Apparently committee vote on beer bill delayed

In the S.C. General Assembly, the House Judiciary Committee was supposed to vote Tuesday on whether to send House Bill 3218 to the floor for a full-House vote. The bill would allow South Carolinians to buy, and retailers and wholesalers to sell, beers that exceed the current limit of 5-percent alcohol by weight.

Apparently, this vote has been delayed. I haven't received a return phone call from the Judiciary chairman's office for the official explanation, but I have two decent pieces of evidence that suggest the vote was delayed.

1. The State House Web page devoted to House Bill 3218 doesn't list any activity taken on the bill yesterday (Tuesday). The page includes a "History of Legislative Action" which tracks each procedure that the bill goes through. The line for today, April 11, reads, "Debate ajourned on Senate amendments until Wednesday, April 18, 2007." So one could guess that, possibly, the Senate has offered some tweaks to House Bill 3218, so the vote is delayed perhaps because the committee members need to give some thought to those tweaks. Read the House Bill 3218 page at http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess117_2007-2008/bills/3218.htm .

2. A group called Pop the Top South Carolina has been monitoring the bill's progress in the House and the Senate, and their blog post from today says essentially the same thing I have above. You can read their post here: http://ptcsc.wordpress.com/2007/04/11/41107/ .

I'll post updates as I get more info.

-Colin Burch