Another Spanking For The Speaker

After getting bent over earlier this week by the Augusta Chronicle, S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell experienced a similar sensation today from another prominent mainstream newspaper.

In an editorial supporting Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler’s new transparency reform bill, La Junior Socialista (a.k.a. The Myrtle Beach Sun News) specifically pointed out not only Harrell’s deceptiveness, but his pettiness as well.

From the editorial:

House rules, as amended, do not require roll-call votes on the measures itemized in the Peeler bill – even though the inspiration for his bill came from a House member, S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley, R-Lexington. The House refused to consider her accountability bill. And Speaker Bobby Harrell subsequently stripped Haley and another transparency reformer, S.C. Rep. Nathan Ballentine, R-Irmo, of their committee assignments. The two got punished, in short, for daring to suggest that House members should show their constituents how they handle public money.

Why should readers care that S.C. legislators, when stacked against their counterparts in other states, are among the least accountable legislators in the nation? For the answer, one need only look at how poorly the current-year state budget, which has imploded by more than a billion dollars, has worked out.

How did that happen when it was clear at the beginning of the year that the S.C. economy was headed for a bad place? Who is to blame for this fiasco? There’s no way to tell because the official record of the 2008 legislative session does not speak to the dozens upon dozens of procedural votes made during budget construction in the General Assembly.

Peeler says that if the House refuses to engage on his bill, he’ll work to incorporate its provisions into Senate rules. The hope must be, however, that Harrell and his cohorts recognize the weakness of their rules “reforms” and unite with the Senate to make legislative transparency a matter of law.

No doubt …

Interestingly enough, though, had Harrell merely chosen to short-circuit roll call voting, it’s doubtful he’d be getting quite such a media ass-whooping.

But no, he had to go all “wanna-be Godfather” on everybody, specifically bringing the issue of transparency up on a “rules change” (i.e. temporary) as opposed to a legislative (i.e. permanent) basis to try and prevent Rep. Haley from being able to bring the issue up again when lawmakers reconvened.

Not content with knocking Haley’s legs out from under her, Harrell wanted to get rid of her platform as well.

So far, that strategy is failing miserably.

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