Dear Editor:
West Columbia, SC - 02/08/2021 (Rep. Micah Caskey) - Recently, House Bill 3103 hit the floor of the South Carolina House of Representatives. The bill, presented as a “boating safety” effort, would require all boaters in South Carolina to complete a boating safety course. The bill grandfathered all boaters currently age 16 or older, so that this “only” impacts future adults.
Mr. Randall Smith, a dedicated champion of boating safety, has misrepresented my position on the bill. To be clear, I think requiring an online Powerpoint-type “course” is lip-service to a very real problem; my view is that if you’re going to do something, you should do it in a way that actually fixes the problem—anything less is a waste of everyone’s time. In the statistics cited to justify the bill, advocates pointed out that almost 50% of boating accidents are from a lack of attention to operating the boat – I am simply unconvinced that an online course will fix this problem. It’s clear that Mr. Smith and I disagree over this point, and I accept that. Rational minds can differ, after all. But we didn’t even reach that point in the process.
However, it is not accurate to say that I killed the bill. In the floor debate, I raised a procedural point of order that requires any bill ‘effecting the expenditures of money by the State shall have a fiscal impact estimate attached to it.’ However noble the purpose, I think it’s important to know how much money we’re spending before we spend it. If a bill doesn’t have the fiscal impact statement, the bill is paused until it does. If the bill were to pass, by the time it was fully implemented (i.e., once all the under-16 year olds are adults), we will have more than 500,000 boaters whose course completion needs to be tracked and available in a database. How much would that cost? What will it cost to maintain it? What happens if there’s a database breach? I think it’s essential to ask these questions before spending tax dollars. There’s no free lunch, after all. I raise that question on all bills.
You can watch the video of what I said for yourself beginning at the 49:05 mark in the February 4, 2021 House of Representatives video available at https://www.scstatehouse.gov/video/archives.php. Interestingly, my point of order was actually overruled. The bill was then free to move forward.
Another representative, not me, then made a motion that sent the bill back to a committee to work out the details of these questions, and others. I had no hand in that motion. Ordinarily, I would simply ignore such a gross distortion of the facts, but since this is an issue that impacts our community, I think it’s important to set the record straight. I don’t think this bill would be effective, so if you want to disagree with me on that view, that is fair game. You cannot accurately say, though, that I killed the bill. I simply want fiscal accountability all of the time – whether it’s boating safety, saving the puppies, or reforming our pension system.
I appreciate Mr. Smith’s passion for this issue, and I wholly respect his views, but it is important that what happened here be described accurately. Micah
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