South Carolina Legislature Overrides Governor's Cuts to Arts, Teachers
South Carolina Legislature Overrides Governor's Cuts to Arts, Teachers
Thousands of dollars in state funding will be restored to nonprofit organizations in South Carolina after the Republican-controlled House and Senate voted to override many budget items vetoed by Republican governor Nikki Haley earlier this summer, the New York Times reports.
Representing only $68 million of the state's $6.7 billion budget, the vetoed line items included support for teachers, arts groups, rape crises centers, and scientific research. Although the legislature supported some of the governor's cuts, lawmakers pushed back on other items.
As a result, the state's arts commission will reopen, the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium will reinstate twenty laid-off employees, $10 million in raises will be dispersed to teachers next year, and the state's network of twenty-three domestic violence and rape crisis centers will continue to provide an array of services, including care for people with sickle cell anemia, kidney disease, and hemophilia.
In total, Haley vetoed eighty-one items, which may have pleased conservatives in the state but angered others, some of whom were upset by her association of certain projects, including the rape crisis centers, with special interests. "A good gunslinger doesn't take her pistol out of the holster, so you don't veto hundreds of things because someone is going to override you," said University of South Carolina political science professor Mark E. Tompkins. "She's doing way too much work with vetoes."
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