State Senate Republicans are coalescing behind a plan to make it
easier to end legislative debate, a change Democrats say will erase
hundreds of years of tradition.
Republicans say the change, to be proposed Jan. 11, is needed to
end gridlock in the Senate. Democrats say it is merely a way to
grease the skids for Gov. Mark Sanford's agenda, including income
tax cuts and school-tax credits.
Republicans and Democrats say the change will be dealt with
during the session's first week, when only 24 votes are needed to
alter the rules of the 46-member Senate.
Democrats acknowledge they are unlikely to be able to stop the
change, which would reduce the number of votes it takes to end a
Senate filibuster, sitting a senator down.
At least one Republican, Sen. Jake Knotts of Lexington, said
Wednesday he will not support the change.
Knotts said the filibuster rule "has been good for all the
history of the Senate" and that changing it would put too much power
in the hands of President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, and
Majority Leader Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence. Leatherman said the
change is intended to ensure "we will get to a vote. That's what
hurt us last year; we could not get to a vote."
The Senate deadlocked last year on a number of bills when an
individual senator held the floor for days on end, preventing action
on any other proposal that did not have unanimous support.
The logjams also prevented much of Sanford's agenda from being
passed, including the income tax cut and tax credits for parents who
send their children to private school.
This fall, Sanford began calling on the Senate to change its
rules to make it easier to stop filibusters.
Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, said the rules are not the
problem: Sanford's unwillingness to compromise is.
Republican Govs. Jim Ed-wards and Carroll Campbell managed to get
legislation through Democratic-controlled Senates, Ford said.
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