees said they wanted to require the online federal verification system for all employers, or a state driver’s license or photo ID. The existing federal I-9 form would not be good enough.

Eliminating the I-9 form failed in the Senate debate when the chamber passed its version of the bill, so the change forces a new vote on both sides.

But who should go first and whether the vote should be by simple majority or two-thirds is an issue of the operating rules of each side, and neither would budge.

The business community continues to oppose eliminating the I-9, which is simply filled out and filed away.

Some senators are concerned that not all small businesses have ready access to computers.

Ritchie said the bill allows two weeks for verification, and the state Employment Service will do it for people, or they can go to a public library if they do not have their own computers.

Ritchie’s tactic means the proposal could pass with a simple majority vote, and the House could then do the same. It also forces the senators to focus on it if they want to get any other bills passed in time to send them over to the House.

The deadline to send new bills from one side to the other is midnight tonight.

“I think what the Senate did is the right course of action,” said Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach, one of the three House conferees on the immigration bill. “I just think it shows the importance of this issue.”

Constituents made themselves heard after lawmakers went home last week without a resolution, he added.

“A lot of phone calls were made over the weekend,” Viers said.

The bill to which Ritchie attached the immigration legislation is one Viers sponsored calling for a study committee on immigration legislation.

It was filed in December 2006 and the House passed it almost a year ago. Since then, it lay untouched on the Senate agenda.

“I think that’s even better because now my bill could become the new comprehensive immigration law,” Viers said.

On another topic, a Senate bill allowing public schools to team with local colleges on a 1 percent sales tax for capital projects stalled briefly when senators from other areas of the state said they wanted their districts included, too.

In trying to write the bill for Horry County without mentioning it by name - which would be unconstitutional - local lawmakers left out areas that do not have countywide school districts.

Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, said that was not the intention and he agreed to hold the bill over until today for adjustment.

The House also put off consideration of the Senate’s version of the budget until Thursday.

Myrtle Beach Sun News
Zane Wilson
4/30/08

COLUMBIA -The House-Senate bickering over who should act first, and how, on a compromise immigration reform bill continued Friday when House Speaker Bobby Harrell fired a volley over to the Senate.

Harrell, R-Charleston, wrote to Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, chairman of the conference committee that is working on a compromise between the two versions of the bill.

Later in the day, Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston and leader of the Senate, fired back, repeating his chamber’s position on the issue.

The Senate demanded on Thursday that the House vote on the compromise, which eliminates the federal I-9 form as an acceptable use.

The forms are usually simply filled out and filed, and many lawmakers say they are a loophole for employers who deliberately hire illegal immigrants.

The Senate insisted the House vote “free conference,” meaning it allows the members of the conference committee to negotiate over an item. Free conference takes a two-thirds vote, however, and the House insists it does not need free conference to remove the I-9 from the list of acceptable verifications.

Harrell’s letter, a copy of which was provided to the media, said the Senate apparently does not understand the House rules and that there is precedent for what the members want to do.

Harrell demanded that the Senate members of the conference committee sign the agreement so the House can hold its majority-only vote on it.

“All they have to do is sign our report, and we’ll take a vote,” said Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach, a member of the conference committee. “They’re trying to muddy the waters.”

The Senate says it cannot sign the report unless the House gets a free conference vote because that is what Senate rules require.

McConnell’s letter said the public cannot have confidence in laws legislators pass if lawmakers won’t abide by their own rules.

Viers said there was talk that the conference committee may meet again Tuesday, but as of Friday afternoon it had not been scheduled.

Despite the verbal swordplay, members on both sides say they believe they will reach an agreement.

School sales tax

A bill allowing public schools to partner with local colleges on a capital improvement sales tax referendum is headed for passage this week.

The House passed the bill, sponsored by Horry County’s House members, and sent it to the Senate on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, an almost identical bill sponsored by Sen. Ray Cleary, R-Murrells Inlet, passed the second of three readings in the Senate with little discussion. Third readings are usually routine. When companion bills pass in both chambers, it is usually simple to combine them for final passage without each going through the committee process again.

Few committee meetings are scheduled this week, with both chambers dedicating their time Tuesday and Wednesday to passing as many bills as they can over to the other side before the May 1 deadline. Sometimes they will work until midnight April 30.

The House is also expected to review Senate action on the $7 billion budget. The Senate stripped all projects and most economic development funds, including tourism promotion, after a grim revenue forecast.

Myrtle Beach Sun News
Zane Wilson
4/27/08

Dot McCracken
Socastee