Even though state legislators have closed up shop for the year, it's still not possible to finally assess the results of this disappointing session. We're waiting to see what the S.C. Supreme Court has to say.
Only the court can tell us, for example, whether the legislators really passed such measures as the economic incentives House Speaker David Wilkins cited in his Commentary page piece Sunday. The House actually passed a separate "clean" Life Sciences bill aimed at attracting the biotech industry to the state. But the Senate then gummed up the works by adding so many non-germane "bobtails" that the measure became known as the "kitchen sink" bill. Neither does the House have clean hands. Its conferees added even more riders, and the House joined the Senate in overriding the governor's veto.
Fortunately, a private citizen from Greenville has taken up the constitutional cause and the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. Not only is the economic incentive package now in jeopardy, but so are such add-ons as a culinary arts program for Trident Technical College, a new four-year college at USC-Sumter and an international convention center in Myrtle Beach.
Most of the attachments to the popular Life Sciences bill -- particularly the USC-Sumter measure, which was opposed by USC and the Commission on Higher Education -- would never have made it through the Legislature on their own. That's why they were "bobtailed" to the main piece of legislation. If nothing else, this session highlighted that blatant disregard of the constitutional provision that the title to a bill pertain to only one subject.
The House did take a no-bobtailing vow near the end of the session, and the issue again will be before the leadership when the lawmakers begin a new session next year. Just how pressing that issue will be, of course, depends on whether the court slaps the lawmakers' hands as hard as it should. We suspect the high court also will have to decide the fate of the constitutionally questionable bill passed on the last day by the House that would impose a 20 percent property reassessment cap. That said, there were some clear wins, including passage of the Teacher Protection Act.
We'd like to think that the seven-month break won't lessen the resolve of the Senate leadership to finally address the rules that allow the whim of one member to indefinitely tie up some of the most important legislation. But it will take more than a rule change to revise the mindset of some senators who are so dead set against such reforms as completing the important government restructuring proposed by Gov. Mark Sanford. With the exception of the too-long-delayed changes in the state Public Service Commission, cited by Speaker Wilkins, reform generally took a back seat in Columbia this year.
It's also a wait-and-see game in terms of the state budget. While progress was made in eliminating the $155 million deficit from the previous year, the budget uses uncertified revenue projections to stay in balance. Unfortunately, the governor's more conservative approach to the state's finances was rejected out of hand.
It's true the legislators did come up with a way to resolve the minibottle impasse by allowing the voters to decide whether to make their use by businesses optional. But a Legislature that sees a referendum on minibottles as more of a priority than giving voters the right to have their say on government restructuring hardly deserves applause.
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