Andrew Jackson, the only U.S. president to hail from South Carolina, once famously said, "One man with courage makes a majority."
In the General Assembly, however, political gamesmanship can accomplish almost the same thing.
Owing to a gentleman’s agreement among members, bills exclusive to one county are able to pass on a majority vote constituted only by legislators from that county. In such cases, the rest of the chamber sits on its collective hands and doesn’t vote.
Thus, thanks to rules created by the legislative leadership, it sometimes takes only one legislator in each body to overturn a gubernatorial veto on bills that pertain to individual localities.
Ordinarily, it takes a simple majority in the House and the Senate to pass a bill, and a two-thirds majority in both bodies to override a gubernatorial veto. But there’s a catch – these requirements pertain to members who are "present and voting."
The "present" part makes sense, but it’s the "and voting" qualification that brings an opportunity for mischief. Even when every member of the House and Senate is present, members can choose simply not to vote, skewing the numbers needed for a bill’s passage or for a veto override.
Four vetoes were overridden during the 2009 session in this way. Consider H 3776, which allows Dorchester County to grant taxpayer-funded per diems to its council members.
After being vetoed by the governor, three members voted to override in the House, and three voted to override in the Senate, creating a "unanimous" override of the governor.
Two bills (S 540 and H 3649) exempting individual school districts from school day make-up requirements were similarly overridden. S 540 was overturned with one vote in the Senate and two in the House; H 3649 was overridden with two votes in the Senate and four in the House.
The most egregious example from 2009 was legislation (S 758) that overturned a voter mandate regarding the use of local option sales tax money in Clarendon County.
Specifically, this tax was passed in 2004 to provide for general obligation debt relief, but then amended by the General Assembly in 2009 to redirect this revenue to county school districts. The governor vetoed the bill "because it changes the intent of the original legislation without approval by the voters."
The veto was overridden by a single vote in the House (Rep. Cathy Harvin) and a single vote in the Senate (Sen. John Land). In other words, the decision of the governor, who represents 4.5 million people, was unilaterally overturned by two legislators who represent a handful of counties between them.
If it makes sense that members defer to one another on local legislation that actually pertains to a single county (i.e., reorganizing local voting precincts), other supposedly local bills (such as the snow day bills frequently vetoed by the governor) seek to exempt certain localities from the same rules everyone else has to follow.
That hardly seems like representative democracy.
Reach Pallay at (803) 779-5022, ext. 109 or at geoff@scpolicycouncil.com.