Do the right thing for state’s first responders
To the editor:
These people [legislators] are supposed to be working for all of us, not for political parties or their donors or out-of-state, non-elected egomaniacs such as the Koch brothers or the anti-tax pledge blackmailer Grover Norquist. Since when are our first responders, police and firefighters so robotic that they should be able to continue to do their jobs without seeking help in dealing with death, such as their partners being killed in front of them or having to kill the perpetrator of your partner or other murders?
Do we really want police or firefighters who aren’t deeply bothered by killing someone or by seeing their partners killed or just seeing the victims of too many horrendous murders? Why shouldn’t these incidents be covered by workers’ compensation? That our legislators, such as Sen. Chauncey Gregory, R-Lancaster, think they should have to incur the costs themselves on their own insurance policies is appalling. Why does this disgust me? When we have to fork over a ridiculous amount of money for their salaries — even when they haven’t earned anything but our disdain, along with their fat retirement fund and their health insurance policies — they have the nerve to deny help to those who protect them!
Following that is another story about another legislator who ought to be ashamed, but obviously is impervious to his ignorance and arrogance about an issue he clearly doesn’t have a clue about! Okay, someone tell me why we can display less respect for a critical member of the police force — as important as the bulletproof vests that everyone agrees saves lives — but because they have four legs instead of two, they’re not as important and don’t deserve to have anyone who harms them in the line of duty pay for it with appropriate prison sentences.
I would like to suggest that we fit Democratic S.C. Rep. David Weeks of Sumter and several of his colleagues with bulletproof vests and let them go out on a “wanted dead or alive” man or men hunt and go after them ahead of the two-legged officers whose lives have been saved daily by these officers by their four-legged partners by subduing the killers until they can get to them. Since these legislators are so concerned for these killers that a sentence for one of them who kills a police dog might be too high at between two and 10 years. Perhaps if they had to walk in their paw prints, they would realize how disgusting their concern is…for the wrong thing. If anything, 10 years should be the minimum for a sentence of killing a police dog!
— Helen C. Foley, Columbia, S.C.
More work needed to pass real alimony reform
To the editor:
I just wanted to let you know that today’s Statehouse Report contains an error regarding the bill passed from the Senate onto the House. It states that permanent alimony will go away and I only wish that were the case.
The bill that actually got through without objection or a minority report was S. 1170, which simply prohibits a judge from considering income or assets of a subsequent wife when determining the amount of alimony for the previous wife. That bill is impossible to argue so it’s not surprising it was the only one to get through.
Currently, Sen. Gerald Malloy (D-Hartsville) is blocking S. 169, which establishes transitional alimony as an additional choice for a judge to grant; S. 1115, which creates a public policy that no one form of alimony be favored, (which permanent alimony is currently) and that each party’s standard of living be considered equally after an award of alimony, so that the one paying isn’t left in poverty. Additionally, Senator Malloy has filed a minority report on S.1087, which deals directly with modification and termination of alimony at the payor’s retirement along with a list of other factors.
Why he is doing this is anyone’s guess. We have tried to approach him and he has declined conversation. In the judiciary hearing April 12, he did state that alimony needed to be addressed, but doubted these bills “were the way to do it” so he and most of the Democrats voted against a favorable report on the bills. While the vote was tighter than it had been on the same bills two weeks prior, it did receive a favorable report. Mind you, all these bills were constructed with the input of family law attorneys and representation of the S.C. Bar Association and many months of testimony from those whose lives are being crushed under the financial behemoth of alimony. The bills will go nowhere unless Senator Malloy removes his objections.
The House passed H. 4029 last week, which is sponsored by a slew of representatives and is a comprehensive bill containing most of the elements of the four Senate bills. We will wait and see whether it too meets unrelenting resistance. I still am incredulous that while a majority can be in favor of a bill, it only takes one senator to orchestrate its death on the floor. That whole premise is foreign to my sense of a democratic process, but then I guess that’s politics.
— Melissa Cash, vice president of South Carolina Alimony Reform, Greer, S.C.
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