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Article published May 21, 2004
House and Senate legislative practices need to be
changed
South Carolina House and Senateleaders are attacking
each other's practices while they defend their own. The fact is: They are both
wrong.Senate leader Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, started the latest round of
this battle by criticizing the House for not practicing what it preaches on
bobtailing.This is the practice of tacking a completely unrelated piece of
legislation onto another bill as an amendment.Bobtailing is prohibited by the
state constitution, but lawmakers do it anyway. It's generally poor legislative
practice and leads to the passage of poorly thought-out and debated bills.In
fact, the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a lawsuit filed by a Greenville
man challenging the legislature for some bobtail amendments criticized earlier
this year by Gov. Mark Sanford. The court should stop the practice.House leaders
have admitted that bobtailing is wrong and have passed a resolution against it.
But McConnell pointed out that they are still sending bills to the Senate laden
with unrelated amendments.House leaders say they have no choice. They have sent
62 bills to the Senate on which the Senate hasn't acted. The House's best chance
to get the measures passed is to add them onto a bill the Senate has already
passed. In other words, they claim they don't want to bobtail, but the Senate
forces them to do it.Despite McConnell's protests, there is merit in the House's
claim. The Senate is woefully inefficient and allows outrageous obstruction by
its members.McConnell claims the process is slower in the Senate because it is a
"more deliberative body." That's practically a mantra for Senate leaders, but
it's nonsense.The Senate has been bogged down this year because McConnell and a
few of his cronies have been blocking Senate business so they could shut down a
bill allowing police to enforce the seat belt law.The Senate's obsolete rules
allow one senator to block action on legislation. They allow for filibusters.
They don't facilitate greater deliberation. They facilitate gridlock.The truth
is that both houses should stop bobtailing, and the Senate should reform its
rules and act on legislation rather than putting everything aside to deal with a
minority's objections to one bill.