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Don't keep reform off ballot


On our Commentary page today, Chip Campsen, a former member of the state House of Representatives from Charleston and former key adviser to Gov. Mark Sanford, makes a persuasive case for government restructuring. There's nothing radical about the proposal before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Governors since the days of Strom Thurmond have urged that the state's weak chief executive be strengthened. We agree with Mr. Campsen that it's time for state lawmakers to finally let the voters make a decision on the most critical portions of restructuring. Those are the ones that will require constitutional changes.

Charleston Sen. Glenn McConnell is the author of a number of restructuring bills up for debate again today in the Senate Judiciary Committee. His bills, which recently ran into trouble in the committee, closely follow the Sanford restructuring proposal. At the heart of the plan is the enlargement of the governor's Cabinet to include most of the officials known as "constitutional officers" because the 1895 constitution requires that they be elected rather than appointed.

The McConnell proposal allows the voters to decide whether they want to change from election to appointment for the superintendent of education, secretary of state, comptroller general, secretary of agriculture and adjutant general. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor also would run as a team rather than separately. The pending legislation wouldn't affect the elected status of the attorney general or state treasurer. Even restructuring advocates agree the latter two offices should remain independent from the governor.

We agree with those who don't think it should be easy to amend the state constitution, and it isn't. It requires a two-thirds vote of both legislative bodies to even let the voters make the decision. But neither should it be impossible to put a reform measure up for a public vote primarily because it could cost an elected official his or her job.

Mr. Campsen cites two particularly important statistics. The governor, he notes, now has direct control over only 20 percent of the state agencies, and that's only due to the restructuring reforms accomplished under the Campbell administration. A state that spends 130 percent of the national average on state government certainly can't say it doesn't need to change the way it does business. The fact that there is any question at all about making a non-essential office such as secretary of state appointive rather than elective is testament to the self-interests that are behind the reluctance to let the voters decide this debate.


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