Courson’s A Curious Parliamentarian

We’ve always liked S.C. Sen. John Courson.

He’s a former Marine, he takes criticism better than anybody in the business and each year he sends the FITS gals an autographed copy of the S.C. Legislative Manual (with X’s and O’s inscribed, awwww …)

Courson is also a fan favorite over here for his inimitable Strom Thurmond imitation, which based on our experience he uses to initiate all of his phone conversations.

Having said that, we slap Courson around when we think he deserves it – like whenever he votes with Leatherman, or professes his blind allegiance to our state’s failed educrat status quo, for example.

And just last week, Courson grated on our antennae after some curious behavior at a subcommittee meeting.

The bill up for debate was a “Department of Health and Environmental Control restructuring” bill, which it turns out actually does nothing to restructure the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).

It moves the agency into the governor’s Cabinet, sure, but that’s not restructuring. That’s just moving it around.

“Restructuring” would be taking our eight health care agencies and three environmental agencies and consolidating them according to their core responsibilities – not just shuffling them back and forth between different branches of government.

Anyway, we could care less about the bill, but what we found intriguing was trying to figure out why Courson – who chairs the subcommittee that took up the bill last week – reportedly moved that doggy on down the line.

First, Courson dissed the former director of the agency, Doug Bryant, who had showed up to testify against the legislation but was not allowed to speak.

Why’d he do that?

Because Courson only had time to hear from the environmental lobby, which makes sense seeing as he was doing his best to shuffle the bill on up to the full committee level – ostensibly at their request.

But it’s how the bill got “shuffled on up” that’s interesting.

Typically, a motion is made to send a bill forward. Next, that motion is seconded. Finally it’s voted on.

In the case of this bill, every step of that process was a one-man show.

Here’s how it went down according to several witnesses who spoke with FITS.

After hearing the one-sided testimony, Courson asked for a motion on the bill, only to be greeted with dead silence from fellow subcommittee members Floyd Nicholson, Joel Lourie and Danny Verdin.

So, Courson decided to make the motion himself and then asked for someone to second it.

Again, dead silence.

So, Courson decided to second his own motion and then asked for a vote.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting – Nicholson and Verdin voted against the bill, and Lourie abstained because he felt (quite correctly) that all sides hadn’t been sufficiently heard from on the subject.

That means only one man voted for the bill – Courson, and yet the bill moved forward anyway.

It’s his prerogative to do that, obviously, but it doesn’t really make democracy look good and we’re guessing his back probably hurts from carrying all that water for the environmental lobby.

“This is how Nancy Pelosi operates,” one observer said of Courson’s parliamentary intrigue on behalf of the legislation, which clearly should have died an ignominious death in his subcommittee – no matter what you think of its merits.

So why was Courson in such a hurry to get the bill out for the Greenies? Do they think they stand a better chance of passing it at the full committee level? Or for that matter on the floor of the Senate?

There’s actually a hearing on this bill before the Senate Medical Affairs committee today, so it will be interesting to see whether or not the environmental lobby benefits from Courson’s tactics.

We hope they don’t.

South Carolina doesn’t need to be reshuffling, it needs to be restructuring.

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