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Steve Interviews Johnathan Hill, Author of the Bad Bill Sheet · Conversations With the Hoff

• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Pull up a chair.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Lean in close.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Got a question.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful day on the South Strand.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Conversations with the Hoff.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Steve Hoffman, your host, and with me in the studio today is the executive producer of Liberty Crack Media, Tripp Detmering.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everybody.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: For those of you who are file have been following the shenanigans happening at our South Carolina State Legislature, you're probably going to be familiar with today's call-in guest, former state representative and author of the periodic bad bill sheet, Jonathan Hill.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yay! Representative Hill is a former South Carolina State Representative, known for his uncompromising, limited government philosophy, and his willingness to publicly challenge legislation he viewed as unconstitutional, overreaching, or fiscally irresponsible.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: He has worked as a software engineer and consultant and owns Comprite Enterprises.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: He served District 8 in the South Carolina House from 2015 to 2022, where he became known as a mastery of House rules and his reputation as a principal dissenter.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's saying it tactfully.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: During his tenure, uh Representative Hill frequently published or supported the bad bill analysis, efforts to flag legislation he believed expanded government power, increased spending, or violated individual liberties.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: His legislative style earned him both strong grassroots support and friction within the General Assembly.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: No kidding.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Until his uh departure in 2020, upon his departure in 2022, the House formally recommended him for service and steadfast commitment to limited government.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think you also get an award, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I believe so.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the show, Jonathan.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be back.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for being back.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having us.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: So before we get into the specific uh legislative issues, the bit the numerous bad bills, your bio says that you were a state representative for seven years for District 8.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever considered running for the State House again?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um well I'll tell you what, uh this session in particular has made me uh remember all the reasons why I'm glad I'm not there in person.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: I bet.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Especially the fact that you get done at uh 5 p.m.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: on uh adjournment day, which is yesterday, and it's a day that you're counting down to all year.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is, I don't care who you are, even the speaker of the house.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then you you get done, you adjourn at 5 p.m., and then in an hour the governor calls you back into session at 11 a.m.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: the next morning.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they're back today.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm very glad not to be in the State House.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So so it's quite an effort you go through when you analyze all these bills that are being presented to the legislature.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And basically you you uh rip them up, you rip them a good good one when if they increase taxes or government spending, if they create new regulations or mandates, if they grow the bureaucracy, or they favor special interest, or they weaken parental rights or medical freedom, or they basically just infringe on our constitutional rights.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm sure there's that's a very few number of people of uh bills that you that meet those categories.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm being facetious, obviously.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was just looking at the index of everything that we've covered this year, and it just the index is four pages.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: That ought to tell you something.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: How many bills do you think this represents as far as a uh a percentage of the total bills that are introduced to the legislature?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, uh it's a tiny fraction of the bills introduced that actually get a vote.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's why my focus has always been only on the bills that move.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that actually.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: A bill that moves is going to be a bill that gets put on a agenda somewhere, either in committee or on the floor where it could possibly get a vote.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's get started and talk about some of these really bad bills.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um what, in your opinion, what would be one of the worst bills that's been introduced that infringes on our individual liberties?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um one of the one of the bills that I probably personally despise the most was the so-called parental rights bill uh by a speaker of the House, Tommy Pope.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um just over and over and over again, this this bill in the name of trying to protect parental rights, especially in a public school setting, um in terms of the the parents' relationship with the district, it it will stay to right, but then it will cordon off that right.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: It will um place limits, it will say, you know, there's there's just a lot of really objectionable stuff, and it was quite frankly, it was a little bit hard to break through the framing on that one.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, when you when you say this is a parental rights bill and you know a layman looks at it and sees a bunch of rights sounding language in there, um, you know, they tend to believe that frame.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and when you tell them that that rights are meant to be respected, they're not meant to be regulated by the state.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're meant to be complied with by the state.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's it's uh there was a lot of grassroots controversy about that one.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, I'm glad to report that one did not pass.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's House Bill 4757.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's good, but it's that is that is one of those that did not pass.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it's something to watch for, it could come back up next year.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: It seems like um what I call legislative Trojan horses, they they give these things titles where they throw in rights and things.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: And when they say rights, they actually mean restrictions.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_04: And um when they say uh uh you know reduction, they actually mean increase and and things like that.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_04: Is that uh uh something that they purposely cook into this uh this morass and sausage so that the the public doesn't take a closer look and only watchdogs like you are able to do this?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I do think that's where I'm uniquely positioned to do it because I I have an activist's heart and I also have a legislator's experience.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I can I know the tricks.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know the tricks that they pull.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not an attorney, but I am a software developer, as you noted in the opening, and so that that does make me very, very attentive to detail.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's you know, there's uh there's plenty of situations like this where they they try and pull the wool.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes all it takes is for somebody to blow the whistle for that to um that to be thwarted.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um another uh example I could give you that came up near the end of session was there was a bill to outright ban uh Kratom.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now um Kratom was regulated with a consumer safety bill, I believe, just a year ago.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um and and then uh the House brought forward a bill to outright ban it.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then they rewrote the bill in committee in a way that seemed to protect the legal status of Kratom, but uh it took a lot of really careful reexamination to see that no, actually, this is a really clever way to to still ban it, just with different words.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: For an old guy like me who's behind the times, what is Kratom?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a that's a plant, and some people use it for management of certain physical symptoms, uh, I believe pain type stuff.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some have said they've been able to get off the opioids.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_04: It would be on the shelves right next to the CBDs and things like that, and it was getting very popular.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but once again, right.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um you've got the alcohol lobby that was trying to get into it.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_04: The uh the uh medical lobby was trying to reduce it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so was the I guess you'd call it, you know, like the the things you would get at uh uh these you know um vitamin shops and things like that.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_04: That that lobby was trying to uh get get these things out.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if they're gonna go after Kratom, they're probably gonna go after what keeps me awake, and that's my C BD.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta have my C B D.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: They have come out.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_04: They will never do that, right?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, they have been doing it's almost verbatim.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_04: They have almost used the same script to come after your CBD.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um Well, and and the some of the same people that were pushing the Kratom bill did also try to come after hemp.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, H3924.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, huge carb bounce into the uh hemp bill to uh ultimately ban a lot of stuff that that don't need to be banned.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's basically banning hemp products.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is a uh a growing industry in South Carolina, the hemp farmers and stuff.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hemp can be used for a multitude of uh uses, and uh hemp farming would be a big economic stimulus in South Carolina.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: What is the legislature trying to do here?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh kill uh agricultural economy, or it doesn't make sense to Yeah, it's it's like on the one hand, you see them um trying to do economic development deals like uh another bill that would have cut the um constitutional 9.5 percent property tax on vehicles that applies to airplanes.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: There was a bill to um create an exemption that would effectively lower that rate to six percent uh for airplanes.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, airplanes are not cheap vehicles.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can imagine how much money we're talking about.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hundreds of thousands probably, uh if not millions.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um boy you know, they they they rewrote the bill to say that um we'll give fee in lieu of tax deals to any uh you know airline that meets our criteria and that we sign off on and only next year.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So like come on.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to create we want to we want to control the business growth in South Carolina.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah we s we say we want to um develop uh businesses, but then you know on the other hand, we're making life harder, we're putting more um we're raising licensing fees for different uh occupations, we're putting more license uh requirements on new occupations.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's been several of those this year.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: All that kind of stuff actually hinders the growth of business, not spurring it on.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just it's it's the it's the tyrant's move, right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: They they want to be in control, they want to be in control of money, they want to be in control of everything.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So much for economic freedom.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh talking about other freedoms, our legislatures don't seem to understand the uh right to due process.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: What is that, the Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and uh Institute for Justice uh talks about uh you know the agrarious actions like civil asset forfeiture.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Our legislature is definitely uh uh in support of civil asset forfeiture.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: You've got uh H.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: 4292 legalizing automotive theft by COP.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk a little bit about that?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um uh that bill definitely went through several different iterations in during the process.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but the gist of it, as I understand it, um is saying that you know you can't have a bunch of hoodlums to, you know, take over a roadway and and you know run some kind of informal or formal event where they, you know, do stunts on the road or race or you know, r run nitrous-powered cars and and do all this cra you know, all this stuff and you've got a bunch of bystanders.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: The original bill was was pretty severe.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it would it would you know hand out misdemeanors just for being there watching um to a lot of people.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they they they um appealed some of that back um and and watered the bill down, which was appropriate.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: But unfortunately, near the near the end, they actually strengthened the forfeiture language in the bill that um basically said that you know cops can forfeit vehicles that they uh that they seize uh here and specifically said that the proceeds have to go to the police department that seized it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it it creates that perverse incentive, um especially in smaller towns where maybe they don't have as much money and so they're going to take advantage of opportunities to to get more resources.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, if you ever see a cop driving around in something that doesn't look like a normal police car, um be it a really you know cool dude truck or or you know sporty car or something like that, dollars to no nuts, they seized that from somebody and they probably did it without due process.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I mean by that is the difference between criminal asset forfeiture and civil asset forfeiture, um, as the Institute for Justice has been explaining for years, is that in criminal asset forfeiture you get accused of a crime, you go through trial, uh, you get convicted by a jury of your peers, and part of the punishment is you lose the property that was involved in the commission of your crime or that you gained from that commission of a crime.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um so if you've been, you know, selling drugs or something and you you bought this vehicle or these guns or whatever the case may be, uh losing that property should be part of the punishment for the crime.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not not advocating necessarily that our gun laws are just, but just giving a common example that you see in headlines.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, if uh, you know, that's different from a uh civil asset forfeiture proceeding where let's say there's a traffic stop and you have$20,000 in cash um, you know, in a bag in your car, and the cop thinks he smells pot, or claims that he thinks he smells pot.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he takes that money because he says, clearly you've been dealing pot.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, why would you have$20,000 in cash in your car?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Normal people don't carry around$20,000 in cash.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking that, that's that that you've been dealing drugs, and makes the accusation, pulls that money, and then a judge schedules a forfeiture hearing within 30 days, or at least they're supposed to, um, where you have to come and prove your innocence, not your guilt, but your innocence, in order to get your property back.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: So good luck with that.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't uh have the ability to to do that very well.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're going up against the government.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and what ends up happening so often is they just end up keeping the money if if through hassle, if nothing else.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was no crime committed, at least none that was adjudicated.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you know, if cop rolls up on uh you know somebody racing down the road, does this new bill mean that they can take your car if you were racing on the road?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that seems pretty severe.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm very concerned because it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, and now they just kind of flipped it to guilty until proven innocent.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, it creates an environment of policing for profit.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the police department used to have a mo uh uh a mo um what do you call it?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um which was to protect and serve.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so much for that, if you're policing for profit, you're not protecting and serving the public.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Just just the opposite.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's a perverse incentive.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I I do know that there are many who take that motto very, very seriously, but this this is the system that they operate within.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they're just complying with state law.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: The the legislature, the state politicians are encouraging it.
• 18:01
  unknown: Right.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there are policemen out there that want to do their job right and want to protect and serve and not not want to be somebody that's viewed as a criminal by the population.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and the worst offender on civil asset forfeiture um uh just got sentenced.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was former chair uh sheriff of Spartanburg, Chuck Wright.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um so one can hope that the amount of this happening in South Carolina will decrease now.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: But this was being pushed all the way from the highest levels, all the way from Alan Wilson and the Chief of Sled themselves.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I'd just love to see asset courts where uh anything that's seized by anybody has to go into just a public uh uh what I would call public warehouse or a public lot, and then they they have to go to court and prove why it is they should have the uh they should have those assets as opposed to having it uh sold and go to the public coffers uh for debt and or go back to the person who originally owned the property.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give a quick shout out on this to my friend State Senator Tom Fernandez.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um prior to going into the state senate, um, I don't know how many people know this, he used to run a drone business.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a drone regulation bill that came up uh in this session, and uh and you know, scrutinizing that and looking at the forfeiture language there, um if you you know run a um drone, let's say without the proper FFAA um, you know, authorizations or or you get too close to a military installation or something like that, and they take your drone down, um, they're not allowed to forfeit that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, um they're not they're specifically in the law not allowed to keep any proceeds for that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're not even allowed to keep the drone.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're required to re-home it through an administrative procedure, which sounds an awful lot to me like um finding another um you know qualified drone operator and say, here, take this, you know, take this off our hands.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, um there are ways of doing these things, and um it it you know, we don't have to we don't have to keep doing the unjust illegal stuff.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Senator uh Fernandez was recently elected to the state senate, and he's like the lone freedom caucus member of the state senate, if there is such a thing, but uh it's it's good to see him in there.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know um Senator Lee Bright is uh also extremely conservative, glad to have him back in there too.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and hoping they can they and and some of the others will um uh kill as many bad bills as possible for us in the coming years.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm certainly doing my part to try to encourage that.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, at the national level, our privacy rights are being violated every day with more and more surveillance type uh uh um legislation, and uh it also happens at the state legislature.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh S447, license plate surveillance.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you you you were very critical of that particular piece of legislation.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and that comes at the cost of uh estimated fiscal impact of$310,000, which seemed a little low to me for this type of policy.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: But um but yeah, I mean anytime the government is automatically reading uh your license plate, um that's going to go that has the potential to go into a database and function as a de facto tracking system.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So they can at least know where your car is.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: They can't may not may or may not be able to know for sure who is driving the vehicle, but they at least know where your vehicle is.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, with AI, they can all of a sudden marry that information with your cell phone information and yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's yes, and that that's already happening uh in certain situations.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh again, I don't know how many people know this, but law enforcement already has fusion centers.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of um uh focus and scrutiny on new data center development with AI and so forth, but actually law enforcement have been using data centers for 15 years, and what they've been doing is taking all these pipes of data from the state and from local law enforcement entities and putting it all in one massive centralized database where they can correlate all that data together.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's very useful for them in some situations in chasing down criminals, but for the private citizen, it's also a very um terrifying prospect that they have a lot more information on you at any given time than you might uh expect that they would.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Also, the um our state legislature doesn't seem to like us to have freedom of speech, also.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a bill out there called the gag bill.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, not 960.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_04: Why don't they call it the gag Jonathan Hill bill?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or gag the Palmetto State Watch bill, or gag the South Carolina Policy Institute bill.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: American party, there's an inner.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: number of issue focused organizations that this was very overtly targeted at.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's some leftist ones too um that that this would have would have impacted as well.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think a lot of people um get lost uh in the in the haze um and in the in the um hot air that politicians blow about stuff like this and you know politicians will frame it in terms of well we need transparency if somebody's going to influence politics we you know you have a right to know who they are well if you if you as a private citizen are trying to influence politics do does everyone have a right to know who you are I mean that's really what the question is and uh our founders would say absolutely the heck not right um that's what the First Amendment is all about is protected free speech um free political speech in particular free speech that may be sometimes critical of the elected officials the incumbents in particular right um and free speech about issues that are before us you know that that your elected officials are dealing with so um I really like the way um former uh director of of the South Carolina Policy Council Ashley Landis back who was there back in the day when I was in in the state house um she used to say on this issue specifically and they fought against the gaga back then as well um she used to say uh transparency is for government privacy is for citizens yes yeah and I think you really can sum up that whole debate with that one one statement transparency is for government privacy is for citizens.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah and you've also got my um particular uh state senator who wants to go after you for his definition of hate speech and that's uh s uh 702 criminal coercive control oh boy yeah yeah that was uh so uh these bills that we've mentioned um on surveillance and and and free speech attacks fortunately these did not pass this session I want to be clear with everyone about that but it is something we need to be extremely vigilant about the voters still have to be aware of the of the legislatures that are proposing these things sorry to cut you off but yeah they didn't they didn't make it out of the legislature but we got these legislatures doing these things in the first place we need to communicate to the the electorate that hey watch these guys why aren't you sending these guys to the to uh Colombia to Mordor on the Congary you know right right yeah so um S 702 by Goldfinch who um filed and got this heard you know in the lead up to the election that he's running in for Attorney General you know he's certainly this is a um a very naked pander that he's doing here um he's trying to be Mr.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Good guy for all the battered women out there um and I don't mean I'm not trying to disparage anyone who has gone through you know a a bad time a hard time but as I dialogued with some of some of the the folks this is one of them when you know my criticisms you know definitely met with some harsh countercriticism from certain quarters in the grassroots and um and and and the thing that I just come back to is that look every I mean if you know when you have a when you have a psychopath or you have an abuser who is uh helping us on doing their thing and making your life miserable they're going to use every avenue at their disposal including every law in the in the state and you know the outcome is very much going to be dependent on uh the relevant uh state actors uh seeing through the facade of of lies and you know how much do you trust the state to actually get this right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or is the answer going to be to put more tools in the hands of the state?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know is is it because they they use the tools that we have already given them so well that you trust them to give them even more tools that abusers are surely not going to use against you?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're not thinking we're we're just emoting at this point.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly and in the libertarian community we call this unintended consequences so you think you have a good piece of it legislation but the unintended consequences are agrarious they're going to step on your individual rights of free speech.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right right okay so uh our politicians also we they don't like competition they definitely don't like competition they got a good old boy game going on there especially in theft there's a bill out there called 3557 H3557 has to do with filing fees.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I can think of no better piece of legislation to keep third parties out of the electoral process than this particular bill yeah it will absolutely keep third parties out of the governor's race and other statewide races where the filing fee is very high.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: It it may not keep them out of state legislative races where the filing fee is relatively low.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you know running for uh U.S.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Senate you're not you're gonna see fewer third party candidates there.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a good thing?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think it is.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_04: No not at all.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: Especially with the rise of uh some of these newer third parties like the forward party and and things like that even though we might not be in uh lockstep with these people they do have fresh ideas they do have some uh great people that are would be coming out but again um it's the I guess we would say the Uniparty uh the two major parties that are trying to lock people out and they do it with a bunch of scare tactics oh we're trying to keep the uh the communists out and things like that and uh it it's it really doesn't ring true um the other thing too is unfortunately this is a bill that did pass so H3557 is in at the governor's desk to be signed.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah and and the the other thing is that it uh it makes the third parties that do uh contribute uh actually pay for uh because they they don't really will would not have um uh the uh elections they usually do their through their party a uh uh what is the word I'm looking for here Steve um in instead of having a election versus a convention yeah so we're actually paying for the major parties primaries uh with our our funds and yeah it it's just punitive all the way around.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah that's that's a big rub.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it you know it's one thing I I'm not against filing fees if um you know if you're having a primary and and the state is having to run an election um in order to nominate your candidates.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not involving the state in that you're having your own convention the the state shouldn't be charging anything.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that this bill did is it allows um the parties themselves to authorize a adding a surcharge to the filing fee that then goes I believe to the party.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: So originally I was limited to up to a hundred dollars they removed that limits that amount that that certification fee or convenience fee or whatever that the individual parties want to uh levy is is basically open-ended.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah yeah yeah and then some of that was to discourage uh what we called um fusion candidates that would uh run one person would run under two two party flags yeah there was uh last session legislation that would have outright banned that right I opposed that bill as well I'm I will have to go back and check on the status of of what happened with that.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: So before we wrap up here one of your categories or your criteria is you label something a bad bill if it favors special interests any you want to talk a little bit about that?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any particular piece of legislation?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can think of Scott Motors but anything uh agrarious that happened this session that favored special interests yeah yeah um I mean I I usually um use the words legal plunder to describe this that's that's that's a girl from from uh Frederick Bastia from way back in the in the 1800s who who wrote a tiny little book called the law that was so influential in my thinking and and it should be required reading for everyone in office.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely um basically um you know any bill that that takes money takes tax dollars and redirects it to um you know any any non-government project so uh you know a nonprofit outside of government or you know some constituency or something like that even if it's a worthy cause so you you see I I would categorize uh farm bailouts I believe there was one of those um included in the in the state budget you see you see a lot of emergency type funding you know trying to um uh uh help either farmers or you know in some cases like foresters that's a recent one that's come up uh with you know um money going out to people that had timber that was destroyed in Helene uh a couple years ago um you know these sorts of things um i it's not the role of government to be in the insurance business um and unfortunately we do have some situations where you're forced to pay into government insurance regimes uh essentially um but you know it's it's it's not the taxpayers job to make you whole when things happen it's not um it's you know there's nothing absolutely nothing virtuous about being generous with other people's money um hey Steve I'm gonna I'm gonna take uh uh five thousand dollars of your money and I'm gonna make a very generous donation to my favorite charity you know that's legal plunder right that that's legal plunder I couldn't legally do that as a private citizen why do we let the government do that at the force of law yeah it's the same thing.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well that's why the voters in a particular district when your candidate comes for your the town hall meetings or whatever you need to ask the question to the candidate what is the primary role of government?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if the answer is not to protect and preserve the individual rights of the voters then you might want to start looking for another candidate.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well and there's good reasons to think that this is this shouldn't be the role of government as well I mean we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that uh everything that uh government touches turns to gold right yeah right okay when government interferes in the economy bad things happen you don't even have private comedy private industry with its yeah the private industry with its evil profit motives pretty much always does a better job than government at just about anything you you could name.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah there are a few jobs that government has to do I'm not an anarchist but um you know it's it's not like government is a any sort of paragon of efficiency or uh humaneness or anything like that.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: We could go on for days talking about that particular subject but unfortunately I have to wrap it up so uh I want to slap slap the label of minarchist on them but yeah.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well thanks for being on the show Representative Hill.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: I hope our listening audience can appreciate the tremendous effort it takes to analyze the hundreds of bills presented to our state legislature each year.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: If more people read your bad bill sheets and voted the big government tax and spend politicians out of public office from both parties South Carolina might actually one day be a state that actually enhances or embraces limited government individual and economic freedom I can only wish and pray for that day.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the legislative session ended yesterday but it's gonna start again I guess according to Jonathan Hill Monday we're in overtime actually today.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic so one of my next sessions are episodes of Conversations with the Hoff we're gonna take a an example out of Microsoft monkeys and we're gonna talk about the good the bad and the ugly of this year's legislative session.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Microphone monkeys microphone did I just do it again so that episode should be very informative and a lot of fun thanks for listening to Conversations with the Hoff and now a word from our glorious leader the executive producer of Liberty Crack Media Trip Detmering Oh and it's always great to have our good friend Jonathan Hill on with us.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_04: If you want to find out more about the bad bill sheet we will have a link to a substack in our show notes and if you want to find more content from Liberty Crack Media go to Libertycrackmedia.com and if you really are starting to feel generous with the uh money that's not being taxed uh go and hit the donate button when you get onto our uh website and once again thank you again and come and get more conversations with the question black off campus quad to the capital steps turn it up and turn it over anymore next to the conversation turning it up and turn it over in between old school roots and a freedom dream all the three what you find one more question we're conversations with the last shoes off the shoes are left and red conversation for the last rather take a little time to figure through