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Wednesday, May 28, 2003 |
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Posted on May 24, 2003 Sanford's restructuring faces long haul
The Associated Press Ten years ago, Gov. Carroll Campbell's three-year fight for restructuring state government was on the verge of clearing the Legislature in a struggle that played out amid fears of public corruption and lack of accountability. A power-stingy General Assembly that controlled boards and commissions was poised to give up a third of that influence to the governor's office. This year, with a Legislature no more eager to give up power, Republican Gov. Mark Sanford said he would pick up on restructuring where Campbell left off. "He saw what I see," Sanford said. Sanford said state government is a "dysfunctional system" that costs too much to run and doesn't do its work as efficiently as it could. The effort, however, has been low-key. "What he's on the verge of here is getting a major reform without major controversy," Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said. Still, "it's a three-year process," says McConnell, whose Senate Judiciary Committee is handling key elements of the plan. Campbell's restructuring plan took two legislative sessions, reaching his desk in June 1993. Sanford says he hopes to get his plan through by next June. That way, the process of changing the state constitution to eliminate statewide elected officers on the ballot in 2004. Sanford has made early progress on one front that troubled Campbell. He has assuaged some of restructuring's toughest Senate foes, but he still has an uphill battle. McConnell, for example, says he hasn't seen any improvement in state government from Campbell's restructuring. And, state Sen. John Land, D-Manning, said he worried about giving that many appointed posts to the governor with the potential for change every four years. McConnell and Land say they do support key parts of Sanford's restructuring plan, including eliminating some constitutional officer positions. Campbell launched his restructuring effort by appointing a 38-member panel in the wake of Operation Lost Trust, a federal sting that nabbed more than two dozen lawmakers selling their votes. There also were high-profile scandals involving top officials at boards and commissions that the governor had no control over. And, as now, tight budget times were bringing calls for more efficient government. "Comprehensive reform generally has a moment in the sunshine," says Blease Graham, a University of South Carolina political science professor who was on Campbell's restructuring panel. "If it can be accomplished in that moment, it's done." Campbell found such a moment, he said. While there's no scandal to stoke Sanford's restructuring fire, the state's budget problems are worse than a decade ago and that could win votes. Still, Sanford says, restructuring "is not a sensational issue, it's not one that's going to cause people to get real heated. ... You're not going to be able to have an emotional train that's running to bring about change." But Sanford has one other thing Campbell didn't. He has people who have worked to restructure state government on his team. Fred Carter, Campbell's former senior executive assistant, is Sanford's chief of staff and a key adviser on restructuring. Campbell, a Republican, had to cajole a Democrat-majority Statehouse to accept changes by calling news conferences to denounce delays or their failure to pass his plans. The approach was "we'll either win legislatively or we will win in the hearts and minds" of voters, said Graham Tew, Campbell's legislative chief for eight years. Public support would be critical to future restructuring attempts if Campbell failed, Tew said. Sanford, a Republican working with a Republican-majority Legislature, is flying below the public radar, spending hours talking with legislators and getting input from them, McConnell said. "It makes us want to sit down with them and work with them," McConnell said. "And I don't feel like they're going to go out and hit us from behind in the press." Campbell asked for too much initially, McConnell said. His restructuring plan failed in 1992 when Campbell insisted on a constitutional change. He couldn't muster the votes to get it out of the Senate and it cleared the House by a single vote. The next year, he was back with a leaner plan and support of key House Democrats. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Billy Boan convinced legislators to attach restructuring to the state budget to force a decision on the issue. Former Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges, then-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, recalls it as "an effort to try to streamline government and try to consolidate hundreds of agencies down to a more manageable number." The bill that hit Campbell's desk consolidated 150 agencies into 39. Hodges says more needs to be done. He said key agencies, such as the departments of Transportation, Education and Health and Environmental Control should report to the governor. Those agencies have the biggest state and federal budgets and affect the largest number of residents. Sanford's plan moves the Education Department to his Cabinet. |
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