Gov. Mark Sanford was correct in principle Thursday afternoon when he stood in the West Wing of the Statehouse to issue a legal challenge to the General Assembly's override to his veto of massive pork law, a bill many declared was chock-full of excessive spending and special privilege.

The legislation should never have reached his desk for veto. If lawmakers had followed approved rules for each chamber, they would have rewritten the law so that they didn't contain "riders" or "tack-ons," which are prohibited.

In a financially challenging fiscal year, the excessive pork and rules changes dumped into the legislation is irresponsible at best. It's politics as usual; it's politics at its worst.

The legislation commonly called the Life Sciences Act contained several economic development opportunities for various areas of the state. The Life Sciences Act originally was designed to provide research opportunities and economic development in biotechnology and related fields. Part of the proposal provided $250 million in funding for the state's research universities, a third of that for the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston.

The legislation wound up by passing the Commission on Higher Education by:

Creating a four-year university in Sumter;

Creating a culinary program at Trident Tech in Charleston;

Establishing a committee to explore a new law school at South Carolina State University;

Expanding eligibility for LIFE scholarships; and,

Allowing any state institution of higher learning to use the power of imminent domain, with only the state Budget and Control Board as oversight.

Additionally, the legislation makes a new convention center at Myrtle Beach eligible for funding.

In his address Thursday, Gov. Sanford was correct when he said, "This politics as usual process of tacking on numerous pieces of totally unrelated pork barrel spending to individual bills has raised any number of constitutional concerns."

The governor is right to explore a lawsuit. Taxpayers should be outraged at the lawmakers.

Lawmakers should follow their own rules. Keep each piece of legislation separate and simple so that a veto of one doesn't jeopardize another. Keep it simple so that overriding one veto won't jeopardize the budget and break the state.