Riding high on the results of the recent election, South Carolina's Republican lawmakers are fired up for the coming legislative session.

With their party easily retaining power, and with confirmation of the popularity of their stance on several key issues, the GOP expects to score big victories this year on some old ideas.

Last session, Republican legislators fought unsuccessfully to strengthen the ban on gay marriages, restructure state government, and retool tort law. All were hot-button issues for the GOP. All were bogged down by infighting and neglect.

Not this time, say the Republicans.

"I think we have a very good shot this year at getting all of those through, in one form or another," said House Majority Leader Jim Merrill, R-Daniel Island. "There are a number of factors providing serious momentum this year, not the least of which is the national election. A lot of Republicans had their suspicions confirmed. The people are with us."

On no issue is that more clear than gay marriage.

Prompted by the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling, which granted same-sex marriages the rights and responsibilities of traditional marriages, South Carolina lawmakers scrambled last session to shore up loopholes in the state's gay marriage ban, established in 1996.

Sponsored by state Reps. Gloria Haskins, R-Greenville, and Marty Coates, R-Florence, the bill was designed to deny benefits to gays married outside the state. It passed the House 103 to 7, but died in the Senate, a victim of legislative gridlock.

At the time, senators did not feel gay marriage was important enough to push aside attempts to lower taxes, restructure government or reform schools. Many felt the measure was just an election-year ploy to earn conservative votes.year ploy to earn conservative votes. But on Nov. 2, 11 states overwhelmingly approved referendums to strengthen bans on gay marriage. Many say it was the gay marriage referendums that drove conservative Christian voters to the polls in key states, such as Ohio, and delivered the presidency to Bush.

This has some Republican lawmakers hot to try the measure again.

State Rep. John Graham Altman III, R-Charleston, is working on legislation he plans to pre-file in December.

"If some people were tentative about fighting for it last year, they won't be this year," Altman said. "They can look around the nation and see we have approval. So you better believe we're going to file that bill, and we ought to be able to pass it easily."

The trick will be getting it through the Senate, something Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Bonneau, said will be easy this year.

"It would have passed last year, if we had gotten to it," he said. "I'm sure it'll pass this year."

None of this comes as a surprise to the Democrats, who are still smarting from the election. State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, one of the seven House members to oppose the bill last session, says she has no illusions going into this year.

"They're going to push it right down our throats and the world will be a safer place, I suppose," she said. "That's what they think anyway. You watch, we'll hear more times than you can count, that 11 other states have passed it. That will be their rallying cry."

While most agree the gay marriage bill will have easy passage, the same cannot be said for retooling the state's tort laws and restructuring state government.

During the last session, several House members sponsored bills dealing with tort law, a wide-ranging and complex issue. Republicans, for the most part, have argued that the state's tort laws are bad for business.

They believe "frivolous lawsuits" have made the cost of doing business so expensive that it's damaging the economic growth of the state. High-dollar verdicts are driving up the cost of insurance and driving smaller businesses into the ground, they say.

Last session, they set their sights on capping damages for pain and suffering at $250,000, limiting medical malpractice suits and venue shopping (filing suit in a circuit court known for siding with plaintiffs).

The American Medical Association has been lobbying for federal legislation, one of Bush's priorities, that would place a nationwide $250,000 cap on awards for pain and suffering. The cap would apply to judgments for pain and emotional distress as opposed to awards for medical bills, lost wages and other quantifiable costs.

Caps of varying types have been implemented in 27 states. The American Medical Association contends that most of the other 23 states face a "medical liability crisis" in which doctors are moving away, retiring or scaling back essential, high-risk services because of rising insurance costs.

South Carolina added more than 500 doctors between 2000 and 2003, a period in which malpractice premiums doubled. Despite the crises, more doctors are moving in the state than moving out.

Opponents of a cap maintain doctors wouldn't have a problem if they didn't commit malpractice.

For University of South Carolina law professor Patrick Hubbard, the real question is will capping awards really fix the problem.

"Have proponents of the reform offered any proof that a cap would reduce premiums?" he asked. "Shouldn't they offer some proof?"

Altman, an attorney, is one of the few Republicans not enamored of the idea. He said his fellow Republicans are short on proof and heavy on rhetoric.

"They try to browbeat you into believing it," he said. "But I'm not going to fall for it. I need to see how it'll really fix things."

Hubbard authored a study for the South Carolina Bar that found capping pain and suffering at $250,000 would limit payouts only marginally. Proponents of the cap have criticized the study.

"But they haven't provided us with any proof to the opposite," Hubbard said. "If you want to make a fundamental change in the law, the proof is on you."

Gov. Mark Sanford joined the fight this year. Last session, the governor supported efforts in the House to change the state's liability laws. This year, the governor made the issue one of his key agenda items. His plan would include a $300,000 cap for pain and suffering, a sliding cap for punitive damages and a limit on venue shopping.

"The time is now for this," Merrill said. "I think you will see this issue broken into parts and at least some of it will pass and become law."

Perhaps the toughest fight this year will be over government restructuring. The governor has made it clear that he wants a smaller, more efficient government to be his legacy.

Most Republican lawmakers say they share his passion for greater accountability and more oversight.

However, last year, a massive restructuring bill proposed by Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, never made it out of his own Judiciary Committee. The 1,950-page bill was broken into two parts: one dealing with the constitutional offices; the other, with statutory changes to agencies.

The first part of the proposal called for reducing the number of officers that the state constitution says must be elected from nine to four: governor and lieutenant governor on a same-party ticket, attorney general and treasurer. Adjutant general, education superintendent, comptroller general, secretary of state and agriculture commissioner would become Cabinet-level positions, appointed by a governor given greater powers.

The second part of the proposal called for, among other things, reducing the role of the state Budget and Control Board, moving several executive duties to a newly created Department of Administration. It also set up a method to reorganize the Department of Health and Human Services and consolidating other agencies into the department to create a Division of Advocacy and Service Coordination.

McConnell and Sanford both say it was a mistake to attempt such a monumental shift in government all at once.

"It died under its own weight," Sanford said of McConnell's bill.

Both men have promised to come back this year with scaled-back proposals. Still, it was the smallest portion of that bill, dealing with constitutional officers, that provided the biggest sticking point last session.

It takes a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to put a question of changing the constitution on the ballot, and several lawmakers opposed the elimination of one or more of the positions.

"That's the catch," Grooms said. "That's never easy to do. But this year I think you'll see at least some restructuring make it to the voters. Which officers, I don't know. That will have to be debated."

Click here to return to story:
http://www.charleston.net/stories/111504/loc_15capital.shtml