Bobtailing’s Back
SOUTH CAROLINA LAWMAKERS HAVEN’T LEARNED THEIR LESSON
FITSNews – June 9, 2008 – Senate President Glenn McConnell doesn’t like what’s happened to his own bill promoting tax breaks on the purchase of energy efficient appliances … in fact, he took to the floor of the Senate earlier this session to declare it “unconstitutional.”
What happened? Well, McConnell’s bill got “bobtailed,” a term used to describe the process of unrelated (and typically special interest-driven) additions getting tacked onto bills at the last minute in an effort to improve their likelihood of passage.
There’s just one problem with “bobtailing” – it’s in clear violation of state law, which requires that proposed bills address “one subject.” The S.C. Supreme Court specifically ruled multi-subject legislation unconstitutional in a high-profile 2005 case involving government watchdog Ned Sloan. Unhappy with such flagrant disregard for the rule of law, Sloan sued over a bill known as the Life Sciences Act, which much like McConnell’s energy efficiency bill had morphed from a well-intended piece of one-subject legislation into a special interest “Christmas tree.”
For his part, Gov. Mark Sanford has been unequivocal in his stance against “bobtailing,” repeatedly vetoing bills that seek to take this unlawful end-around our State Constitution. Yet while Sanford and McConnell have both stood strong on this issue, sadly most state lawmakers haven’t learned their lesson …
Comments
By Darrell Wallace on June 9th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Time to teach the Legislators their lesson in Constitutionality. They swore to uphold it now they want to break it. Shame on you, you sneaky men & women with your pet projects. Crooked is as crooked does. Kudos to Glenn and the Governor for catching the sneak thieves with their hand in the cookie jar.
By west_rhino on June 9th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
And we have a problem with a line item veto… I wonder why.
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