Highway commissioner should step down.

State law seems pretty clear regarding state highway commissioners: They can't be appointed to a third term.

But that inconvenient law didn't stop a group of state lawmakers from appointing a highway commissioner, John Hardee of Columbia, to a third term. Hardee is the son-in-law of the powerful Sen. Hugh Leatherman, Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Far from being apologetic, the state senator who led the effort to reappoint Hardee was defiant when he spoke to Greenville News writer Tim Smith. "If someone wants to take it to court, take it to court," said state Sen. Jake Knotts, a Lexington Republican. "It doesn't matter to me. We're still going to nominate John Hardee."

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Two informal opinions by the Attorney General's Office said commissioners can't serve a third term. Those opinions were based on a state law enacted in the wake of state agency restructuring in the 1990s.

Lawmakers from each of the state's six congressional districts appoint one member of the state Transportation Commission. Commissioners are term-limited so representation will rotate among each of the counties in the congressional district.

The Transportation Commission is perhaps the state's most powerful board, overseeing the state Transportation Department's $1.2 billion budget and more than 5,000 workers. The commission has a troubled history of good ol' boy politics, with commissioners helping friends and establishing fiefdoms.

The law is clear. The lawmakers should rescind their appointment. Hardee should step down when his term ends this year.