Sen. Hugh Leatherman appeared relaxed and confident.
Leatherman, R-Florence, asked fellow Senators to override Gov. Henry McMaster’ veto of $7.1 million for Francis Marion University.
A science building on Francis Marion’s campus is named for Leatherman, whose daughter sits on the university’s board of trustees.
Leatherman is chairman of the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee which in April added $7.1 million for the university, The Nerve has reported.
McMaster said the proposal – $5 million for a medical and health education classroom complex and $2.1 million for the honors college – “represents special treatment above and beyond what was afforded to any other higher education institution.”
McMaster said lawmakers already had allocated nearly $50 million from the state’s capital reserve fund for universities on “an equitable” basis. The capital reserve fund is a constitutionally mandated “rainy day” fund that’s raided by lawmakers annually.
After Leatherman – arguably the state’s most powerful lawmaker – asked his colleagues to override the veto, the Senate overwhelmingly agreed, following the House’s lead earlier. 
There was no debate on the vetoes in either chamber.
The House and Senate also easily overrode McMaster’s vetoes of parts of the same budget proviso directing $250,000 to the state Department of Archives and History for the Charleston Library Society’s Beaux Arts Building, and $500,000 to the SC Arts Commission for the South Carolina Children’s Theatre.