Bravo to Gov. Mark Sanford for taking a tough stand against an abuse that's been practiced for so long by state legislators that they've forgotten it's wrong.

The issue is "local legislation," a term for bills that address a specific issue or specific need in one part of the state. Local bills are not allowed by the state constitution, which says measures passed by the General Assembly must be statewide in scope. The idea is to prevent state government from meddling in affairs that are more appropriately the province of local government. Local government, in theory, is closer to the people it serves and shouldn't have its prerogatives usurped by a more distant state government.

Local bills also make for statutory sloppiness. They can create a hodge-podge of different laws from one county to another on issues that are more sensibly handled uniformly, with a common approach for all counties.

Sanford quite properly vetoed a passle of local bills passed during the recently ended legislative session. The legislature responded promptly and predictably: It overrode all but one of the vetoes. So now, 20 of 21 bills that violate the constitution will become law. The legislature clearly doesn't get it.

The state constitution forbids local bills in the 1975 Home Rule Act. But that's never stopped legislators, who year in and year out pass loads of them. One reason is because local bills usually are too politically appetizing too pass up. They are the perfect vehicle for doing a favor for a special interest that has exhausted other options for getting what it wants.

Consider the bill that would have made it easier for dredge operators to dump muck from the bottom of Sea Pines' marinas and creeks into Calibogue Sound, instead of hauling the goopy mess far out to sea for safer disposal. That one is -- is, because it's not dead yet -- a real doozie.

Nobody had paid much attention to the bill because it was worded so opaquely that it seemed innocuous. The crafty wording not only obscured the bill's true intent, but also the fact that it was a local in scope and therefore unconstitutional. Only the most astute legislative insider could have recognized it for what it was: A way to reduce costs for a dredging project in Sea Pines -- good for businesses and homeowners whose marinas and creeks are clogged with silt, but bad for Calibogue Sound. (Fortunately, it was an insider who also happened to be an environmentalist who blew the whistle on the bill.)

If the bill really was in the best interests of the state, there'd have been no need to disguise it. It could have been handled in the ordinary way -- with committee hearings and floor debates that would have shined a bright light on it. But that's exactly the kind of attention backers of the bill wanted to avoid.

For all these reasons -- because local bills erode the power of local government, because they pervert the legislative process, because they create inconsistencies in statute books -- Gov. Sanford stood by the constitution and said no to local bills.

The legislature's decision to override Sanford's vetoes was knuckleheaded enough, but some legislators went a step further, saying that the real reason they did it was because the governor hadn't shown them the proper respect: He should have done them the courtesy of notifying them beforehand that he was going to veto their bills, as many previous governors have done.

One former governor "would call up the local delegation and say, "I've got to veto this, so get your people lined up to override it,' " according to Rep. Skipper Perry, an Aiken Republican who supports the Sea Pines dredging bill.

Thank you, governor, for refusing to play that game with the General Assembly.