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Date Published: December 8, 2004
Supreme Court must honor Legislature’s intent
The state Supreme Court, which is mulling over
the constitutionality of the Life Sciences Act that would grant
four-year status to the University of South Carolina Sumter among
its many provisions, has a clear choice: defer to the intent of the
Legislature or capitulate to the elitists who seek to dictate the
definition of progress in our state.
Arguments for and
against the act, which was passed overwhelmingly by the General
Assembly back in March, vetoed by Gov. Mark Sanford and the veto
overridden, again overwhelmingly by the General Assembly, were
presented last week in Columbia by three sets of lawyers: Attorney
General Henry McMaster, a lawyer for a private citizen who sued the
Legislature and a lawyer representing the Legislature.
Once
one cuts through the legalese and the sometimes arcane arguments,
the issue boiled down to whether the provisions of the act were
consistent with its purpose, which in our view dealt with job
development, economic incentives and the strengthening of higher
education in the state as part of the engine that fuels growth and
progress.
As the Legislature’s attorney, Michael Hitchcock,
argued before the high court, its prior rulings have consistently
given the Legislature wide latitude in deciding what constitutes one
subject in bills it passes. By declaring the Life Sciences Act
unconstitutional, the court would expose past legislation to future
challenges.
Elitists, whom we have identified in previous
commentary as editorial writers, university presidents, higher
education factotums, status quo politicians and self-important,
sanctimonious power brokers, have joined together in a cartel that
seeks to direct the economic future of the state by dismissing the
impact of regional institutions such as USC Sumter in attracting
industries and businesses to South Carolina. Development board
leaders not only locally but statewide cannot honestly argue that
such institutions don’t play a significant role in providing a more
educated workforce that first-class, well-paying businesses and
industry covet.
USC Sumter offers a mature and successful
institution ranking among the top 10 among all the state’s public
institutions over the past seven years, one that has invested more
than $11 million on substantial improvements to its campus, plus a
faculty focused on a mission of teaching, not writing irrelevant
research papers. The students have always come first, and they are
among the best our state has to offer.
The smug elitists,
whose allegiance is to the already-prosperous metropolitan areas of
the state, want to hoard all the economic incentives and growth to
themselves and ignore the smaller regions, of which Sumter is a
focal point. The greater good of the entire state is obtained
through the Life Sciences Act as crafted by the Legislature, and our
particular region is not left out of the mix.
The state
Supreme Court should not lose sight of the purpose of the act and be
tempted to narrow its focus because of lawyerly sophistry about the
title of the act and its “subject,” all of which are parts of the
whole and one and the same — economic growth and progress, with
higher education improvement a vital ingredient.
If it
shoots down the Life Sciences Act, the court will have stepped
across the line and legislated, which is the prerogative of the
General Assembly. It must honor the intent of the Legislature and
preserve its constitutional authority to make laws.
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December 14, 2004 
