One of the obstacles I had to overcome to get the Power Failure project done back in 1991 was persuading my managing editor and executive editor that the problems I proposed to write about were indeed particular to South Carolina. They would ask, "Is it really different from the way other states do things?" and I would say "Yes!" with supporting evidence.
A reader shares with me this item from Governing magazine, which might have helped me make my point more quickly if it had been written back then:
The Budget and Control Board is just one reason why South Carolina’s
governor arguably has less power than any other in the country. And
that has been true for more than a century. As recently as 15 years
ago, the governor didn’t even have a cabinet or submit a budget.
Legislation in 1993 changed that but, even today, the governor can’t
hire or fire the heads of many agencies without the legislature’s
permission. This is separation of powers beyond James Madison’s wildest
dreams.
That Madison reference is a bit off — the S.C. way violates the fundamentals of separation of powers by allowing the legislative branch to trample all over the executive (and the judicial, in many cases). But on the whole, it’s a very good piece. It essentially provides the point of view of the informed outsider, bemused at just how oddly we do things in the Palmetto State. There’s nothing new in it — you’ve read all this stuff in The State before — but it’s a decent step-back piece. The writer even saw through the governor’s thin pretense to be restructuring’s best hope, getting to the core of why Mark Sanford has set the cause back:
Although Sanford has been the strongest advocate of restructuring, he
has also, in a sense, been its greatest enemy. He has clashed
repeatedly with his fellow Republicans in the General Assembly over
even the smallest issues. He’s targeted legislators’ pet projects and
pushed for spending cuts that virtually no lawmakers were willing to
accept. He’s continued to press for school vouchers in the absence of
legislative support.
Anyway, the piece is a nice primer on the problem. It sort of reminds me of some of the initial pieces I wrote on the subject back in ’91.
Of course, the writer was guided by a good source. You’ll see Cindi quoted several times in the piece. In fact, before posting this I asked Cindi about this Josh Goodman (whether he was indeed the outside observer I supposed him to be), and she said,
He DID speak to me; came right here and chatted. He is NOT from around here, although I don’t recall where he’s from. I gave him a copy of the restructuring special section/reprint, not sure if I gave him Power Failure or not, as my supply is dwindling.
In other words, his message is so familiar to me because he was working from our text — just as Sanford did in his 2002 election. (So in other words, something like this likely would not have been written before Power Failure.)…
Towards the end of his piece, Mr. Goodman adopts a hopeful tone about the possibility of future reform, noting some of the same positive developments you’ve read about here, from Vincent Sheheen’s efforts to the sudden turnaround of some black Democrats (long among the most committed foes of restructuring) who were persuaded by the recent Highway Patrol scandals to change their minds.
We’ll see. As usual, we’ll keep pushing for these changes, and keep hoping…
since the base closed, and the experience was for me sadly different. Part of that was that I played it back in the days when there were only nine holes — the "back 9" consisted of playing the same holes from different tee boxes. There were days in my youth when I played — walking, and carrying my clubs on my back — 27 or 36 holes, and was none the worse for wear. Can’t do that any more.
minutes to realize he meant that he liked my hat. Dave is now a civilian PR guy for the United States Air Force, with a civilian rate that is the equivalent of a brigadier general. The picture here shows him from a recent visit to our editorial board, at which he was joined by two guys wearing Air Force "yoonies" which was the way Dave used to say "uniforms." (Teams that had nice uniforms had "key yoonies," and so forth.) Dave was our military reporter before leaving to do the same for USA Today.
Which reminds me — I owe him a call back. Anyway, Jeff’s first job for me was covering the 1988 Republican presidential primary, for which we brought him up from the Newberry County bureau (the journalistic equivalent of AAA ball at the time). He was still covering politics last time I saw him. One of his colleagues took the picture at right, of Jeff and me on a New York street on the last night of the 2004 GOP convention. This picture reminds me, for some reason, of the opening credits of "Saturday Night Live."
Adams did the heavy lifting that led to our declaration, fighting for independence before the Continental Congress. When the matter was sent to a committee (shown at right) that included him and Ben
