Veto bill that turns state into private groups’ fund-raiser

IF EVER THERE was a bill that should attract the veto of Gov. Mark Sanford, it’s one the Legislature passed in its special wrap-up session to turn the state government into a fund-raiser for pretty much any nonprofit that demands it.

Talk about your expansion of government and assaults on the free market.

Fund-raising is big business in this country. The prospect of having to do it is what keeps many a good person from running for office; the failure to do it well is what keeps many a good politician from winning office. And, in the area that is relevant to this latest legislative boondoggle, fund-raising is what tops the list of things that keep officials with most nonprofits awake nights: It either takes a tremendous amount of time and groveling, if you do it yourself, or a lot of, well, money, if you hire someone to do it for you.

But never fear. If they accomplished nothing else this year, our lawmakers at least came up with a way to ease the burden for charitable groups, “social and recreational clubs” and fraternal societies: Not only will state government do their fund-raising for them, but, unlike professional fund-raisers, the government won’t even take a cut of the haul; it could only charge its “clients” the actual cost of doing their work for them.

That’s right. Astounding as it sounds, the Legislature actually passed a bill this month that requires our state government to raise money for any 501(c)3, 501(c)7 or 501(c)8 organization that asks it to.

Worse, the part of our government that the Legislature wants to press into providing this most generous public subsidy is one that uses the police powers of the state.

The bill would let any of these groups demand that the state Department of Motor Vehicles print up special license plates of their liking, charge whatever price they set and then send said groups a check for the difference between that price and the cost to the state of producing the plates. They need only meet a 400-tag minimum.

The idea isn’t new. Lawmakers have been handing out this generous public subsidy to their special friends for years now. But this year, they finally got tired of having to sign off individually on each group, so they passed a bill opening up the floodgates. And why not? It’s not like they were actually making sure the groups whose emblems were going on our official state license plates were reputable.

The bill does allow a special legislative committee to review the fund-raising license tags and do away with “a plate it deems offensive or fails to meet community standards.” But there’s no provision for deciding that the state just shouldn’t be subsidizing a particular organization. And since 501(c)7s are free to spend as much money as they want on lobbying and electioneering, who knows? We could one day see some of those offensive, misleading campaign attack ads that are brought to you by the work of the good folks at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

We wish we could explain what has come over our Legislature, but we can’t. We can only call on Mr. Sanford to stand up for his belief that government should do only those things that only government can do, and veto this outrageous bill. We need to get back to using license plates for their intended purpose — aiding in law enforcement, and making sure cars are properly licensed and insured and that taxes are paid on them — and let nonprofit groups get back to doing their own fund-raising.