Category Archives: Legislature

What I wrote about SPDs in 1991

16 Replies

Things don’t change in South Carolina; they just don’t. If you doubt me, read this piece I wrote in 1991. It was in connection with the 13th installment of the Power Failure project that I directed that year, when I was still in The State‘s newsroom. I quoted from it in my Sunday column.

For those of you who don’t remember, I spent that whole year (except for brief stints when I pulled away to help with our national desk with coverage of the Gulf War and the Soviet coup) running this project that delved very deeply into the fundamental, structural problems with government on the state and local levels in South Carolina. Before that, I had been The State’s governmental affairs editor. After, I took on other, temporary editing assignments as I awaited my chance to join the editorial board. Power Failure had pretty much ruined me for news work.

The piece I refer you to was a little invention of mine that I called the "thread." After the first installment or so of the series (there were 17), I realized that each installment threw an awful lot at people. I wanted to make sure that there was some consistent feature, from installment to installment, that linked that day’s installment with all the previous ones, making sure readers saw the themes that ran through them all. The threads were very short columns by me — about 11 inches long — that essentially answered the questions, What do I need to get out of this installment? How is it related to the rest of the series?

Anyway, I call your attention in particular to this passage. As I noted in my Sunday column, we always have to deal with supporters of SPDs acting like we’re after them personally when we criticized the continued existence of these anachronistic little governments. One of their favorite defenses is to cite the fine work they do providing needed services — as though the same services couldn’t be provided under more sensible governing arrangements. And yet, from the very start, I had anticipated and moved past such objections on their part:

Now before we go further, let’s get one thing straight: There are no bad guys here. Or rather, there might be a few bad guys here and there, but they’re not the problem.

There’s nothing sinister about special-purpose districts per se. They were all established with good intentions. They were set up to provide essential services to people who otherwise would have had to do without. Generally, they continue to perform those services.

The problem is that many — although not all — of them have outlived their usefulness, and their very existence means that government on the local level is more fragmented and less accountable than necessary.

That ran in our paper on Oct. 10, 1991.

Come to think of it, I’ll just make this easy for you and reproduce the whole "thread" for that day here, in case you’re at all interested:

THE STATE
HOW MANY GOVERNMENTS DO WE NEED?
Published on: 10/20/1991
Section: IMPACT
Edition: FINAL
Page: 1D
By Brad Warthen
Memo: POWER FAILURE: The Government That Answers to No One Thirteenth in a series

Do we really need this much government?
    Apart from the mess at the state level — such as an executive branch split into 133 completely independent entities — South Carolina has 46 counties, 271 towns and 91 school districts.
    And about 500 special-purpose districts.
    Maybe we do need this much government. But do we need this many governments, separate and frequently competing?
    Now before we go further, let’s get one thing straight: There are no bad guys here. Or rather, there might be a few bad guys here and there, but they’re not the problem.
    There’s nothing sinister about special-purpose districts per se. They were all established with good intentions. They were set up to provide essential services to people who otherwise would have had to do without. Generally, they continue to perform those services.
    The problem is that many — although not all — of them have outlived their usefulness, and their very existence means that government on the local level is more fragmented and less accountable than necessary.
    These districts are part of the legacy of the Legislative State, and point to some key characteristics of that odd system:

  • Legislative dominance. Until "Home Rule" was passed in 1975, only legislators had the power to solve local problems, such as providing services to unincorporated areas. Rather than empower local governments, legislators did what they always did — set up separate entities that drew their power from the lawmakers, not from voters.
  • Our rural past. Once, most people lived in the country. Now, most people live in or around towns. In many areas, more conventional elected local governments can provide the services SPDs provide — if allowed to. Special- purpose districts deny the urban present and affirm the rural past, as does legislative government itself.
  • That "personal" touch. Government by personal political connection is a hallmark of the Legislative State, and it finds expression here. Individual legislators protect and support special-purpose districts, and those interested in preserving the districts support the legislators.

    The bottom line is that, on the local level as well as on the state, policymaking and service delivery are fragmented, and we’re paying for more administration than we need. No one is in charge.
    Only the Legislature can solve this problem. It can start by setting up a procedure for dissolving SPDs, when and where warranted.
    Then, if it can stop listening to the interests who profit from fragmentation, it can do what voters said 19 years they wanted it to do — allow local government to be consolidated and simplified.
    According to the main lobbyist for the SPDs, "It appears that proponents of consolidation just want power." He’s right; they do. And so do the opponents.
    And so do the people, who have waited for it long enough.
All content © THE STATE and may not be republished without permission.
All archives are stored on a SAVE™ newspaper library system from NewsBank, inc.

Oh, one thing that has changed, slightly. The Legislature did, after this series, finally pass enabling legislation to allow for consolidation of governments. Not that we’ve seen that happen much since.

And we still have more than 500 SPDs. And still, no one knows the exact number.

How do you say ‘So Gay’ in German?

18 Replies

Cindi wrote a short editorial for tomorrow about the latest way that our state has found to waste "Competitive Grant" money. In case you haven’t read about it, Rep. Liston Barfield got 100 Gs to entertain German visitors to the Grand Strand, even though some local tourism officials said the money would have been better spent on advertising to promote tourism.

Wanting to jazz up the headline a bit, I sent her an instant message asking, "How do you say ‘So Gay’ in German?"

So far, she hasn’t replied. Maybe Herb can help us with that.

SLED’s antique helo

7 Replies

Sometimes on the edit page, we get into a bit of a rut. There are so many ways in which our inadequate state government is underfunded that for simplicity’s sake we tend to fall back on certain standbys when we gripe about our Legislature’s failure to set priorities in budgeting. When we cite a litany of neglect, we usually fall on:

  • Mental Health — A favorite example is how the lack of state resources for the mentally ill unnecessarily overcrowd our jails and hospital emergency rooms.
  • Prisons — We keep locking up more and more people, and providing less and less resources even to guard, much less rehabilitate, them.
  • Highways — We let them crumble, and we don’t enforce speed limits or other laws.
  • Schools — Too many districts, no follow-through on the promise to do more in early childhood, the neglect of the most troubled and impoverished rural districts, etc.

And that’s a nice overview, as far as it goes. It’s fine for just a representation in passing of the overall problem. We refer to such examples when we’re complaining about everything from poorly considered tax cuts to spending on things the state doesn’t need to spend on.

But we could write about other examples as well, and probably should more often. I was reminded of this by new SLED Chief Reggie Lloyd when he spoke to the Columbia Rotary yesterday. He talked about how everywhere he’s been in either state or federal government, he always seemed to arrive just as the budget screws were being applied.

The wiretaps he spoke of, and which were cited in the brief in today’s paper, were related to this. SLED has the equipment and the authority to do wiretaps in drug and gang investigations. But the people haven’t been trained in how to do it, so the equipment has sat there (to the delight of libertarians, no doubt, but not to those of us who love Big Brother).

But my favorite anecdote was when he was talking about the department’s Huey. When I heard that, I thought maybe I heard wrong: They’re still flying a Huey? But that wasn’t the half of it. This particular Huey was salvaged from the rice paddy it once crashed into in Vietnam. Now, it’s being flown by pilots who weren’t yet born then. Not long ago, SLED did some sort of joint thing with some folks from the Coast Guard, and they all wanted to see the Huey. They had heard about it, but found it hard to believe.

Hamburgerhill

Working around the governor

53 Replies

At first glance, when I saw this story this morning, and my eye fell on the word "governor," I thought, "Hey, that’s new — Sanford working with others to grow the knowledge economy in South Carolina."

Then I actually read the story. An excerpt:

    Legislative, business and education leaders Tuesday announced a new
partnership designed to draw high-paying technology and research jobs
to South Carolina — the types of jobs, lawmakers said, Gov. Mark
Sanford and the Department of Commerce have failed to bring to the
state.

    The
new effort was the brainchild of House Speaker Bobby Harrell,
R-Charleston; Rep. Dan Cooper, R-Anderson; Senate President Pro Tem
Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston; and Senate Finance Chairman Hugh
Leatherman, R-Florence — arguably the state’s four most influential
lawmakers. The idea was also endorsed by new University of South
Carolina president Harris Pastides and others in the business community….

So it was, of course, the work of every state leader except the governor. The governor, of course, maintains through those who work for him that he and his Commerce Dept. are getting the job done. But they are the only ones in state government, or apparently in academia, who think so.

It’s really unfortunate for Gov. Sanford that the state is run by Republicans. He would be much more at home with a Democratic Legislature, so that his dismissals of criticism as "political" would be more readily accepted. For instance, I might be able to dismiss the complaints of my friend Samuel. Samuel, as you probably know, was the guy who came up with the idea of the endowed chairs. He served on the governing board of that until the gov replaced him. But he’s a Democrat who’s been dumped on by the gov, so you take his complaints about the gov not caring about economic development with a grain of salt, right?

But as things are, the governor doesn’t work well with others, period, regardless of party.

And that’s why others work around him.

Another license plate, another bad idea

21 Replies

Here we go again. I just got this release from S.C. DMV:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 21, 2008

GEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION LICENSE PLATE AVAILABLE
Blythewood, SC – The South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (SCDMV) announced today the availability of a new specialty license plate.
    The Georgia Tech Foundation license plate is now available in SCDMV offices across the state. The fee for the Georgia Tech Foundation license plate is $70 every two years in addition to the regular motor vehicle registration fee. The plate is available to the general public and has no special requirements for obtaining the plates.   
    A portion of the fees collected for the Georgia Tech Foundation plate will be used for scholarships to Georgia Tech for students from South Carolina.
     To view images of all the specialty license plates currently available, visit the SCDMV Web site at www.scdmvonline.com.
                    #####

We had another op-ed piece in today’s paper on the interminable debate over whether South Carolina should issue "I Believe" plates. I thought Kevin and Butch did pretty well with what their client gave themHumanists to work with. Gotta hand it to them, the "Secular Humanists of the Low Country" plate was a new one on me.

And it makes a certain kind of sense for the state to make "I Believe" plates if it’s going to make "In Reason We Trust" plates, and it should make those if it’s going to make, oh, I don’t know… "Surfrider Foundation" plates. (By the way, I am not making any of these up. You can look at all of them here.)

But as I’ve said before here, and as we’ve said editorially in the paper, we shouldn’t be making any of these specialty plates, especially not the ones that exist to raise money for some cause or other. I’m not going to repeat all the arguments. I set them out back here. But I will say this much again:

The purpose of a license plate is essentially a law enforcement one — they should be quickly identifiable as SC plates, which is a standard that all these special vanity plates blow out of the water.

With all these different plates already, how a cop is supposed to tell whether he’s looking at an SC plate or not at a glance is beyond me…

Michael on the Confederate flag

185 Replies

Michael Rodgers, longtime correspondent here and founder of the Take Down The Flag blog, wrote this to me today, and I share it with you:

Dear Brad,
I am writing for two reasons: to point out some common things people often say that are wrong and to describe the stunning lack of leadership from our state government on this issue.

First, the things that are wrong:

1) Our issue in SC is just like the issue in Mississippi or Georgia.  Wrong, because our issue in South Carolina is about the third flag we fly, not about our state flag.
2) The 2/3 vote requirement for this issue is insurmountable.  Wrong for two reasons:

  a. The 2/3 requirement is a legislative hurdle can be taken out of the way with a simple majority (1/2).  Then a simple majority would be able to change rest of the law.
  b. Our state government votes 2/3 all the time when they override Gov. Sanford’s veto, so in fact 2/3 routinely occurs.

3) No one in our state legislature is interested in resolving this issue.  Wrong, because H-3588, a bill to resolve this issue, has seven sponsors. (And as a personal opinion, I think H-3588 completes the compromise).
4) This issue is between flag supporters, who are happy, and flag opponents, who are unhappy.  Wrong for four reasons:

  a. The issue is the FLYING of a third flag from Statehouse grounds, so the camps are flag flying supporters and flag flying opponents.
  b. Flag supporters are unhappy – why else would they get so worked up all the time about this issue?
  c. This issue is between the leaders of our state government, who are happy, and South Carolinians, who are unhappy.
  d. The issue is actually the story (the why!) we tell when we fly or when we don’t fly the flag.  (And as a personal opinion, H-3588 provides a completely consistent clarification of the story of the compromise of 2000).

5) This issue is not worth our time to resolve.  Wrong because this issue is

  a. a defining issue for our state,
  b. tearing our state apart, and
  c. diminishing our state’s stature.

Second, the stunning lack of leadership.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/

Gov. Mark Sanford said, "Everybody has a different perspective. It is a deeply dividing and complex issue that we’re not going to try and open and re-examine. Somebody is going to have to place a tremendous amount of political capital to pry open a compromise. This administration is not going to be doing that."

Our state government is flying the Confederate flag, and this action causes people to react viscerally.  And when I say people, I am concurring with Gov. Sanford’s grouping:  It’s a deeply dividing issue that affects everybody.

Our state government is flying the Confederate flag, and this action causes people to have enormous confusion as to the reason for this action.  And when I say people, I am concurring with Gov. Sanford’s grouping: Everybody has a different perspective.

Our state government is causing deep division that confuses everybody, and what does Gov. Sanford propose to do about it?  Nothing.

Gov. Sanford says that this simple issue is too complex for him to re-examine.  He says what he always says, which is if we’re going to do anything, we’ve got to throw out everything we’ve been given and start fresh — new constitution, new government structure, new approach to property taxes, new approach to education, etc.  No wonder he doesn’t have the political capital to spare for this issue!

I say that we can solve this issue by respecting the compromise and by clarifying the confusion.  Our state government made a compromise in 2000, where they decided a lot of things under a lot of pressure.  By and large, they did a fantastic job, under the circumstances.

One part of this compromise, the flying of the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds, is deeply dividing everybody because everybody has a different perspective on this action. We can focus on solving this last remaining issue because the complex parts of this issue have already been solved.

We can solve this last remaining issue, the simple one, with H-3588.  This bill says that confusions about racism and sovereignty can be resolved by flying our state flag in place of the Confederate flag.  This bill says that confusions about respect for heritage can be resolved by commemorating Confederate Memorial Day every year by flying the Confederate flag at the flagpole where it is now.

H-3588 respects the compromise of 2000 by honoring the Confederate Soldier Monument, Confederate Memorial Day, and the Confederate flag.  H-3588 clarifies the message about why our state honors the Confederate flag: because we respect the service and sacrifice of the Confederate soldiers and not for any other reason.

Because H-3588 respects the compromise and clarifies the confusion, H-3588 completes the compromise.  A leader can easily solve this problem.  Who’s going to step up to the plate?  The governor’s mansion awaits.

Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC

That Howie — he just can’t meet a deadline, can he?

13 Replies

Ross Shealy over at Barbecue and Politics has been busy compiling some interesting facts on some of the individual races in our recent state primaries.

Actually, it’s just the same fact over and over, but it’s an interesting one. Howard Rich — that star of video, thanks to Katon Dawson — funneled thousands of bucks to candidate after candidate, right AFTER the final deadline for pre-primary campaign finance reports. So did some other out-of-state voucher supporters.

By Ross’ reckoning, Katrina (no relation) Shealy (to name one) got $97,000 in out-of-state funding, of which voters only had the chance to know about $5,000 before they voted.

Here’s the result of Ross’ labors with regard to Ms. Shealy. Here also is what he’s put together on the following candidates:

Our boy Ross has been busy. So has Howard Rich.

Yessirree bobtail!

18 Replies

Cindi’s got another column on tomorrow’s page that involves the S.C. legislative practice of "bobtailing." As usual, she uses the term as though it makes perfect sense, although it doesn’t.

Cindi defends the word as one that has meaning within the context of the State House, and she has enough of a point that I leave the term in when she uses it (Hey — you try to argue her out of it). Cindi uses the term because, as she put it, That’s what they call it, so that’s what it is. I’m grateful that in one recent column, she at least put the term, as used by S.C. lawmakers, in quotation marks.

Yes, if we’re going to describe what these folks do we need to use the lingo, but this is just an example of our lawmakers abusing language. They use the term to refer to ADDING something, or somethings, to a bill — something that doesn’t belong there. In the English language, the term "bobtail" indicates that something has been TAKEN AWAY — or mostly taken away.

To "bob" a tail is to cut most of it off. It applies to things other than hair, of course (I refer you to Fitzgerald’s "Bernice Bobs Her Hair.") A Bobtail Cat is so called because he has a mere stump of a tail.

Far more accurately descriptive is the "Christmas Tree" metaphor, of hanging amendments on a bill in the manner of ornaments. Unfortunately, in South Carolina, "bobtailing" is what they call it. I just thought I’d point out that they are WRONG to call it that.

DeMint helps clarify things

11 Replies

This has happened twice now, and it was helpful both times.

As is my usual pattern with these either-way-I’m-unhappy endorsements, I came in on the morning of June 4, the day the original Jake Knotts endorsement ran, with my usual now-it’s-too-late sense of buyer’s remorse. Not that I wished we’d endorsed Katrina Shealy (or Mike Sturkie), it was just one of those that I wasn’t going to be happy any way you looked at it.

Fortunately, Gov. Mark Sanford came to the rescue, making me feel so much better, so much more confident that we did the right thing — or as confident as I could be. We had said the governor was too fixated on getting rid of this guy — meaning that if he succeeded, it would intimidate the whole Legislature — that it was best to re-elect him. And right on cue, the governor stops everything, on the day before the end of the legislative session, to write an op-ed about why Jake’s got to go. It was highly vindicating.

Then this morning, after we’ve gone through Round Two of the Jake wars here on the editorial board, and endorsed him again in the runoff (not doing so was actually on the table, yes), and I pick up my paper today wondering whether that really was necessary, and along comes Jim DeMint to the rescue.

Things are so much clearer now. Let’s see:

This makes everything so much clearer. Oh yeah, in case you didn’t know: We endorsed McCain in the GOP primary. That’s one we were utterly sure of. And unlike the governor, we actually did so when the outcome was in doubt.

Lawmaker to level charges at police chief

26 Replies

This release struck me as unusual when I got it, but I set it aside because I didn’t have time to blog about it. But when I receive a phone message from a someone making sure I had received the message and knew about the coming news conference, I decided to give y’all a heads-up on this:

SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS
Media advisory for June 16, 2008

REPRESENTATIVE TODD RUTHERFORD TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE IN RESPONSE TO THE CLUB LEVEL SHOOTING INCIDENT
    Rep. Todd Rutherford [D-Richland] will hold a press conference in room 305 of the Blatt building.   His remarks will highlight the Club Level shooting incident, and pinpoint precautionary measures that could have been taken by Columbia Police Chief Tandy P. Carter. 

WHO: Representative Todd Rutherford
WHEN:  Tomorrow (Tuesday, June 17, 2007) at 10:00 a.m.
WHERE: 1105 Pendleton Street, Blatt Building Room 305, Columbia, SC 29201

Kelly S. Adams
Director
SC House Democratic Caucus
P.O. Box 12049
Columbia, SC 29211

Maybe it’s not all that unusual for a state lawmaker to poke his nose into a municipal police matter. But to do so under the aegis of his party’s caucus is weird. To go to such lengths to call attention to it makes it sort of weird squared.

Wow. This police chief just got here, and he’s got this much heat coming down already?

Demise of the Executive Institute

18 Replies

Here’s a veto that I missed last week. I guess I should have noticed it, since it was one of those rare ones that the Legislature actually sustained:

I am very sorry to have to report to you that funding for the Executive Institute was vetoed by the Governor and the veto was sustained by the House of Representatives.  Therefore the Institute will not begin it’s 19th year in August as planned and we will shut down the operation at the end of this fiscal year.

I would like to thank all of you for the friendship, enthusiasm and support you have shown us over the years.  You are the major reason for the success we have had.  Thanks so much for 18 great years. 

Tina

Tina Joseph Hatchell
Director
Executive Institute

Alongside such biggies as the SCHIP program and indigent defense, this one was easy to overlook. But now that I know, I’m sorry to hear it.

I’m an alumnus of the Executive Institute, class of ’94. Back then, the director of the program was Phil Grose. That was thee year that I was getting ready to come up to the editorial department from news (end of ’93, beginning of ’94). My predecessor Tom McLean paid for me to do the program, because back in those days, we had money for such professional development. Primarily, the Institute existed to train up-and-coming managers in state government, although there was always a smattering of private sector folks for leavening — which helped give the government types exposure to the private sector, and vice versa. The interaction itself was educational.

It was particularly useful because of the Institute’s teaching method. It was run in conjunction with the Kennedy School at Harvard, and the instructors led the class through real-life case studies, in which we were asked to put ourselves in the places of the public administrators who had navigated their way through a variety of crises and challenges.

Being the newspaper guy, I had to overcome a great deal of distrust and wariness on the part of my classmates, which was essential to the kind of interaction that the classes called for. Middle managers in government see press types as natural enemies, for a simple reason: Newspapers don’t write about what they do except when there is a problem, consequently we help create the phenomenon we see in the comments on this blog — a lot of folks in the electorate who only see them in terms of the worst mistakes that anyone like them has ever made, because that’s what gets written about.

But we managed to get a good enough rapport going to have some pretty good discussions going. Frequently, my role was to try to convince people that having the problem (in the case study) get into the newspapers was not the end of the world. It was interesting, and I think helpful to having a better-run state government.

Does that mean I think lawmakers should have overridden the veto. No, not if they were going to leave the prisons, mental health, our roads and 4K all underfunded. But if they were going to override either this or their pet "Competitive" Grants Program, they should have overridden this.

So guess which one they overrode — "overwhelmingly"?

Marking time at the State House

6 Replies

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
IN THE LAST 15 minutes of the 2008 session of the S.C. General Assembly, there were three things going on in the House chamber: The speaker and clerks and others up on the podium were fussing about finishing important paperwork of some sort. All of the other House members were wandering about on the floor, socializing, saying goodbye, slapping backs, shaking hands, sharing stories and so forth.
    All, that is, but two members, Reps. Chris Hart and Walt McLeod. Mr. Hart was at the lectern. Mr. McLeod was at his desk. Their microphoned voices rose indistinctly above the buzz of their milling, meandering colleagues. A sample of their vaudevillian dialogue:

Rep. McLEOD: Is it correct to say that, at the present time, our state prison system is operating at a deficit?
Rep. HART: That’s absolutely correct, and I’m glad you mentioned that, Mr. McLeod…

    They were discussing a two-part proposal made by Attorney General Henry McMaster earlier in the session. He had proposed to do away with what’s left of parole in our state prisons, while simultaneously creating a new “middle court” that would punish first-time, nonviolent wrongdoers in ways other than sending them to prison.
    What Messrs. McLeod and Hart were teaming up to say — between Mr. McLeod’s friendly, leading questions and Mr. Hart’s “thank you for that good question” answers — was that it would be crazy to do the former without first doing the latter. (Their language was more polite; I’m just cutting to the chase.)
    That’s because, as Mr. Hart explained, South Carolina already did away with parole for violent offenders long ago. And since then, we’ve been jamming more and more prisoners (violent and nonviolent) into our prisons, while cutting the budget of the Corrections Department year after year. We now spend less per prisoner than any other state in the union, while locking up more of our population than most. We lock up more prisoners with fewer guards, and make basically no effort to rehabilitate them. So our prisons are increasingly dangerous places — for the guards, for the prisoners and for those of us on the outside who depend on the worst criminals staying inside.
    Some of you will say, Oh, isn’t that just like a couple of liberal Democrats, prattling on about mollycoddling prisoners. If you say that, you’re not paying attention.
    One of Gov. Mark Sanford’s biggest gripes about the budget the Legislature just passed — and remember, this is Mark Sanford, the most fanatical enemy of “growing government” ever to enter the State House — was that it does not spend enough to run our prisons safely and responsibly.
    He is guided in this by his hyper-conservative director of Corrections, Jon Ozmint. (I once toured a prison with Mr. Ozmint, a former prosecutor. He kept striking up chats with the prisoners. He’d ask, “Who sent you here?” The prisoner would name a judge. Mr. Ozmint would say, “Oh, Judge So-and-So! He’s a really good judge! He’s really fair, isn’t he?” The prisoner would gape at Mr. Ozmint as though he were a Martian.) Mr. Ozmint, after years of refusing to complain on the record, wrote an op-ed piece this year to beg lawmakers not to abolish parole, suggesting that if they did, he and his shrunken staff would not be able to keep the lid on the pressure-cooker.
    Everybody who is familiar with these facts knows these things. Henry McMaster knows these things. So why did he propose something that flew in the face of the facts (abolishing parole), at the same time as proposing something that made perfect sense in light of the same facts (alternative sentencing for nonviolent offenders, to reserve prison space for the worst criminals)?
    Because he is a political realist. He knows the South Carolina General Assembly. “No parole” was the tooth-rotting sweetener to help the alternative-sentencing medicine go down.
    The good news here is that the Legislature didn’t abolish parole this year. The bad news is that it didn’t provide for alternative sentencing, either. What it did, in the end, was neglect the whole problem as usual, sending more people behind bars while we pay less and less to keep them there.
    It was the same approach lawmakers took to early-childhood education; our crumbling, unsafe roads; our emergency rooms crammed with mental patients; our struggling rural schools — leave it all to fester.
    What did lawmakers do this year besides throw up their hands over the lack of money, after having cut taxes by about a billion dollars over the last few sessions? Well, they passed an “immigration reform” bill that will accomplish two things: force businesses to do a lot of paperwork, and enable lawmakers to tell the voters in this election year that they had “done something” about illegal immigration. And boy did they spend a lot of time and energy on that.
    Back to Mr. Hart and Mr. McLeod. If the whole abolish parole/alternative sentencing thing was already dead for the year, why were they going on so earnestly? Well, they’re just that way; they’re very earnest guys. It was pointless, really — perhaps even a bit priggish of them. They knew they were just marking time and so did everybody else, so you can’t blame anybody for ignoring them. It was just political theater; they were actors in a play with a “what if?” plot, as in, “What if lawmakers realistically and intelligently engaged the actual challenges facing their state?”
    Only an easily distracted fool who didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on would have paid attention to them at all.

See the video of Hart and McLeod here.

Now THAT ought to be a short program

6 Replies

Forget Lieberman-Warner. This is my e-mail of the day. I got a release from S.C. ETV saying that on "This Week in the House with Speaker Bobby Harrell,"

… Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell will host  Rep. Jim Merrill, House Majority Leader, and Rep. Harry Ott, House Minority Leader, as they discuss this Session’s accomplishments…

I’m sort of guessing they’re going to drag out the introductions, greetings and sign-off, because they certainly won’t have any other content.

Proving the innocent innocent, and the guilty guilty

12 Replies

Joe McCulloch called me this morning to give us a heads-up on something. The House agreed on Thursday to recall a bill from committee that would allow people who are convicted of murder, rape and a handful of other violent crimes to have DNA testing done if they can convince a judge it would likely prove them innocent. The bill has passed the Senate, so there’s a chance it could become law this year, if the House approves it this coming week. Here’s the editorial we wrote about it earlier this month:

Post-conviction DNA testing
protects all of us

WHEN THE WRONG person is convicted of a crime, the only clear winner is the actual criminal – although police and prosecutors might appear to be winners, since they were able to score a conviction. The person wrongly convicted certainly doesn’t win, and in fact we do incomprehensibly grave harm to that person. Neither do the rest of us, who are less safe because the real criminal remains free to harm others.
    We don’t have reason to believe that a large number of people are wrongly convicted in South Carolina, but we do know that our laws are not adequate to right the wrong when it does occur. A bill passed last month by the Senate (S.429) would correct part of the problem, by adding our state to the 44 others that allow people convicted of murder, rape and a handful of other violent crimes to have DNA testing done if they can convince a judge it would likely prove them innocent.
    Under current law, there’s no mechanism for such testing; in most cases, judges can’t order DNA testing – or do anything about it if such testing is somehow done and demonstrates the convict’s innocence – unless the solicitor agrees to the request.
    That wouldn’t be a problem in an ideal world, because the job of prosecutors is to do justice, and so they would be just as anxious as anyone to make sure the wrong person isn’t in prison. The reality is different. Prosecutors are human and dislike admitting their mistakes; and besides, they grow cynical from hearing the inevitable claims of innocence from criminals who really aren’t innocent, so with rare exceptions, they fight tooth and nail against those claims.
    One of the main criticisms of laws to facilitate claims of innocence is that they would be abused by prisoners who, with all the time in the world on their hands, will pursue any avenue of appeal that’s opened to them. That’s always a risk, but the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Gerald Malloy, projects that no more than five to 10 requests would be made each year. That’s in part because the bill is a double-edged sword for prisoners who really are guilty: If the DNA testing confirms their guilt, they are subject to contempt of court, revocation of good-time credits and denial of parole requests. Perhaps more importantly, it requires that any new DNA samples be run through state and federal databases, to see whether the prisoner can be tied to unsolved crimes.
    Senators tried to address concerns about the cost by putting an annual limit of $150,000 on the amount of money the state would spend to provide DNA testing for prisoners who can’t afford it themselves. But that doesn’t address the larger potential cost, in increased demand on our already overburdened and underfunded courts. That cost is not a sufficient reason to reject the legislation – but it is reason to give the courts the resources they need to do their job. Another way to hold down the cost might be to eliminate the appeals procedure, and make the judge’s decision on whether to order testing final.
    There is certainly room for debate over precisely how such a program should operate – and we hope that the House will engage that debate before lawmakers adjourn for the year. But we have not heard any convincing arguments why our state should continue to bar the courthouse door to inmates with reasonable claims that a simple test can prove their innocence.

A way to prove the innocent innocent, and the guilty guilty. It’s hard to see why this wouldn’t pass in a heartbeat.

Interesting exchange in District 79

8 Replies

Randy Page of SCRG shared with me his response to an e-mail from David Herndon, whom we recently endorsed over Sheri Few for the GOP nomination in House Dist. 79.

First, the letter he says he got from Mr. Herndon:

To: SCRG
From: David Herndon, Republican for House
District 79

Dear sirs,

As you are aware, I am a Republican candidate for the S.C.
House of Representatives. I am writing because I am concerned about your
involvement in not just this race, but many others across the state as
well.

It has been brought to my attention that your
special-interest organization has sent out many mailings in many Legislative
races in South Carolina. Some of these postcards simply promote candidates, but
others are “attack pieces” which aim to discredit Republican office-holders who
support public education.

While state law certainly allows special interest groups to
endorse whomever you wish, these mailings leave many unanswered questions.
First, and most importantly, nowhere in any of these mailings — at least the
ones I am aware of — do you disclose the true motives of your group.

It is my understanding the purpose of your organization is to
advocate private school vouchers. Strangely, neither your advocacy of vouchers
nor your preferred candidates’ support for vouchers is mentioned in any of your
mailings.

As a public school parent, I strongly support public
education, and I believe your private-school voucher scheme would only drain
needed funding away from public school classrooms. However, I view this as an
honest difference of opinion, and I certainly believe it is important for
elected Representatives to find a common ground with those of other viewpoints.
What I do have a problem with is that your organization is not disclosing your
true motives. I feel this amounts to misleading voters.

Last month, I wrote to my opponent, Mrs. Few, to express my
concern about your involvement in this race. My concerns were based on your
previous track record of running negative, deceptive campaigns against
Republican office-holders who support education; your attempts to disguise your
true motives; and published reports that say much, if not a majority, of your
funding comes from out-of-state. (In my opinion, your negative campaign against
Bill Cotty in 2006 was perhaps the most negative our community has ever been
subjected to.)

My letter still has received no response, so I decided to
contact your organization directly.

I am writing you with this public challenge: In the rest of
your mailings this election cycle, please level with the voters about your true
motive — the privatization of education. The voters deserve honesty. And after
all, your group calls itself “South Carolinians for Responsible Government.” I
would think the hallmark of anyone claiming to advocate “responsible government”
would see the value in being as honest and up front as possible with the
voters.

So what do you say, SCRG? Do the voters not deserve to be
told the truth about your group’s purpose as you fill up their mailboxes with
attack pieces, pictures of pigs and postcards about conservative
judges?

I look forward to your response, and I hope you will answer
this challenge. The voters deserve as much.

Thank you,

David Herndon

Then, Randy’s response:

Dear Mr.
Herndon,

Thank you for your
email.  I appreciate you taking the time to contact South Carolinians for
Responsible Government. 

Through mail, radio and
Internet, we have been very clear about our objectives.  In fact, you can read
about it on our website at http://www.scrgov.org/content.asp?name=Site&catID=8110&parentID=8088
     We have long advocated the need for lower taxes, government restructuring,
conservative judges and for tuition tax credits.

In my view, citizens
don’t need to be wary of a conservative organization that advocates for better
schools, lower taxes and streamlining government, but rather someone, like
yourself, who one day professes a particular set of beliefs, but then decides –
perhaps on the advice of a slick political consultant – that he’s changed his
position.  What else could describe your sudden about face on the issue of
school choice? 

In the survey that you
signed and submitted to us on April 18th, you clearly checked that
you supported both a scholarship granting organization and a voucher system. 
I’m sure this will come as a complete surprise to the editors of The State.
If you don’t remember, I’ve included a copy of it for you – as well as the
members of the media that were copied on this message.

Sincerely,

Randy Page,
President

South Carolinians for
Responsible Government

I guess it’s a good thing that, as I said in my Sunday column, it was her position on the cigarette tax that made me decide against endorsing Sheri Few.

How they voted on (sort of) restructuring

21 Replies

As outrageous activity goes, this isn’t nearly as much so as the failure to overrided Sanford’s veto on the cigarette tax. It’s just sort of run-of-the-mill pitiful, what you come to expect from our General Assembly.

This note sent to me by Cindi describes how Senators failed to keep alive the modest Vincent Sheheen proposal to sorta, kinda move in the general direction of rational structural (and functional) reform of state government:

Here’s Tuesday’s Senate vote on a motion to set the legislative restructuring/Department of Administration bill (about which we wrote this morning) for special order. It needed a two-thirds vote but fell short. The bill will not be debated unless it is set for special order.

THE CALL OF THE UNCONTESTED CALENDAR HAVING BEEN COMPLETED, THE SENATE PROCEEDED TO THE MOTION PERIOD.

MOTION FAILS

H. 3590 <http://www.scstatehouse.net/cgi-bin/web_bh10.exe?bill1=3590&session=117> ( Word <http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess117_2007-2008/bills/3590.doc> version) — Reps. G.R. Smith, Bowen, Duncan, Haskins, Littlejohn, Lowe, Bedingfield and Stavrinakis: A BILL TO ENACT THE "SOUTH CAROLINA RESTRUCTURING ACT OF 2007" INCLUDING PROVISIONS TO AMEND SECTION 1-30-10, CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO THE AGENCIES OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF STATE GOVERNMENT BY ADDING THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION; BY ADDING SECTION 1-30-125 SO AS TO ESTABLISH THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION AS AN AGENCY OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF STATE GOVERNMENT TO BE HEADED BY A DIRECTOR APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR UPON THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, AND TO TRANSFER TO THIS NEWLY CREATED DEPARTMENT CERTAIN OFFICES AND DIVISIONS OF THE STATE BUDGET AND CONTROL BOARD, OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, AND OTHER AGENCIES, AND TO PROVIDE FOR TRANSITIONAL AND OTHER PROVISIONS NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH THE ABOVE; BY ADDING CHAPTER 8 TO TITLE 1 SO AS TO CREATE THE OFFICE OF STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL AS A SEPARATE DIVISION WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION, TO PROVIDE THAT THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL MUST BE APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR UPON THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, TO PROVIDE FOR THE PURPOSE, DUTIES, RESPONSIBILITIES, AND AUTHORITY OF THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL, TO PROVIDE A DEFINITION OF "EXECUTIVE AGENCIES" FOR PURPOSES OF THIS CHAPTER, AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE RECEIPT AND INVESTIGATION OF COMPLAINTS RELATING TO IMPROPER OR UNLAWFUL ACTIVITY WITHIN EXECUTIVE AGENCIES OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT; BY ADDING ARTICLE 6 TO CHAPTER 3 OF TITLE 1 SO AS TO ESTABLISH THE DIVISION OF THE STATE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION TO BE HEADED BY THE STATE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, TO PROVIDE THAT THE STATE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER SHALL BE APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR UPON THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE POWERS, DUTIES, AND FUNCTIONS OF THE DIVISION; TO CREATE A JOINT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY REVIEW COMMITTEE, AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS CASE REVIEW PANEL, AND AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURE OVERSIGHT PANEL AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE FUNCTIONS, POWERS, AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE COMMITTEE AND PANELS; TO AMEND SECTION 11-35-1580, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROCUREMENTS, SO AS TO DELETE CERTAIN RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT OFFICE; TO AMEND SECTIONS 1-10-10, 1-11-20, AS AMENDED, 1-11-22, 1-11-55, 1-11-56, 1-11-58, 1-11-65, 1-11-67, 1-11-70, 1-11-80, 1-11-90, 1-11-100, 1-11-110, 1-11-180, 1-11-220, 1-11-225, 1-11-250, 1-11-260, 1-11-270, 1-11-280, 1-11-290, 1-11-300, 1-11-310, 1-11-315, 1-11-320, 1-11-335, 1-11-340, 1-11-435, 2-13-240, AS AMENDED, CHAPTER 9 OF TITLE 3; 10-1-10, 10-1-30, AS AMENDED, 10-1-40, 10-1-130, 10-1-190, AS AMENDED, CHAPTER 9 OF TITLE 10, 10-11-50, AS AMENDED, 10-11-90, 10-11-110, 10-11-140, 10-11-330; 11-9-610, 11-9-620, 11-9-630, 11-35-3810, 11-35-3820, 11-35-3830, 11-35-3840, 13-7-30, 13-7-830, ALL AS AMENDED, 48-46-30, AS AMENDED, 48-46-40, AS AMENDED, 48-46-50, 48-46-60, 48-46-90, 44-53-530, AS AMENDED, AND 44-96-140; AND TO ADD SECTION 1-11-185 ALL RELATING TO VARIOUS AGENCY OR DEPARTMENT PROVISIONS SO AS TO CONFORM THEM TO THE ABOVE PROVISIONS PERTAINING TO THE NEW DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION OR TO SUPPLEMENT SUCH PROVISIONS.

Senator MARTIN moved to set H. 3590 for Special Order.

Senator MARTIN explained the Bill.

Senator MALLOY spoke on the Bill.

The "ayes" and "nay" were demanded and taken, resulting as follows:

AYES

Alexander                 Bryant                    Campbell
Campsen                   Ceips                     Cleary
Courson                   Cromer                    Fair
Grooms                    Hayes                     Jackson
Lourie                    Martin                    Massey
McConnell                 Peeler                    Rankin
Reese*                    Ritchie                   Ryberg
Scott                     Setzler                   Sheheen
Thomas                    Verdin

Total–27

NAYS

Anderson                  Drummond                  Ford
Hawkins                   Hutto                     Knotts
Land                      Leatherman                Leventis
Malloy                    Matthews                  McGill
O’Dell                    Patterson                 Pinckney
Short                     Williams

Total–17

*This Senator was not present in the Chamber at the time the vote was taken and the vote was recorded by leave of the Senate, with unanimous consent.

The necessary two-thirds vote having not been received the motion failed.

Guys at the Bada-Bing must LOVE S.C. lawmakers

11 Replies

Pork_store

As part of my never-ending quest to be fair-minded and see the silver lining, I’ve managed to think of one group of citizens who will benefit from, and have reason to appreciate, the otherwise contemptible, ridiculous failure of the S.C. House to override Mark Sanford’s veto of the cigarette tax increase. They’re not citizens of S.C. (and come to think of it, Furio’s not even a citizen of this country), but let’s not get picky.

In case you haven’t done the math on this, the S.C. tax on cigarettes is 7 cents (yes, 7 cents) a pack. In New York City, it’s $4.25 a pack. Imagine the profit on a truckload of cartons, even if you don’t steal the truck. As if I-95 needed MORE traffic…

The Wall Street Journal recently explained the profitability to O.C. of the New York taxes. Of course, being the WSJ — the only publication in the world that actually believes Mark Sanford is a contender for John McCain’s running mate (and even then it’s just the ideologues on the editorial board) — was arguing that the N.Y. tax was a bad thing.

    While the problem first surfaced during the Great
Depression, tax hikes in the early 1960s created a major profit
opportunity for smugglers and kicked the epidemic into high gear. By
1967, a quarter of the cigarettes consumed in the Empire State were
bootlegged. New York City’s finance administrator labeled cigarette
smuggling the "principal stoking facility of the engine of organized
crime."

    Crime rapidly spread beyond New York’s borders, as
trucks carrying cigarettes across the country were hijacked and
businesses selling them robbed to supply New York’s black market. In
1972, the chairman of a New York commission told Congress that
retailers and other workers were "confronted almost daily with the risk
and dangers of personal violence which are now inherent in their
industry."

But from a South Carolina perspective, what that math says is that we could stop that traffic from coming out of our state — but only if we were willing to raise the tax by several times the lousy 50 cents we were talking about. But being South Carolina, and having our Legislature and our governor, we couldn’t even manage that, which is of course beneath pitiful.

I should add that the WSJ piece also dealt with the connection between cigarette smuggling and terrorism. But thanks to South Carolina, ordinary decent American criminals are in a position to keep competing with the foreign bad guys.

How they voted on cigarette tax

26 Replies

Trying to catch up with messages and such, I have no time to comment right now on the inexcusable, unconscionable, reprehensible vote to uphold Gov. Mark Sanford’s indefensible veto of the cigarette tax (beyond reminding you of what I’ve said over and over — how the money is spent is secondary, far secondary, to cutting teen smoking by raising the price, and there was NO excuse not to do that). But until I DO have time, here’s how those no-account cusses (and the rest of them) voted:

{BC-SC-XGR-Cigarette Tax-Roll Call,0405}
{Cigarette Tax-Roll Call}
{By The Associated Press}=
   The 54-57 roll call by which the South Carolina House voted to sustain a veto on a 50 cent-a-pack cigarette tax increase. A two-thirds vote was required to override the veto.
   On this vote, a "yes" vote was a vote to override the veto and "no" vote was a vote to sustain the veto.
   Voting "yes" were 40 Democrats and 14 Republicans.
   Voting "no" were 4 Democrats and 53 Republicans.
   Not voting were 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans.

{Democrats Voting Yes}
   Alexander, Florence; Allen, Greenville; Anderson, Georgetown; Anthony, Union; Bales, Eastover; Bowers, Brunson; Branham, Lake City; Brantley, Ridgeland; Breeland, Charleston; G. Brown, Bishopville; R. Brown, Hollywood; Clyburn, Aiken; Cobb-Hunter, Orangeburg; Funderburk, Camden; Govan, Orangeburg; Hart, Columbia; Harvin, Summerton; Hodges, Green Pond; Howard, Columbia; Jefferson, Pineville; Jennings, Bennettsville; Kennedy, Greeleyville; Knight, St. George; Mack, North Charleston; McLeod, Little Mountain; Miller, Pawleys Island; Mitchell, Spartanburg; J.H. Neal, Hopkins; J.M. Neal, Kershaw; Ott, St. Matthews; Parks, Greenwood; Rutherford, Columbia; Scott, Columbia; Sellers, Denmark; F.N. Smith, Greenville; J.E. Smith, Columbia; Stavrinakis, Charleston; Vick, Chesterfield; Weeks, Sumter; Williams, Darlington;

{Republicans Voting Yes}
   Ballentine, Irmo; Cotty, Columbia; Crawford, Florence; Dantzler, Goose Creek; Gullick, Lake Wylie; Hiott, Pickens; Huggins, Columbia; Mahaffey, Lyman; Owens, Pickens; Pinson, Greenwood; Rice, Easley; Scarborough, Charleston; Skelton, Six Mile; Whitmire, Walhalla;

{Democrats Voting No}
   Battle, Nichols; Kirsh, Clover; Moss, Gaffney; Neilson, Darlington;

{Republicans Voting No}
   Bannister, Greenville; Barfield, Conway; Bedingfield, Mauldin; Bingham, West Columbia; Bowen, Anderson; Brady, Columbia; Cato, Travelers Rest; Chalk, Hilton Head Island; Clemmons, Myrtle Beach; Cooper, Piedmont; Daning, Goose Creek; Delleney, Chester; Duncan, Clinton; Edge, North Myrtle Beach; Erickson, Beaufort; Frye, Batesburg-Leesville; Gambrell, Honea Path; Hagood, Mt. Pleasant; Haley, Lexington; Hamilton, Taylors; Hardwick, Surfside Beach; Harrell, Charleston; Harrison, Columbia; Haskins, Greenville; Herbkersman, Bluffton; Kelly, Woodruff; Leach, Greer; Littlejohn, Spartanburg; Loftis, Greenville; Lowe, Florence; Lucas, Hartsville; Merrill, Daniel Island; Mulvaney, Indian Land; Perry, Aiken; E.H. Pitts, Lexington; M.A. Pitts, Laurens; Sandifer, Seneca; Shoopman, Greer; Simrill, Rock Hill; D.C. Smith, North Augusta; G.M. Smith, Sumter; G.R. Smith, Simpsonville; J.R. Smith, Langley; Stewart, Aiken; Talley, Spartanburg; Taylor, Laurens; Thompson, Anderson; Toole, West Columbia; Umphlett, Moncks Corner; Walker, Landrum; White, Anderson; Witherspoon, Conway; Young, Summerville;

{Those Not Voting}
   Democrats: Agnew, Abbeville; Coleman, Winnsboro; Hayes, Hamer; Hosey, Barnwell; Moody-Lawrence, Rock Hill; Phillips, Gaffney; Whipper, North Charleston;
   Republicans: Davenport, Boiling Springs; Hutson, Summerville; Limehouse, Charleston; W.D. Smith, Spartanburg; Spires, Pelion; Viers, Myrtle Beach;

You might think I should praise those who voted to override, but I won’t — anyone, regardless of political philosophy, should do what they did. To vote to sustain the veto was beneath contempt.

Sheri Few touts ability to raise funds as advantage in House 79 primary

8 Replies

Fewsherri_024

Although she was a candidate for the GOP nomination for this seat two years ago, this is the first video I’ve posted of Ms. Few — in fact, I don’t think I shot pictures of her either, since I didn’t post any at the time. She was the second candidate to come in for an interview in 2006, and it apparently had not yet dawned on me to take my camera into those meetings for blog purposes.

This time around, I have an embarrassment of riches — so many images and clips on candidates that they keep threatening to crash my laptop. And yet, they’ve been coming in so fast I haven’t had time to post many on the blog. But at least I’m doing this one. (Truth be told, if I weren’t under the gun to produce a video clip of something for the Saturday Opinion Extra by midnight, I wouldn’t be doing this one, either — it’s been a tough week, and hours to go before I sleep.)

In this clip, Ms. Few is talking about her proven ability to raise money, which she suggests (and she’s probably right) is considerably greater than that of her two opponents, David Herndon and Tony Lamm.

Up to now, contributions to her campaigns has been a source of controversy, since she attracts a considerable amount from out-of-state sources pushing private school "choice." But she says Republicans should consider that the party is in danger of losing the seat currently held by Bill Cotty, and that the likely Democratic nominee — Anton Gunn, who played a key role in the Barack Obama campaign in South Carolina — might be able to raise some out-of-state money of his own.

Here’s the clip: