Category Archives: Priorities

‘Reform’ still an elusive term

1 Reply

The Coastal Conservation League’s Patty Pierce answered my message from yesterday thusly:

Brad,
    Brian White tried to do the same amendment that you are referring to at the Committee level because the staff drafted the bill incorrectly according to him.  Representative Lucas liked it this way, so he may have been the last legislator to speak to the staff when this section was drafted.  Nevertheless, Rep. White tried to get this corrected at the Committee level, but the Committee was tired and didn’t feel like talking about it that late night when they were trying to wrap things up on this bill, so he said he’d just do the amendment during the floor debate.  Everyone knew it was coming, and there was agreement on it.
    Personally, I think once the priorities are adopted that they should not be changed at all until the next time the priorities are supposed to be adopted by the Commission again.  Also, setting the priorities should also be the Commission’s job completely and not the Secretary of Transportation’s in the House bill, so I thought this was a good amendment. It kept the duties separated.  It didn’t make sense for the Secretary of Transportation to be able to reach across to the Commission and ask that the priorities be changed. The Secretary is supposed to run the day to day operations of the DOT in the House bill.  The Commission should set the transportation priorities.  I don’t like the 2/3rds vote to be able to change the transportation priorities, but I can sometimes see when I cannot be effective in changing the minds of some legislators, so I stayed out of this fight.
    I’m copying Elizabeth on this note to keep her in the loop.
    Send any other questions that you may have my way.  I’ll be glad to give you background material if it helps. 

patty

We may be miscommunicating here. I realize about what happened in committee. What I don’t understand is why, after working so hard to get sound priority-setting criteria in place, the League would go along with letting the commission — a commission, of all things, the very root of the current problem — toss the priorities any time 2/3 of them wanted to. At the very least, you would want them to have to wait until some other party — in this case, the secretary, who would supervise the people who actually have the wherewithal to set priorities on the basis of objective criteria rather than mere political whim — suggests the changes.

By eliminating that check, you place the commission just as much in the driver’s seat as it is now, setting all your vaunted reform at naught. And for this the league cast aside any thought of actual structural, fundamental reform?

Eliminating the commission — in any way, shape or form — is essential to accountability at this most unaccountable of agencies. Keep the commission, and you can kiss any other reforms you’ve worked for goodbye, because they won’t be around very long — especially if you agree to make it autonomous from the beginning.

Response to Rushmore

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I very much appreciate the insights provided by new correspondent Rushmore, who, based on intimate knowledge with the subject, begs to differ with some of my observations.

I have a few things to say in response to his/her last remarks on this post, and they’re sufficiently involved that I decided to make it a separate post, to raise the profile of this debate at a critical moment (DOT reform comes back up in the Senate Tuesday).

First, I want to say to Rushmore that I’m sorry if I seemed dismissive. I’m just extremely impatient because after all these years, we have a good chance to change, fundamentally, the relationship between this agency and the people of South Carolina for the better.

To toss aside that chance for the sake of promises that whoever runs it, it will make better decisions in a particular operational area is to miss the opportunity, and they don’t come around that often.

One can push new criteria for setting road priorities ANY time. It’s a highly worthwhile procedural reform, but it doesn’t have nearly the potential for sweeping, positive change that fundamental restructuring has.

The problem may lie in our metaphors. I’ve only met Elizabeth Hagood once, and was quite favorably impressed. Very smart lady. But she and I have gone back and forth on the suitability of her "fix the car" metaphor. As she put it in the video I posted:

If you’ve got a car that’s not working, and you change drivers, you’ve still got a car that’s not working.

She considers restructuring to be the equivalent of changing the driver. I don’t. I say that restructuring is a fundamental change in the kind of vehicle you have — as basic as shift from the internal combustion engine to electric (just to plug another of my videos).

By contrast, implementing new priority-setting protocols is more like deciding what sort of map you’re going to use in determining where the car is going to go. That’s very important, no doubt — no point in having a car if it doesn’t take you where you want to go.

But if I’ve got a chance to get a new car, a better car, that will better suit what a car should be — say, if I could trade in my ’97 Buick for a new Toyota Hybrid Camry (slobber) … well, I’m going to grab that chance, and talk about what sort of map to use and where I want to go after I leave the showroom.

The League and its allies determined early that they would, in Rushmore‘s terms…

… stay out of the debate over DOT’s
management restructuring because addressing this issue would place
conservation groups right in the middle of the eternal and ridiculous
turf war between the Senate and the Governor

That misses the point. The choice in restructuring isn’t between the Legislature and the governor and what they want. It’s between good government and bad, between an agency that is accountable to the people of South Carolina and one that isn’t. The idea that getting the structure of government right is "ridiculous" would be a terrible shock to James Madison.

Anyway, my great hope is that the folks in that coalition, and other reformers such as Vincent Sheheen, will give John Courson’s proposal — which now includes all the things the coalition has worked hard for — a serious look when he presents it again tomorrow.

Let’s not look a gift car in the mouth. Or grill. Or whatever.

Who GOT the pork? Here’s who…

17 Replies

A good question was posed by bud on this last post. He asked for names. Well, at first I was at a loss, because if you want to know whom to blame for the "Competitive Grants" boondoggle, you pretty much need to blame the whole Legislature. They passed it. As for whose idea it was to start with, I still don’t know.

However, I can tell you which lawmakers were sponsors for each of these individual grants. When I set out to do this, I thought it would be hard. I thought I’d have to sift through individual grant applications to find the sponsors. I was prepared to do that.

But when I asked Michael Sponhour over at the Budget and Control Board how I might track down the info, he wrote back 11 minutes later to say,

Brad,
Here is an excel spreadsheet with all competitive grant
applications and awards with sponsors.
Let me know if you need anything else.
 
Mike

So that wasn’t so hard. Enjoy perusing.

What’s really important

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You want me to tell you what’s really important? Do you? Are you sure?

The other day, I posted a quick ditty about the NCAA basketball tournament. It was as much to enhance my own enjoyment as anything else — a form of sports Viagra, if you will. In the past, I’ve really enjoyed the tourney IF I had a bet in a pool. Because I had staked something, even a dollar, on the outcome, I cared, and got involved with the excitement as a spectator. It was fun. It almost made me feel like a normal person — taking interest for a change in both sports and television, at the same time.

But I had missed the deadline for any pools, so I filled out my bracket anyway and posted it, thinking that would be a good hook for me. It didn’t really work, possibly because my son got married over the weekend, so I was even busier than usual — a LOT busier. (And it was a blessed time with family and friends, one of the best I can remember. Much better than basketball.)

Anyway, on a whim, I did a video of my bracket and posted it on YouTube, meaning to link to it from the blog post. But I thought that just too stupid and obsessive for words, so I just went with the still photo.

It’s hard to find a dumber or more boring video than my out-of-focus panning over my poorly-considered picks for the NCAA. And yet, even though I didn’t promote it in any way, 58 people have called it up to watch it.

Sure, that’s not many by YouTube standards, but compare it to 59 views of my video of Lindsey Graham talking about the importance of energy independence — which, in my book, is greater than the importance of what an editorial page editor thinks about who will make it to the Final Four.

And it’s not just that people ignore the videos I push. They just watch what interests them. My first video on Grady Patterson, which I also promoted, has been watched 826 times.

Anyway, now that I know what is important to the viewing public, here is some truly riveting cinema on my basketball picks:

Pontificating Putin piece

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Graham_032

Pontificating Putin pushes Graham

toward energy platform

“Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations — military force…. Primarily the United States has overstepped its national borders, and in every area…. They bring us to the abyss ….”
                    — Vladimir Putin

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
VLADIMIR PUTIN is pushing Lindsey Graham toward the Energy Party, and I feel fine.
    Sure, that anti-American diatribe at the Munich security conference on Feb. 10 was the biggest step back toward Cold War since Nikita K. took off his shoe, but I like to look at the bright side.
Putin_munich
    “The biggest threat to everybody in the room wasn’t al-Qaida, or Chechen rebels, it was the United States,” our senior senator said in an interview last week, marveling at the neo-Stalinist’s international demagoguery. “It was a blatant pitch at trying to divide Europe and the United States, because he sees us as weak.”
    “Which takes us to energy independence,” I said.
    “Which takes us to energy independence,” he nodded.
    I like the way this guy thinks.
    As regular readers know, I recently called for the creation of a new political party, one that would get serious about our greatest strategic vulnerability, while saving the world from global warming at the same time.
    Sen. Graham’s still a Republican, but we might have to nominate him anyway.
    He had thought plenty about this stuff before Munich, but that one intemperate speech (followed immediately by an Iranian dissertation on democracy that seemed to come from some other planet) jacked up his resolve. “Whatever doubts I had about us being energy-independent were put away,” he said. “I don’t think he ever made that speech unless he sensed weakness.”
    So how do we get strong?
    He says the United States government must use economic incentives to encourage hybrid technology, biofuels, hydrogen, nuclear power — pretty much any viable alternatives that we can embrace that neither strengthen the worst bad guys in the world nor pump out more greenhouse-promoting carbon dioxide.
    He would promote the transition to hybrid cars — and eventually hydrogen — on three levels:

  1. Research. Grants for improving the technology.
  2. Wholesale. Tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to make the new vehicles.
  3. Retail. More tax incentives for individuals to buy them.

    He makes sure to point out that South Carolina can play a pivotal role in all this. We’re well positioned to help develop the technologies for a hydrogen economy. Meanwhile, we can grow and process switchgrass and other plants for biofuels.
    He sees “a whole economy in energy-efficiency,” one that South Carolina could help lead.
Beyond that home-team advantage is the bigger picture: “It is in our long-term national security interest to get people thinking about alternatives.”
    It’s not just cars. We need to make more efficient, cleaner refrigerators, computers and every other item that uses electricity.
    As for that, “Most of our power comes from coal-fired plants.” We need to “give nuclear power the same tax advantage we give solar and wind.” Like those usual green suspects, nukes don’t emit CO2, either.
    Expensive, yes, but he’s convinced that the economic cost of global warming is far greater than the 1 percent of gross domestic product that a full transition away from emitters would cost.
    So how do we pay for it?
    Well, he said, we can’t do it by “cutting waste” in the discretionary budget — what most people think of when they say “federal spending.” There’s just not enough there.
    You have to go where the  real money is: entitlements. “Change the structure of our debt,” he said. “Give people like me and Joe Lieberman and others some breathing room on Social Security,” room to do the kinds of politically unpalatable things that are necessary to save it without pulling us further into the fiscal black hole.
    Can we produce our way out? No. “Yes, there’s gas and oil, but it’s a drop in the bucket,” he said, no matter how deep you drill in the ANWR or offshore. “They’re sort of just one more drink” for the hopeless alcoholic.
    What about increasing the gas tax, to promote conservation and raise money for incentives? No. “Gas taxes will put some businesses at a competitive disadvantage with China and India.” Besides, “it’s not progressive.” It hurts the poor.
    “The next president of the United States should declare a war of energy independence,” he said, evoking the usual metaphors such as the Manhattan and Apollo projects. We had such a war once against a king. Now we should “declare a war of independence from the dictators and sheiks.”
    The next president? So he’s given up on this one? He didn’t say that, but I will. He said President Bush has addressed the issue, but only in a “piecemeal” fashion.
    As for Lindsey Graham, he says he’s doing what he can, such as working “with McCain and Lieberman to strengthen the conservation part of their global warming bill.”
    But ultimately, he’s just one of 100. “The real megaphone is for the person who’s going to be president.” Does that mean John McCain, his preferred candidate for the GOP nomination? Yes, partly: “He’s led on global warming like no other Republican.” But “I’m urging all the candidates.”
    OK, so I didn’t start this discussion. Mr. Putin did. But that doesn’t mean the Energy Party’s not going to grab the opportunity thus created to strengthen national security and save the Earth.
Neither should you. So go ahead. Jump right in.

Graham_002

Out with the UnParty, in with ENERGY!

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Nobody’s proposing a comprehensive energy plan, so I guess we’ll have to do it ourselves.

I’ve had this idea percolating lately that I wanted to develop fully before tossing it out. Maybe do a column on it first, roll it out on a Sunday with lots of fanfare. But hey, the situation calls for action, not hoopla.

So here’s the idea (we’ll refine is as we go along):

Reinvent the Unparty as the Energy Party. Not the Green Party — it’s not just about the environment — but a serious energy party. Go all the way, get real, make like we actually know there’s a war going on. Do the stuff that neither the GOP nor the Dems would ever do:

  • Jack up CAFE standards.
  • Put about a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline.
  • Spend the tax proceeds on a Manhattan project on clean, alternative energy (hydrogen, bio, wind, whatever), and on public transportation (especially light rail).
  • Reduce speed limits everywhere to no more than 55 mph. (This must be credited to Samuel Tenenbaum, who bent my ear about it yet again this morning, and apparently does the same to every presidential wannabe who calls his house looking for him or Inez).
  • ENFORCE the damn’ speed limits. If states say they can’t, give them the resources out of the gas tax money.
  • Build nuclear power plants as fast as we can (safely, of course).
  • Either ban SUVs for everyone who can’t demonstrate a life-or-death need to drive one, or tax them at 100 percent of the sales price and throw THAT into the win-the-war kitty.
  • If we go the tax route on SUVs (rather than banning), launch a huge propaganda campaign along the lines of "Loose Lips Sink Ships" (for instance, "Hummers are Osama’s Panzer Corps"). Make wasting fuel the next smoking or DUI — absolutely socially unacceptable.
  • Because it will be a few years before we can be completely free of petrol, drill the ever-lovin’ slush out of the ANWR, explore for oil off Myrtle Beach, and build refinery capacity — all for a limited time of 20 years. Put the limit in the Constitution.

You get the idea. Respect no one’s sacred cows, left or right; go all-out to win the war and, in the long run, save the Earth. Pretty soon, tyrants from Tehran to Moscow to Caracas will be tumbling down without our saying so much as "boo" to them, and global warming will slow within our lifetimes.

THEN, once we’ve done all that, we can start insisting upon some common sense on entitlements, and health care. Change the name to the Pragmatic Party then. Whatever works, whatever is practical, whatever solves our problems — no matter whose ox gets gored. Leave the ideologues in the dust, while we solve the problems.

How’s that sound? Can any of y’all get behind that?

What’s all this then about immigration?

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AntiillegalIt’s not what you think; this was shot in New Jersey.

Greatest threat to U.S.
is immigration? Since when?

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor

WITH CONGRESS on break, U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett has been meeting with his 3rd District constituents. So what’s on their minds?
“Immigration” comes in first.
Second, he says, is “immigration.” Third is immigration. It’s also fourth.
And he supposed that “the war” maybe came in fifth. I’m sure our troops over there will appreciate making the Top Ten.
He admitted that he was being “a little facetious.” The war is “a cloud” casting its shadow over everything political. But there are no clouds on the stark immigration landscape. There, you’ll find nothing but a blinding, hot interrogation lamp surrounded by shadows. If you give the wrong answer, there are a lot of GOP voters out there ready to cast you into the everlasting darkness.
“Wrong,” of course, can vary, depending on whether you’re a lobbyist for the big business types who have been the GOP’s bread and butter for generations, or one of the salt-of-the-earth folk who crowded into the Big Tent in recent decades and created the vaunted GOP majority.
The main question I have on the subject is one that neither Rep. Barrett nor anyone else has answered to my satisfaction:
How did this issue become such a big deal all of a sudden? What changed? We’ve had Mexican tiendas in our neighborhoods, even in South Carolina, for much of the past decade. For even longer, it’s been hard to communicate on a construction site without a working knowledge of Spanish. Our last two presidents could hardly put together a Cabinet for all the illegals their nominees had employed as nannies.
Over the last 10 or 20 years, there’s been a huge influx. But what changed in the past 12 or 15 Sombreromonths? As near as I can tell, looking at the real world out there, nothing. But in the unreal world of politics, it’s as though, sometime during the summer of 2005 or so, a huge portion of the electorate suddenly woke up from a Rip Van Winkle catnap and said: “Whoa! Why are all these people speaking Spanish?”
There were always a few who considered illegal immigration Issue One. On the left, you had union types concerned about cheap labor depressing wages and working conditions. On the right, you had culture warriors furious at hearing anything other than English spoken in the U.S. of A.
On both sides, drifting amid the high-sounding words about fairness and the rule of law, there was a disturbing whiff of 19th century Know-Nothingism.
I had one or two people who e-mailed me about it regularly, always furious at us for taking the “wrong” position on the issue — even though, until it moved to the front burner back in the spring, we didn’t have a position on it.
Nor did Mr. Barrett consider it a priority, until late 2004. At least, none of the thousands of news outlets whose archives are available on Lexis-Nexis report his having a burning concern.
During the past year, his name and the word “immigration” showed up 53 times. In the previous year, only 20 times. In all previous years, 40 times. Back when he was first running for Congress in 2002, he was talking about keeping out terrorists, mainly from such places as Iran and Iraq. In fact, opponent Jim Klauber blasted him for paying too much attention to countries “where terrorists come from,” while ignoring “the greatest problem in the 3rd Congressional District” — which, to him, was illegal immigration from Mexico.
But now, and for the last couple of years, Mr. Barrett has stood foursquare behind the House’s “enforcement first” approach. He demonstrated his deep concern most recently by visiting the border personally, just before coming home to see constituents. So when he got an earful, he was prepared.
But I wasn’t, probably because I don’t watch TV and therefore haven’t had it explained to me by Bill O’Reilly. I still find myself wondering: Where did all these angry people come from? The ones who weren’t even talking about this issue a year ago, but now promise to toss Lindsey Graham out of the Senate for actually recognizing that this issue is really complicated.
How can anyone see this issue in black-and-white terms? Hey, I want to see the laws enforced, too. But I know that a nation that can’t find one guy in the mountains of Afghanistan isn’t going to round up 10 to 20 million people walking the streets of the freest, least-controlled nation in the world.
Yes, it’s theoretically possible to round up most of them. The Nazis probably could have achieved a success rate of 80 or 90 percent. And it’s probably possible to build a 2,000-mile fence that would be more-or-less impassable. China did it.
But at what cost? I’m not even talking moral or spiritual cost, in the sense of “what kind of nation would that make us?” I’ll let somebody else preach that sermon. I’m talking hard cash.
Look at the national debt. Look at our inadequate presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Check out the rising power of nations such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela, whom we are making impervious to international pressure with our insatiable thirst for petrol. Note that we don’t have the military assets to make Iran take us seriously when we suggest it should stop working on nukes for terrorists, or else. Or else what?
Let’s talk priorities, folks, not fantasies. The “invasion” that endangers this country isn’t a bunch of people looking to (gasp) sweep our Wal-Marts to feed their families. It’s Londoners getting on a flight at Heathrow with bogus tubes of Prell in their carry-ons.
Illegal immigration is a serious problem, when it gets to where you have 12 million aliens you can’t account for. Having our labor market, wages and working conditions distorted by a huge supply of cheap, illegal labor is also a serious problem. So is the fact that our neighbors suffer such crushing poverty that they will risk their lives coming here just to have their labor exploited.
But not one of these things is the most urgent problem facing this country. Not a year ago, and not now.

Proimmigrant

Gang of 14 still rides

42 Replies

Graham provides model of what
parties should be, but are not
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
THERE’S something reassuring about sitting and talking with a U.S. senator and thinking, “This guy is smarter than I am.”
    Even better thoughts: “He’s smarter than most other senators, and the nation sees that. And he represents South Carolina.”
Lindsey1_1    Lindsey Graham makes us all look good up there. That’s a rare and welcome thing.
    It’s not just about being smart. Fritz Hollings was and is sharp as a razor, but in ways that turn a lot of people off. It’s sad to say, but too many voters would rather vote for “folks like me” than above-average intelligence. If you doubt this, let me introduce you to a few hundred office-holders.
    Mr. Graham actually manages to be humble and unassuming (which Fritz could never do) while being erudite. That’s a neat trick. It’s so neat in this case, I don’t even think it’s a trick. (To help you tell the difference, when John Edwards
does it, it’s a trick.)
    Remember my column last week, in which I wrote about the Emory University study that showed the brains of political partisans are wired to reinforce their prejudices — that their gray matter actually produces a big shot of pleasure when they refuse to see the other side’s point?
    We centrists must have a similar mechanism that kicks in when politicians do see the other side, and even work across the partisan divide. When somebody mentions fighting for a good cause alongside both John McCain and Joe Lieberman, a flood of endorphins breaches my levees ofLindsey2 cynicism, and I think, “What a smart guy.”
    But partisans should think the same thing — especially those Republicans who had such a fit when Sen. Graham joined the Gang of 14 to force a compromise that stopped the “nuclear option” from being dropped over filibusters and judicial nominees.
    Boy, were they ever wrong. And it was obvious at the time that they were wrong, even from their skewed, one-sided perspective. Sure, Democrats were high-fiving because the GOP hadn’t changed Senate rules to prevent filibusters, but they were just as blind. From the time the seven Republicans and seven Democrats made their deal, it was impossible for Democrats to carry off a successful filibuster of a qualified nominee. They couldn’t overcome cloture without the Democrats in the Gang, who had promised their colleagues — such things are taken seriously by senators — they wouldn’t back a filibuster in the absence of “extraordinary circumstances.”
    And there simply isn’t anything extraordinary about Bush nominees not seeing the world the way Democrats do. They would need something more substantial than a political difference over something like abortion.
    The practical upshot for Republicans? They gained two conservative Supreme Court justices.
“Nobody really got tricked,” Sen. Graham said. Each of the seven Democrats had a sound political reason to be there. Besides, at least six of them have constituencies closer to his than to Ted Kennedy’s.
    They came out of it fine, partly because “nobody on either leadership team wanted to take that vote.” As for Sen. Graham himself, “It helped me personally immensely within the body.” Contrary to what was being said publicly, “Everything about this deal was known to both leadership teams…. There was a big difference between the rhetoric in the morning and the negotiations in the afternoon.”
    The important things to him were that “The institution fared well; the president fared well,” and so did his nominees. Both John Roberts and Samuel Alito enjoyed relatively smooth roads to favorable up-or-down votes.
    But the fact that 14 senators had the common sense and guts to save the partisan majority from Lindsey3_3itself yielded benefits beyond that, and not just for Republicans.
    Once the Senate was “back in business,” National Guard and Reserve personnel got medical benefits. “There would be just no way we would have had Tricare by now” without the Gang’s deal.
    It also enabled Sen. Graham to play a key role in holding the Bush administration accountable for the way it treats captured enemy combatants. “We got the Congress off the sidelines and into the War on Terror,” he said. “We had been AWOL.”
    “I trust President Bush,” he said later. “I like President Bush.” But there’s just “no substitute for checks and balances.”
    He doesn’t let you forget he’s a Republican. When he speaks of his party’s recent troubles, he says, “The only thing we’ve got going for us is the Democrats, and don’t underestimate them.” Partisan or not, I did enjoy that one.
    What I really liked, though, was the soliloquy with which he ended the meeting, after being asked about the political dangers of his having been photographed with Hillary Clinton. It was a nice statement of what political parties ought to be, but are not. In fact, I’ll just turn the rest of the column over to him. Take it, Senator:

    “There are people on both sides that can’t be happy unless the other side’s disappointed. The way some people judge political success: Is my enemy unhappy? The way I judge political success: Is my country better off, and is my party on the right track?
    “My country is better off when the Guard and Reserve families and those who serve in the Guard and Reserve have health care they can count on. The country will be better off if a manufacturing company (he and Sen. Clinton have started and jointly lead a new Manufacturing Caucus) can stay and make a profit and not have to leave to go overseas….Hillary_claps
    “If she came here and said something nice about me, I would consider it a compliment. And I would return the compliment. And in the next sentence I would say… I like her, but I don’t want her to be president… because she’ll bring an agenda to the table that I don’t agree with in terms of, you know, the whole.
    “But I’m not going to say anything bad about her, because I do like her, I think she’s smart, I enjoy working with her, and… if … the only way I can win is to have to run down people I know, I mean, have to say things about people I know not to be true, I don’t want the job.
    “If that’s the kind of senator you want, I don’t want the job.”

    Well, it’s not the kind I want. So stick around.

The billboard sellout

40 Replies

Just in case today’s column by Associate Editor Cindi Scoppe didn’t quite convince you as to how indefensibly irresponsible the S.C. Legislature was last week in smooching the billboard industry’s big ol’ fat behind, here are two additional pieces of information.

The first is Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto message on the billboard bill — a document that lawmakers obviously took no time to read before overriding his laudable action.

The second item will be the roll-call votes in both the Senate and House.

Here’s the governor’s veto message:

R. 233, H. 3381–ORDERED PRINTED IN THE JOURNAL

The SPEAKER ordered the following veto printed in the Journal:

February 21, 2006
The Honorable Robert W. Harrell, Jr.
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Post Office Box 11867
Columbia, South Carolina 29211

Dear Mr. Speaker and Members of the House:

I believe that we must always stand fast against the government taking or regulating away the use of property. As Thomas Jefferson said, "The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management." Private property rights are fundamental to a free society, and I appreciate your efforts to address them in H. 3381.

The protection of private property rights is also essential to our market-based economy. Recognition of those rights provides the legal certainty necessary for individuals to commit resources to ventures. And those rights provide the basis for the development of financial markets that are essential for economic growth and development.

For these reasons, I have consistently acted to protect private property rights and fight unnecessary government regulation. For example, as a member of the 106th Congress, I voted for the Private Property Rights Implementation Act to give greater access to federal courts for individuals with property grievances against the government. In March 2004, I vetoed S. 560, the Life Sciences Act, in part because it extended the awesome power of eminent domain to dozens of new entities by including all state institutions of higher learning. In May 2004, I signed into law H. 4130 – commonly referred to as "The Small Business Regulatory Relief Act" – to require state agencies to consider their impact on small business before they issue final regulations. In June 2005, I vetoed S. 97 because it opened the door for more property, including agricultural, to be declared blighted or abandoned and subsequently condemned.

Given the importance of protecting private property rights, I recognize the need for a uniform approach to takings that is consistent with the overall purposes of the just compensation provision of Article 1, Section 13 of the South Carolina Constitution. Unfortunately, for the three specific reasons set forth below, I do not believe H. 3381 represents that uniform approach.
In my judgment, at least part of the reason why H. 3381 is not a consistent approach to the question of takings stems from the fact that the public debate on this particular bill has taken place in the narrow context of special legislation affecting one particular industry – an approach to legislative debate which, in my opinion, does not fit with the spirit of Article III, Section 34, IX of the South Carolina Constitution, which provides that: "In all other cases where general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted …"

A broader public debate on the issue of just compensation for takings is now taking place in the General Assembly in connection with the eminent domain bills pending in the House and Senate (H. 4502, H. 4505, S. 1029, S. 1030 and S. 1031), and it is my hope and expectation that the three specific concerns I have in regard to H. 3381 will be considered as that broader public debate moves forward. Accordingly, I am hereby returning H. 3381, R. 233 without my approval for the following reasons:

First, the bill would not treat billboard owners and billboard tenants as we treat other property owners and other business tenants. This bill seeks to level the playing field by putting billboards on par with other asset classes but actually serves to set billboards apart. H. 3381 would treat billboards as real property for compensation, while they would be con-sidered as personal property for taxing purposes.

As a matter of public policy, I believe billboards should be treated as we treat other property owners, but not put in a position superior to homeowners, farmers and other businesses. Currently, billboard owners pay personal property taxes based on the sign’s original cost less depreciation, and accordingly, just compensation is determined in the same way. Likewise, if the government takes a home to build a road, one value system for real property is applied for taxes and compensation. In effect, H. 3381 would give billboard owners the tax benefits of being classified as personal property and the just compensation benefits of being classified as real property which is not something enjoyed by the other asset classes just listed.

Second, I do not think that we should have one standard for state government and another standard for local government. H. 3381 would establish a double standard in that the new compensation requirements for removing billboards would apply only to local governments, not state agencies.

Again, I think we ought to treat government at different levels consistently. Under H. 3381, local governments are held to a higher standard than the state when calculating just compensation, in that local governments are required to utilize the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practices, including a number of mandatory considerations, when calculating the amount of just compensation due the billboard owner, whereas the state is not. I do not believe it is good public policy to maintain two sets of pricing – one for state government and another for local governments. I think when we look at something as fundamental as private property rights they should be consistently administered.

Third, I think we need to be careful about saying we believe in Home Rule as a governing principle, but then reverse local governments’ decisions when they disagree with the state on an issue like this one. With a retroactive effective date of April 14, 2005, the bill would invalidate at least seven billboard ordinances that were passed legally by local governments. I believe that tossing out the ordinances of one group of local governments while respecting the ordinances of others – both of which were passed subject to the laws in place at that time – raises once again the uniformity issue that has caused me to struggle with this bill. Why should two local governments, under the same circumstances and afforded the same privileges of Home Rule, be treated differently?

Finally, as a matter of consistency, I believe that this bill undermines the very principle it purports to represent. By limiting the use of billboards by owners, certain provisions of this bill essentially constitute a regulatory taking without providing for just compensation – quite the opposite, I believe, of what the bill seeks to achieve. In keeping with the notion of federalism, I believe that all levels of government have to more clearly define their roles and responsibilities, and the way a community looks and feels should fundamentally be a local municipal or county decision. I do not believe it is the role of the state legislature to determine community standards from Columbia by regulating the content of billboards in the many towns and counties across South Carolina.

For these reasons, I am hereby vetoing and returning without my approval H. 3381.

Sincerely,
Mark Sanford
Governor

Having pointedly, insultingly ignored that, here’s how the  lawmakers voted (and if you’d like to find out how to contact individual lawmakers, go here for senators and here for House members; if you’re not sure which ones represent you, look it up here):

The 28-13 roll call by which the South Carolina Senate voted to override Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto of a bill making it harder for local governments to force the removal of billboards.
   A "yes" vote was a vote to override the veto, and a "no" vote was a vote to let the veto stand.
   Voting "yes" were 9 Democrats and 19 Republicans.
   Voting "no" were 8 Democrats and 5 Republicans.
   Not voting were 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans.

Democrats Voting "Yes"
   Anderson, Greenville; Elliott, North Myrtle Beach; Ford, Charleston; Land, Manning; Matthews, Bowman; Moore, Clearwater; Patterson, Columbia; Reese, Boiling Springs; Williams, Marion.

Republicans Voting "Yes"
   Alexander, Walhalla; Bryant, Anderson; Cleary, Murrells Inlet; Cromer, Prosperity; Fair, Greenville; Grooms, Bonneau; Hawkins, Spartanburg; Knotts, West Columbia; Leatherman, Florence; Martin, Pickens; McConnell, Charleston; O’Dell, Ware Shoals; Peeler, Gaffney; Rankin, Myrtle Beach; Ritchie, Spartanburg; Ryberg, Aiken; Scott, Summerville; Thomas, Fountain Inn; Verdin, Laurens.

Democrats Voting "No"
   Drummond, Ninety Six; Hutto, Orangeburg; Leventis, Sumter; Lourie, Columbia; Malloy, Hartsville; McGill, Kingstree; Sheheen, Camden; Short, Chester.

Republicans Voting "No"
   Campsen, Isle of Palms; Courson, Columbia; Gregory, Lancaster; Hayes, Rock Hill; Richardson, Hilton Head Island.

Not Voting
   Democrats: Jackson, Hopkins; Pinckney, Ridgeland; Setzler, West Columbia.
   Republicans: Mescher, Pinopolis; Smith, Greer.

—————————————————————————–
The 78-25 roll call by which the South Carolina House voted to override Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto of a bill making it harder for local governments to force the removal of billboards.
   A "yes" vote was a vote to override the veto, and a "no" vote was a vote to let the veto stand.
   Voting "yes" were 29 Democrats and 49 Republicans.
   Voting "no" were 13 Democrats and 12 Republicans.
   Not voting were 6 Democrats and 14 Republicans.

Democrats Voting "Yes"
   Allen, Greenville; Anderson, Georgetown; Anthony, Union; Branham, Lake City; G. Brown, Bishopville; J. Brown, Columbia; Clyburn, Aiken; Cobb-Hunter, Orangeburg; Coleman, Winnsboro; Govan, Orangeburg; Hayes, Hamer; J. Hines, Lamar; Hodges, Green Pond; Hosey, Barnwell; Howard, Columbia; Jefferson, Pineville; Jennings, Bennettsville; Kennedy, Greeleyville; Mack, North Charleston; McCraw, Gaffney; Moody-Lawrence, Rock Hill; J.H. Neal, Hopkins; Neilson, Darlington; Ott, St. Matthews; Phillips, Gaffney; Rhoad, Branchville; Rutherford, Columbia; F.N. Smith, Greenville; Vick, Chesterfield.

Republicans Voting "Yes"
   Altman, Charleston; Bailey, St. George; Barfield, Conway; Cato, Travelers Rest; Ceips, Beaufort; Chalk, Hilton Head Island; Chellis, Summerville; Clark, Swansea; Clemmons, Myrtle Beach; Coates, Florence; Cooper, Piedmont; Davenport, Boiling Springs; Delleney, Chester; Duncan, Clinton; Edge, North Myrtle Beach; Frye, Batesburg-Leesville; Haley, Lexington; Hamilton, Taylors; Hardwick, Surfside Beach; Harrell, Charleston; Harrison, Columbia; Haskins, Greenville; Hinson, Goose Creek; Hiott, Pickens; Huggins, Columbia; Leach, Greer; Littlejohn, Spartanburg; Mahaffey, Lyman; Martin, Anderson; Merrill, Daniel Island; Norman, Rock Hill; Perry, Aiken; E.H. Pitts, Lexington; M.A. Pitts, Laurens; Rice, Easley; Sandifer, Seneca; Simrill, Rock Hill; Skelton, Six Mile; G.M. Smith, Sumter; G.R. Smith, Simpsonville; W.D. Smith, Spartanburg; Talley, Spartanburg; Taylor, Laurens; Thompson, Anderson; Townsend, Anderson; Tripp, Mauldin; White, Anderson; Witherspoon, Conway; Young, Summerville.

Democrats Voting "No"
   Battle, Nichols; Bowers, Brunson; R. Brown, Hollywood; Emory, Lancaster; Funderburk, Camden; Kirsh, Clover; McLeod, Little Mountain; Miller, Pawleys Island; J.M. Neal, Kershaw; Rivers, Ridgeland; J.E. Smith, Columbia; Weeks, Sumter; Whipper, North Charleston.

Republicans Voting "No"
   Agnew, Abbeville; Ballentine, Irmo; Bannister, Greenville; Brady, Columbia; Cotty, Columbia; Hagood, Mt. Pleasant; Limehouse, Charleston; Lucas, Hartsville; Scarborough, Charleston; D.C. Smith, North Augusta; Toole, West Columbia; Umphlett, Moncks Corner.

Those Not Voting
   Democrats: Bales, Eastover; Breeland, Charleston; M. Hines, Florence; Mitchell, Spartanburg; Parks, Greenwood; Scott, Columbia;
   Republicans: Bingham, West Columbia; Dantzler, Goose Creek; Herbkersman, Bluffton; Loftis, Greenville; McGee, Florence; Owens, Pickens; Pinson, Greenwood; Sinclair, Spartanburg; J.R. Smith, Langley; Stewart, Aiken; Vaughn, Taylors; Viers, Myrtle Beach; Walker, Landrum; Whitmire, Walhalla.

Guilt column

103 Replies

OK, I feel guilty about Katrina;
so what do you want me to DO?
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
EARLIER this month, Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland made me feel pretty guilty, and I thought about expiating that guilt with a column of my own.
    I managed to forget about it. I’m resilient that way.
    But then, Mac Bennett and some other folks from the local United Way came in for a visit and reminded me of it. Yes, they brought up Hurricane Katrina.Katrinademolish_1
    The devastation of the Gulf Coast has cut into local fund-raising. It’s been hard to compete with. “How many days was Katrina on the front page” of newspapers? Mac asked. Actually, he understated the case. He should have used present tense; it was the centerpiece on USA Today’s front the very day he said that.
    Well, don’t blame me, Mac. The last time I had a column that was actually about Katrina was Sept. 23. By that time, I had said what I had to say about it, and was ready to move on. So I did.
But thousands upon thousands of people whose lives were wrecked have not moved on.
    I find this irritating.
    That’s why I feel guilty.
    It was just a vague sort of guilt creeping around the edges of my consciousness. I would climb groggily out of bed and hit the snooze button on the radio because NPR was doing yet another story on the plight of New Orleans. “I’ve heard all that,” I would think as I got up. “That’s not a very worthy sentiment,” I would think as I climbed back into bed. “After all, those poor people are still…” Zzzzzzz.
    Then Mr. Hoagland pegged people like me dead-on in his Feb. 5 column. It was about why the State of the Union message didn’t linger on Katrina. He suggested that maybe this was not because BushdoorPresident Bush “is out of touch.”
    “My fear is more ominous,” he wrote: “After a great deal of study and some polling, Bush is reflecting national opinion fairly well on the challenges still faced by the people of New Orleans: We wish them well, but it is their problem, not ours anymore.”
    Ow. That hit home. That’s just what I had been thinking.
    I’m a good guy. Really. I give to United Way, and my church. I don’t vote self-interest: If taxes need to go up, say, to help the poor get a better education, I’m for it. I’ve served on nonprofit boards. Hey, I was chairman of the local Habitat for Humanity. I’ve spent whole vacations on blitz builds — framing, roofing, putting on siding (not lately, but I’ve done it). Not even Jimmy Carter, the most self-consciously decent and moral president of my lifetime, has anything on me there. Right?
    But now, if Mr. Hoagland is right (and I fear he is), it’s George Bush who’s got me nailed.
    I know that Katrina, the worst national disaster in the nation’s history, was an event loaded with a profound message; it stripped away a veneer and exposed underlying problems that have always been there, problems that America needs to find a way to address meaningfully if we’re truly to be the land of opportunity.
    We said this on Sept. 23:
    “(T)here are millions of people who are so poor that they have no way to flee a killer storm. People who, even if transportation were available, wouldn’t leave because all they own is in their home:Katrinareport_1 They have no bank accounts, credit cards, job skills or network of family and friends in other cities to take them in. We have glimpsed for a harrowing moment the kind of random, wanton violence that the middle class never has to experience, but that plagues too many impoverished neighborhoods.”
    I meant all that. Still do. But we said it, and on some gut level, I’m more than ready to get on to other important issues, because, let’s face it, that one’s depressing. Poverty right here in South CKatrinachertoff_1arolina is a consuming passion of this editorial board. But as daunting as that challenge is, I at least have a clue what to say in terms of what we need to do about it.
    Besides, Columbia and South Carolina responded superbly to Katrina. Do you think I could motivate my readers to do more than they’ve done? I don’t.
    When another report comes out, as one did last week, saying government on all levels failed Katrina’s victims, and that things might have been better if the president had taken a personal interest earlier, I think, “Didn’t we establish all that some time back?”
    When I read, as I also did last week, that some Katrina victims are being booted out of their government-subsidized motel rooms, I think: “What? They’re still there? It’s been — what — almost seven months, and they still haven’t found a place on theirKatrinamotel_1
own?”
    When folks wring their hands over whether the poor of the Ninth Ward will get to return home, I’ve thought: “Would it be the worst thing in the world if they didn’t? Other communities — such as Columbia — have given them a leg up; maybe they have a better chance in new surroundings. (Maybe the president’s Mom had a point.) Maybe the rest of the country is better able right now to provide permanent homes to poor folks. Maybe New Orleans would have a better chance of recovering — and becoming a better place for the poor to make a living in the future — if for a few years it was a community of empowered, middle-class people with a compelling economic reason to be there. Maybe an electorate like that would choose better local lKatrina9thward_1eadership, and clean up the police department and other services that failed the poor so miserably. Would that be bad?”
    So now I’ve gotten that off my chest — but I don’t feel better.
    Look, I don’t know what the solution is. If you can think of something I can do, let me know. I’ll be glad to pay a higher gas tax or something. Go on, Mr. President, ask me. You don’t have my number on that. I want  you to ask me to sacrifice for something.
    Of course, the gas tax would help in the war on terror, which I’d be proud to do, but not do much for the Gulf.
    So until I see something I can do, I will probably still think, whenever I see or hear another Katrina story, that it’s past time for those folks and the rest of us to move on — even while I think it’s wrong to think that.
    But at least I feel guilty about it. That’s something. Isn’t it?

USC/Clemson column

57 Replies

Gamecock, Tiger team up against caps
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
WEEK BEFORE last, I ran into USC President Andrew Sorensen as he was on his way to an “unprecedented” meeting with House Speaker Bobby Harrell. They were going to talk budgets.
    What was so new about that?
    “Carolina and Clemson are talking to him at the same time,” Dr. Sorensen said. “And we’re using the same numbers.” To those who remember the old days of tigers and chickens fighting like… well, like cats and birds, over funding, this was remarkable. Mr. Harrell was so “overwhelmed,” Dr.Bobby_presidents_1 Sorensen later said, he sent for a photographer to record the event.
    “Jim and I have become increasingly close in terms of… what we want to do and how we want to do it,” Dr. Sorensen said when he and Clemson President James Barker visited the editorial board last week.
    Mr. Barker stressed that this new level of cooperation was “not because of the governor’s ‘tax.’ ”
    In his latest executive budget, Gov. Mark Sanford proposed “a one percent reduction for Clemson, USC, and MUSC that will result in savings of $3,232,091 in general funds to encourage such further collaboration.”
    “Yes,” said Dr. Sorensen, “he takes away a million from each of us to stimulate us to collaborate…. if you can understand the logic in that, please explain it to me.”
    This is not the only area in which the two presidents agreed with each other and disagreed with the governor.
    For instance, there is the governor’s proposed cap on tuition increases. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It would help me out, with my fourth child now in college.
    And I like the governor’s stated goal, which is to force consolidation and reorganization of the state’s non-system of public higher education.
    But are caps a good idea for the state of South Carolina? No, and not just because this isn’t going to convince lawmakers to cut the number of institutions.
    Tuition started shooting up when the Legislature decided to cut back on direct funding of colleges, and give middle-class voters scholarship checks paid for by poor folks suckered into playing the lottery.
    South Carolina’s public colleges have experienced a larger percentage decrease in state funding than those of any other Southern Regional Education Board state over the last decade — a period in which most SREB states increased funding.
    Of the 16 states, only West Virginia funded its colleges at a lower percentage of the regional average last year. South Carolina was at 72.45 percent of that average. North Carolina was at the top end, at 136.95 percent.
    Higher state funding means lower tuition. Not coincidentally, Kiplinger’s recently listed UNC-Chapel Hill as the best deal in the country, measured by quality compared to cost. Out of 130 public colleges listed, Clemson was 24th, and USC 31st — in spite of those tuition increases.
    Or perhaps because of them. The money to improve academics had to come from somewhere. And since the General Assembly has seen fit to turn the money over to the students, via scholarships, that’s where the institutions have turned for funding.
    At USC, said Dr. Sorensen, 96 percent of entering freshmen get “one of the lottery-funded scholarships.” At Clemson, it’s 99 percent. In fact, said Mr. Barker, “At Clemson, not one freshman from South Carolina paid full tuition” this year.
    OK, so the heads of the schools don’t want tuition caps. Big surprise. What about the students? I don’t know about all of them, but some student government leaders at USC sent a letter
to the governor last week asking for a meeting “to make you aware of our concerns with these proposals, as we feel they do not completely address the desires of students.”
    One of the signers, student body Treasurer Tommy Preston, was diplomatic about the governor’s plan when I asked about it, saying that it was “our opinion that there’s just not enough information” to know, but it seemed the caps “potentially could be harmful in the future.”
    Never mind what the treasurer thinks. What does Tommy think?
    “Personally,” he said, “I think our state has a bigger problem with higher education funding.”
    Smart kid, that Tommy.

About Will Folks…

43 Replies

I just wrote this long piece asking what y’all thought about Will Folks’ op-ed today — not the content, but the fact that we ran it at all. I’ve gotten a lot of flak about that today.

And just as I went to save, TYPEPAD BLEW UP ON ME!!!!

Just as well — I had written down MY thoughts on the question, and it’s probably best to see what y’all think first, and then answer you.

So, what do you think?

Outsourcing the republic

14 Replies

Outsourcing the deliberative process
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
THE POSITION we take in the above editorial is an uncomfortable one. I say that not because using a “BRAC” approach to consolidate school districts is a bad idea. In fact, it’s a great one. But it shouldn’t be.
    Our system of representative democracy is all about the deliberative process: We, the people, elect representatives to go to Congress or the Legislature and study complex issues in detail, debate them, make tough decisions for the sake of the whole nation or state, and then come back and face the voters.
    This proposal sidesteps that process: It empowers a separate body — not directly elected — to address a long-neglected statewide problem. The members of that body do all the studying and work out all the details — that is, the actual discernment. Then they hand the whole package to the elected body for a simple “yes” or “no.”
    The tragedy is that this is apparently the only way that our small state can do away with the shameful waste of having 85 school districts — some of them incredibly tiny, each with its own separate administration.
    Why? Because elected representatives won’t touch it. Why? Because they’re elected.
    Anyone with common sense looking objectively at this can see that it would be insane not to consolidate districts. But any representative who advocates shuttering a local district faces the danger
of not getting re-elected.
    So we find ourselves in a situation in which the most effective approach is to outsource the deliberative process. And school consolidation isn’t the only tough state issue that our delegates may choose to sub-contract.
    S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell is proposing the same approach on tax reform. He would have a special panel draw up a list of sales tax exemptions to eliminate. Why? Because elected representatives don’t have the guts to face the narrow constituencies (from auto dealers to newspapers) whose tax breaks such a plan might eliminate.
    The truth nowadays is that on some issues, our republic’s deliberative process freezes up and dies like a car engine without a drop of oil in it.
    That’s how “BRAC” — for Base Realignment and Closure — entered the language to start with. It was impossible for Congress to achieve savings and efficiencies by closing and consolidating domestic military bases. Why? Because every member of Congress had to have one. Or two, or more.
    Instead of an objective comparison of the relative merits of this or that military facility, followed by tough but smart decisions, the only sort of “debate” that occurred before BRAC went like this: “You keep my base open, and I’ll scratch your back, too.”
    Our system is dysfunctional — at least on issues that involve sacred cows — not because representatives are out of touch, but because they are never out of touch with home long enough to collaborate seriously with their colleagues for the greater good.
    Most advocates of term limits say lawmakers get “corrupted” by Washington or Columbia to the point that they forget the wishes of the folks back home. Hardly.
    Syndicated columnist George Will has advocated term limits for the opposite reason. He says the only way lawmakers will stop listening to the folks back home long enough to think is if they cannot run for re-election.
    I oppose term limits for various reasons, including the fact that I’d rather have laws made by people with some experience at it. But we’ve got to find some way to make critical decisions that politicians with their eyes on the next election refuse to face.
    One good thing about a BRAC is that it can be seen as representative democracy the way it was intended to work: A group is delegated to study the issues with few distractions and deliberate until a rational plan emerges.
    This may be the only way our elected representatives ever vote on a proposal that takes the whole state’s interest into account. A plan that makes the tough calls would probably never make it to the floor otherwise.
    I like to think our system is timeless. But that reckons without technology: In the days before the 24-hour news cycle, blogs, cell phones and mass e-mails, representatives had a chance to concentrate constructively on issues and make decisions accordingly. The cacophony of modern communications makes that nearly impossible.
    Some look at this situation and come up with a whole other way: skirting the republican system entirely. Gov. Mark Sanford would ask voters to curtail the Legislature’s power to appropriate, by setting an arbitrary constitutional limit on spending growth.
    His reasoning sounds a bit like ours: The system isn’t working. When I asked how he could advocate undermining “small-R” republican ideals, he said: “You need to be more aware of the political environment that you’re operating in — be less, you know, idealistic, less, uh, you know, high and lofty, and just get down into the gears of how our government system actually works.”
    Talk about being disillusioned. Of course, I can identify. But there’s a difference. While the BRAC idea reflects a lack of faith in the Legislature’s deliberative fortitude, it does not abandon faith in deliberation
itself. In fact, it gives the General Assembly a little help in that area.
    The contrast between such a careful, studious process of objective decision-making and what the governor is proposing — a quick Election Day show of hands, yes or no, on an unfathomably complex fiscal question — could hardly be greater.
    I’m still not thrilled about having to institute a “work-around” to set policy, but comparing a “BRAC” to setting future budgets in a single plebiscite makes me feel a lot better about it.

So happy together

2 Replies

Also today, I ran into USC President Andrew Sorensen on an elevator. In contrast to my cluelessness on my last two posts, I did manage during the short ride to determine what he was up to.

He was on his way over to what he termed an "unprecedented" meeting with Speaker Bobby Harrell.

What was so new about this? "Carolina and Clemson are talking to him at the same time," Dr. Sorensen said. "And we’re using the same numbers." Basically, he was talking budget requests.

To those of us who remember the old days of tigers and chickens fighting like
… well, like cats and birds — in the General Assembly over funds, we have already seen a remarkable degree of cooperation between the state’s three research universities (counting MUSC) in recent years.

But this sort of coordination does sound new. It will be interesting to see what comes of it.

What else did he say?

1 Reply

My first version of today’s column originally started out with a summary of what Gov. Sanford considered to be most important in his State of the State speech. But I took so many words setting up that list, and then had so much trouble deciding where to go after listing those items, that I scrapped it and started over with what you see on today’s page.

Here is that first rough draft/outline, as far as I took it, anyway:

     One of the great challenges in making the most of the governor’s annual pre-State of the State briefing luncheon for editorial page editors is that you don’t get a copy of the speech until you get there.

    So you find yourself trying to eat, read the speech (which is on your lap with your notebook, there being no room on the table), ask the governor questions about it as you’re reading it, hear other people’s questions, and take notes simultaneously.

    (By the way, this is not a complaint aimed at our current governor; it was ever thus. Or at least, ever since I started going to these in 1994.)

    So after a lot of scattershot questions based on things haphazardly gleaned from the text on the run last Wednesday, Charleston Post and Courier Editor Barbara Williams had the good sense to make this request: You tell us what you consider to be the main points of your speech, governor.

    His answer, as near as I could write down while trying to get some salad into my mouth, was as follows:

  • Workers compensation
  • Restructuring
  • Holding the line on spending, and paying back trust funds.
  • Leverage private-sector investment in rural South Carolina (broadband access).
  • Education.

    On education, he said he had three main points to stress:

  • Early childhood.
  • Charter schools, for the in-between-aged kids.
  • Tuition caps at the higher-education level.

That’s as far as I got. Anyway, I thought you might find this helpful if you try to wade through the speech itself. Or maybe you won’t. Anyway, there it is.

No commies here

25 Replies

Mark Sanford is not a communistSanford_state_2
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
‘I DON’T want people to lose sight of who they’re talking to, and I sound like a half communist by the time I’ve laid out all these different options,” said Gov. Mark Sanford at a pre-speech briefing on his State of the State address Wednesday.
    “… which I’m obviously not,” he added with an easy laugh, the same laugh he uses when he calls me a “socialist,” which he does with some frequency.
    I should add some context.
    First, the governor isn’t any kind of communist — half, quarter or full. Nor am I a socialist; he just says that because he’s such a thoroughgoing libertarian, and I’m not. I’m sort of in the middle on the whole small-government-versus-big-government thing. Government should be as big or small as we the people, acting through our elected representatives, decide it should be, and whether taxes rise or fall should depend upon the situation.
    The governor was mock-concerned about being perceived as a demi-Marxist because in his speech, he was actually taking a more pragmatic view of the whole tax-and-spend thing. While insisting that if lawmakers swap a sales tax increase for a property tax reduction it must be revenue-neutral or even an overall decrease, he went on to speak about the need to consider other aspects of our overall tax system. In other words, he was to an extent embracing our position that tax reform must be comprehensive.
    He spoke positively of impact fees to transfer the cost of growth to new development, and proposed to “take the opportunity to look at (sales tax) exemptions that are not serving their purpose.”
    Mr. Sanford tiptoed repeatedly around the question of whether he considers property tax relief — which conventional wisdom holds is Job One in this election year — really needs to happen in 2006.
His fancy footwork on that went over the heads of many legislators — the first time they interrupted him with applause for a policy statement was on page 21 of a 24-page speech, when he said, “We think this can be the year of property tax relief….”
    The solons clapped like crazy, and I had to wonder why.
    Can be? Not will be? What did he mean by that? Back at that luncheon briefing with editorial page editors, Charleston Post and Courier Editor Barbara Williams tried for several minutes to pin him down on that. Finally, with a somewhat exasperated tone, she said: “Are you pushing for it this year? This is what I’m asking. Are you going to be one of those who says we’ve got to absolutely do something this year?”
    “Do you see that written in here?” the governor asked.
    “No,” she said.
    After a grunt that sort of sounds like “Yeah” on my recording, he concluded, “But that’s as much as I’m going to say.”
    But even though he refuses to declare himself clearly as part of this headlong rush to placate angry homeowners before November, the governor need not fear that anyone will erect a bust of him alongside Lenin’s (assuming anyone still has a bust of Lenin).
    Never mind that he has stopped saying overtly dismissive things about public education. Nor should you attach much importance to the fact that he keeps saying things like, “This is not about some philosophical jihad that says government is bad and the private sector is good.”
    Make no mistake: Mark Sanford is still a libertarian to his core. It’s hard-wired into his reflexive responses, even while he’s trying to reach out to folks to the “left” of him by repeatedly citing Thomas Friedman.
    Check out the one most radical proposal in his speech.
    This is a man who ran for office on a plan to restructure South Carolina’s government so that each branch can exercise its separate, enumerated powers, with proper checks and balances. So you’d think he’d understand the way the system should work.
    And yet, he proposes to undermine the central deliberative principle underlying the republican form of government devised by our nation’s Founders. He would do this by asking voters to approve a change in the state constitution that would set a specific formula for future spending growth, regardless of what future needs might be.
    Does that sound good to you? Well, fortunately, George Washington and James Madison and Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton et al. realized that you couldn’t conduct the complex business of running a government — even one firmly rooted in the consent of the governed — through simple, up-or-down plebiscites. They knew that we would need to delegate the business of deciding what needed to be done through government, how much it would cost, and how to pay for it. And that if we didn’t like the decisions delegates made, we could elect somebody else.
    If you ask most people, without context, whether they want to limit government spending — yes or no, no in-between — they will of course say “yes.” If you ask me that, I’ll say yes, and mean it.
    But if you ask me whether I think this state is adequately meeting its duty to, for instance, keep our highways safe, I’ll say “no.” And if you ask me whether insufficient funds might be a factor in that failure, I’ll say “yes.” And if you ask me whether I have the slightest idea what percentage of our state economy the General Assembly would need to devote to that purpose to get the job done in future years, I’d have to say, “Of course not.”
    And yet that is the kind of arbitrary judgment that the governor would have us make this fall — and lock into our constitution — with his proposed “Taxpayer Empowerment Amendment” plebiscite.
So never fear: Mark Sanford is still Mark Sanford, and he’s certainly no commie.
    If Mark Sanford were not still the supply-side, privatizing, anti-tax, anti-spending guy we’ve all come to know over the past four years, I’d be disappointed in him. I’ve always res
pected his honesty and consistency. And those are definitely still intact.

Exploring new depths

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It was kind of scary to read this quote from Jim Merrill in this morning’s paper, regarding the governor‘s State of the State speech tonight:

"It could maybe be a little less erudite and a little more grass-roots."

Less erudite? How is that possible?

I mean, the governor’s a smart guy and all that, but he’s a pretty lame public speaker. Well, at least he’s pretty lame when he has a speech to read. His past SOS efforts have been kind of painful to listen to.

The odd thing is, he’s fine talking to a group without notes. He tends to repeat the sameSanford_budget_1 catchphrases a lot, but then, what politician doesn’t? The odd thing is how badly he stumbles through a speech he has prepared in advance.

Even odder than that is that this is one of the few things he has in common with predecessor David Beasley. Mr. Beasley was fine getting up in front of a crowd and connecting with them, but his speeches were unbearable. But for a different reason. Mr. Beasley always seemed phony in prepared addresses, as though he had over-rehearsed. Gov. Sanford seems like he’s never seen these words before in his life, and isn’t at all comfortable with them.

Well, we’ll see how it goes tonight.

Oh, you want to know the substance, instead of just the style? Well, I don’t know much about that, although I suppose I’ll know more after a briefing over at the governor’s place in — well, in about 40 minutes. I guess I’d better stop and move that copy for tomorrow’s page…

Lake rising column

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First, take action to make
the whole lake rise
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
POLITICAL NOSTRUMS often become obnoxious with excessive application. Some simply start out that way.
    For me, one that has always fit in the latter category is “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
    I’ve never denied that there’s truth in it. At least, I intuit that there’s truth in it. I’m no economist, but it’s always made sense that if you pump more wealth into a reasonably fair and open economic system, many people’s boats — if not most people’s — should float somewhat higher. Not all boats, of course, what with the poor always being with us, but there was logic in the saying.
    I still didn’t like it. It was too devil-may-care: Don’t worry about whether everybody’s boat is seaworthy; just don’t impede the tide, and assume everything will be copacetic. It’s like something one would say over drinks at the 19th hole, followed by: “I’m fine. Aren’t you fine? Well, then everybody must be fine.”
    Oh, and don’t give me a bunch of guff about “class warfare.” I enjoy a round of golf as much as the next man. That doesn’t mean I have to adopt an air of insouciance toward society’s have-nots. So the “rising tide” metaphor always left me a little cold.
    At least, it did until last week, when I heard it put another way: “The whole lake has got to rise for my boat to rise.” That implies a sense of responsibility for raising the water.
    Harris DeLoach — chairman, president and chief executive officer of Sonoco Products — said that Wednesday, when he and other state business leaders presented their “Competitiveness Agenda” for the 2006 legislative session, which starts Tuesday.
    This is an agenda with considerable juice behind it, since it is being promoted in common by the state Chamber of Commerce, the Palmetto Institute, the S.C. Council on Competitiveness and the Palmetto Business Forum.
    The groups banded together last year to push successfully for tort reform, retirement system restructuring, a measure to encourage high school students to choose “career clusters” that help them see the point of staying in school, and “innovation centers” to connect university-based research to the marketplace.
    They had less success advocating adequate funding for highways and health care, but overall, the stratagem showed what could happen when state business leaders combine their clout and let lawmakers know they’re truly serious about some issues.
    “This time last year, I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive,” said Chamber President Hunter Howard, who has carried water for his organization in the State House lobby for many a session. But once he tried a “whole new approach… going after the Legislature with really a stick kind of approach — but in a nice way,” he was pleased with the results.
    There will no doubt be those who detect an odor of self-interest whenever business people push for anything. And there’s truth in that, too. Mr. DeLoach does want his boat to rise, after all. But the encouraging thing is that he and the others leading this coalition understand that for that to happen, the water has to rise for everyone. Rather than simply saying “I’ve got mine” and being satisfied, they are pursuing policies that — whether you think they’re smartly crafted or not — acknowledge the truth that we’re all in this together: If the least of these in South Carolina are left back, so are we all.
    Take tax reform, for instance. As my colleague Cindi Scoppe noted in a recent column, the business sector is determined not to be outsqueaked by homeowners to the extent that businesses bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden.
    But there’s good in that. Lawmakers are coming back to town this week all in a sweat to get angry residential property taxpayers off their backs, which creates the danger of overreacting yet again with little regard for the stability, fairness and efficacy of the overall tax system.
    Basically, the business honchos are saying what this editorial board has said for years — that however much emotion swirls around property taxes or some other outrage of the moment, the goal should be “comprehensive tax system reform.”
    Of course, the biz types have a few things on their wish list that most of us would never think to ask for, such as workers’ compensation “reform.” (I put that in quotes because I haven’t decided whether it’s reform or not.)
    But I’m still struck by the extent to which these business leaders seem more interested than many of our politicians in doing, as Mr. DeLoach put it, “what’s good for the whole state,” seeing that as the way to benefit them all.
    Those who reflexively distrust the private sector see it as wanting nothing more from government than to cut its taxes and leave it alone. But too many aspects of this agenda give the lie to that.
    In fact, “We’re referred to as the group that wants to raise taxes,” said Carolina First Bank CEO Mack Whittle. “Well, we’re the businesses that pay the taxes” (about 43 percent of the total, asserts the Palmetto Institute’s Jim Fields). “We have to look at the road system; we have to look at education. And if it does take more revenue, then so be it.”
    So it is that you see the business community leading the charge for kindergarten for all 4-year-olds who need it.
    It is, in large part, the kind of agenda that reflects what real pro-business conservatives — the kind who have a proven ability to meet a payroll, and a realistic grasp of what it would take to provide better paychecks for all South Carolinians — see as the state’s real needs.
    What they come up with differs necessarily from what professional “conservatives” who are all theory and no practice tend to advocate. You know, the Grover Norquists, and those w
ho would play along with them.
    Am I endorsing this whole agenda? Of course not. I haven’t begun to make up my mind about significant portions of it. Others I know I’m against. For instance, while I welcome these groups to the comprehensive tax reform cause, my colleagues and I staunchly oppose some of the particulars they advocate under that umbrella — such as imposing spending caps on local government. And we disagree with their position on the powers of the Ports Authority.
    But I do like the stated attitude that underlies much of this approach. Like Mr. DeLoach, I want to see the whole lake rise.

Unparty column

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It’s my party, and I’ll vie if I want to
By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
INSPIRED BY Ariel Sharon’s decision to abandon the Likud Party he helped build and start another, more centrist one — one that immediately began to catch on to the extent that it looks as though it will propel him past the established factions and into another term in office — I posted a blog item last week that asked, “Why can’t we do this here?”
    Excited at the idea of “giving those of us in the sensible middle an actual alternative to the mutually exclusive, mutually loathing Democrats and Republicans,” I got right to the business of setting up my own faction, posing such questions as: What would be the precepts of such a party? What should we call it? Who would be some good candidates? What animal should be our mascot?
    My respondents quickly brought me down to Earth. I heard from both sides of the partisan divide, and the more ardent were soon ignoring my questions and clawing each other. But both sides seemed to agree that those of us who eschew the current phony ideologies don’t believe in anything ardently enough to get things done.
    What a relief when “David” spoke for me by writing, “I am always intrigued by this argument that moderates aren’t passionate about anything…. I take every issue on its own merits and when I make up my mind, I am as passionate and diehard about that position as any conservative or liberal could ever be.”
    Exactly. Why is it so hard for partisans and ideologues to understand that we might hold our own values and positions even more passionately than they hold theirs, for the simple fact that they are ours. We didn’t do what they did, which was to buy an entire set of attitudes off the rack, preselected and packaged by someone else, and chosen based on nothing deeper than brand name.
    Is there anything wishy-washy about the stands taken by such “moderates” as John McCain and our own Lindsey Graham? Was Joe Lieberman being a fence-sitter when he helped push through the Iraq Liberation Act, which way back in 1998 made the overthrow of Saddam Hussein the official policy of this country?
    These are the people who take the independent risks that make things happen, from campaign finance reform to banning torture. Without them as pivots, giving ideas credibility by virtue of their own independence, we’d be forever in a state of stalemate, unable to settle any difficult issue.
    And those of us who support their like are the ones who decide elections
— not the partisans, who can be taken for granted.
    The best thing is to have no parties. But it’s still fun to imagine what kind of party we who despise them would create if we were so inclined. Let’s give it a go.
    Right off, I’m stumped as to a name. So for now, let’s just call it the “Unparty.” (After all, the “Uncola” caught on for a while.)
    Are there any fundamental, nonnegotiable tenets? Sure:

  • First, unwavering opposition to fundamental, nonnegotiable tenets. Within our party would be many ideas, and in each situation we would sift through them to find the smartest possible approach to the challenge at hand. Another day, a completely different approach might be best.
  • Respect for any good idea, even if it comes from Democrats or Republicans.
  • Contempt for any stupid idea, even if it comes from our own party leaders.
  • Utter freedom to vote however one’s conscience dictates, without condemnation or ostracism from fellow party members.

    Every Unpartisan would have his or her own set of positions on issues, having worked them out independently. But to banish the thought that Unpartisans don’t take strong stands, here would be some positions I would bring to the party table (and remember, this is just me, not the editorial board of The State):

  • Respect for life. Opposition to abortion, the death penalty and torture of prisoners.
  • Belief in just war theory, and in America’s obligation to use its strength for good. (Sort of like the Democrats before Vietnam.)
  • A single-payer national health care system — for the sake of business and the workers. If liberals and conservatives could stop driving a wedge between labor and capital for about five minutes, we could make this a reality.
  • Universal education — as a state, not a national, responsibility. Go ahead and shut down the U.S. Department of Education, and make sure you provide equal educational opportunity for all on the state level.
  • A rational, nonideological energy policy that will make us independent of despotic foreign regimes: Drill in the ANWR. Impose strict efficiency standards on Detroit. Build more refineries. Since we are at war and they are helping the enemy, build internment camps for Hummer drivers. (OK, scratch that; just make the Humvee like automatic weapons — banned for all but military use. In fact, what was wrong with the Jeep?) Launch a Manhattan Project to find something better than fossil fuels. Take the advice of Charles Krauthammer and set gasoline permanently at $3 a gallon — when the price of crude drops, raise the tax to keep the pump price at $3. Unlike Mr. Krauthammer (who’d use the proceeds for tax cuts), I’d make like a real conservative and balance the budget.

    Such ideas are not left, right or wishy-washy. Admittedly, in my zeal to debunk the myth that we “moderates” (an inadequate word, really, for independents) don’t take strong stands, I’ve deliberately chosen some ideas that are attractive to me but are too out there for my own editorial board. (Although the issues they address are similar to some set out by potential Unpartisan Paul DeMarco in comments on my blog.) But wouldn’t that make for some lively Unparty conventions? And wouldn’t they be more worth watching than those scripted, stultifying pep rallies that the Democrats and Republicans hold every four years?
    I certainly think so. In fact, that’s one point on which most of us Unpartisans could agree.

“Three Amigos” column

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Reform backers disappointed,
but not discouraged
By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
THEY WERE called the “Three Amigos,” even though there were up to five of them. They were business leaders who were instrumental in pushing the Legislature to pass the Education Accountability Act of 1998. Later, they served on the Education Oversight Committee that was created by that legislation.
    They were Bill Barnet, Larry Wilson, Joel Smith, Bob Staton and James Bennett (scroll down on the link to bio). But the old “Amigos” gag led me to ask three of them for reaction to last week’s news that, for the first time since the standards they pushed went into effect, schools across the state failed to advance.
Far more (354) got a lower grade than received a higher one (55), compared with 2004, while most (668) held steady.
    Messrs. Wilson, Barnet and Staton were all “disappointed” by the results, but none would own up to being “discouraged.”
    They were not surprised by what they saw as a temporary setback on a long “journey.”
After all, this is what the Accountability Act was supposed to do — use tough standardized tests to show objectively where the challenges are, so that they can be addressed.
    “I’m not all that upset about it,” Larry Wilson (whose latest ideas on education and economic development were the subject of last week’s column) called to tell me.
    “You have to look at long-term trends,” he said. One year’s setback isn’t enough to worry about. If schools lose ground next year, too, “Then I’ll begin to be concerned about a trend.”
    He noted that those who have spent their whole school careers under the law’s regimen are showing remarkable progress. For instance, our fourth-graders exceeded the national average in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, the “nation’s report card.”
    “As these students progress, we’ll see better results,” he said.
    He said the state has four big areas to work on:

  • Appropriate, early remediation for kids who need it.
  • Consolidating school districts to eliminate the “inefficiency and high cost of small districts.”
  • Early childhood education, getting children ready for the increased rigor they’ll face in K-12.
  • Raising expectations of students, parents and communities.

    As one trained in systems engineering, he says “education’s no different from any other complex system.” The key is finding the right buttons to push and dials to turn.
    Bill Barnet left the Oversight Committee to become mayor of Spartanburg, but his interest in the mission hasn’t waned.
    He said it’ll take time to overcome the “generational abuse” that led to the conditions the Accountability Act sought to address.
    He illustrated this with a story: For years, he ignored a herniated disc — until the pain in his leg became excruciating, and he consented to surgery. When his leg still hurt weeks later, he complained to the doctor. The doctor told him he couldn’t just assume the pain would go away overnight when he had allowed the damage to continue for 10 years.
    Similarly, the challenges to educational achievement in South Carolina “cannot be solved in any one- or five-year period.”
    He bristles at any suggestion that the struggle should be abandoned for, say, tax credits that encourage parents to abandon the schools.
    “The governor says, ‘How can you be comfortable and pleased with where you are?’.æ.æ.æ. I look him in the eye and say I’m not comfortable and I’m not happy,” he said. And then, he says, he tells Gov. Mark Sanford that while he, Bill Barnet, believes in “choice” (such as charter and magnet schools) where it works, the “Put Parents in Charge Act” is “all about your constituents, and maybe your run for president.” Ultimately, it’s a “huge distraction” from the real issues, such as the inequality between rich and poor districts.
    He keeps an eye on efforts to address that through comprehensive tax reform, but wonders if it is politically possible: “Greenville has to be willing to accept the premise that they’re going to take their money and send it to Dillon.”
    The message, he insists, shouldn’t be “stay the course.” It should be “stay the course, with thoughtful adjustments.”
    The only one of the three still on the Oversight Committee, Bob Staton takes heart from the knowledge that “Our kids are still being better educated than they were seven or eight years ago.”
In fact, he expected a setback such as this one last year — the first time the bar was raised on what schools had to accomplish.
    But he knows not everyone sees it his way: “People will use this information to validate their point of view that we’re awful, we’ve always been awful and we’ll always be awful,” he said.
    “My frustration is, people just look at a piece of it,” such as graduation rates. But today’s dropouts started school before the Accountability Act. “The kids that are beginning to come through it are doing better,” he said. “The graduation rate is the culmination of 18 years of that kid’s life and what goes on in it.”
    He cited “three things to look at” going forward:

  • Where a child is in the third grade. Remediate if necessary.
  • The transition from middle to high school, when reading proficiency is essential to mastering critical thinking skills.
  • Moving out of high school and into career preparation.

    “We’ve got to get them through each of those stages,” he said.
    And my reaction? The questions to be asked today are: What are the conditions that led to 55 schools doing better, and how do we go about replicating them in the 354 that slipped?