IN CHARLESTON COUNTY, the County Council put biased wording on a ballot referendum in trying to convince voters to approve a special tax for bus service.

Here in the Midlands, local governments are falling all over themselves to implement a special sales tax on restaurant meals with either unclear or, in some cases, unwise plans for how to use the money.

The Lexington County Council seriously considered using an impact fee that would have allowed new homeowners to pay for a new jail and a courthouse expansion, even though both would have benefited the entire county.

And who can forget the Richland County Council's attempt two years ago to convince voters to adopt a sales tax increase that the council planned to use on pork-barrel projects yet to be determined?

What's going on here? Are the anti-tax activists right -- that local governments are wild, unaccountable tax-and-spenders who will do anything to get their greedy hands in taxpayers' wallets?

Well, certainly we can't condone the councils' actions in any of these cases. And, indeed, we opposed three of these local tax increases because of the irresponsible way the councils were handling them. (We didn't take a position on the Charleston vote, since we don't generally comment on local decisions outside the Midlands.)

But much like the delinquent adolescent with abusive parents who nevertheless must take responsibility for his own bad actions, these local governments aren't the only ones to blame. Chances are good they wouldn't be acting this way were the General Assembly not so determined to meddle in local government matters.

In a state where legislators believed in home rule (or representative democracy, for that matter), the Charleston County Council wouldn't put biased wording on the ballot -- because there wouldn't have to be a ballot question. The governments in Richland County and Columbia and Lexington wouldn't make up frivolous ways to spend restaurant-tax revenues; they'd spend the money on crucial public services, because the Legislature wouldn't tell them that this tax can only be used to fund nonessential programs. The Lexington County Council wouldn't be tempted to use a tax on growth to fund normal operations because there would be a wide variety of ways -- other than the much-maligned property tax -- to do that. The Richland County Council would simply use a new revenue stream to diversify its tax base rather than feel the need to come up with ways to buy public support in a referendum that should never be required.

But that's not the way it works here, because we don't live in a state where legislators actually believe that the government closest to the people should actually make governmental decisions. And we don't live in a state where legislators accept the basic premise of the American system of government: that we elect representatives to make these decisions for us, and remove them later if we dislike the way they do the job, rather than running government by plebiscite.

It is the restraints that legislators put on them that makes it so tempting for frustrated local officials to act like unruly children.

There's no excuse for local officials' behavior in such matters, but there is an explanation. There is no good explanation -- and most certainly no excuse -- for the state actions that pushed them in this direction.