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Article published Mar 19, 2003
Sanford inconsistent with vetoes of local bills, some legislators say

JIM DAVENPORT
Associated Press

COLUMBIA -- Gov. Mark Sanford has riled some legislators by rejecting bills dealing with everything from election commissions to school days missed because of inclement weather.
In veto messages, Sanford has said those bills run afoul of the state constitution and are special local legislation. He says lawmakers should deal with some of the issues in statewide legislation, such as giving school boards and local governments more autonomy.
However since taking office in January, the governor has let several bills that deal with local issues become law.
For example:
• Sanford signed bills allowing later school board elections in Laurens County and a sales tax referendum in Darlington County.
• He let bills become law without his signature that raise the bond that Oconee County's school superintendent must carry and lets a Clarendon County school board issue bonds to cover budget cuts.
Some legislators were puzzled after reviewing a list of bills that Sanford allowed to become law.
"That doesn't make any sense," said Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston.
"All of these are local legislation," said Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston.
"I don't understand this," said House Majority Leader Rick Quinn, R-Columbia.
Sanford's spokesman Will Folks provided some insight.
"Not every piece of local legislation is so clearly unconstitutional as to warrant a veto, although the governor clearly has a bias toward local control wherever practical," Folks said.
For instance, courts have ruled that it's OK to pass legislation like the one for the Clarendon County bonds, Folks said. And in Oconee County, a statewide law may not have been able to deal with the bonding requirements, Folks said.
Ford believes there were other reasons some of the legislation slipped through. "These are all basically rural counties" and "just sneaked by" because they got little media attention, he said.
Vetoes often place lawmakers "in an impossible situation," Altman said.
"There are some laws that cannot be changed locally, and now he's saying we cannot change them from the Legislature," Altman said. "So situations that are considered to be bad situations just remain there."
Legislators said they would like to see consistency in how the bills are handled.
"There ought to be a clear policy," Altman said.
Sanford is getting better, Quinn said. "But I do believe that he needs to be consistent on the local legislation," he said. "Local legislation is local legislation, and you need to be consistent."

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