By FITSNews || For those of you who are new to this website, we’ve advanced all sorts of ideas over the years to reduce the size and scope of government in South Carolina. For example, two years ago we rolled out a comprehensive reform agenda called the “95 theses” that addressed a wide range of specific policy ideas – including government restructuring, tax reform, academic accountability and yes … transparency (way before transparency was cool).
You can read that collection of ideas for yourself by clicking here.
Anyway, one idea we admit we never thought of has been introduced by two outgoing lawmakers. It’s a bill that would let Palmetto state voters decide if they wanted to do away with the State Senate and make South Carolina a “unicameral” legislative state.
For those of you educated in South Carolina public schools, “unicameral” is Latin for “one chamber,” and refers to a legislative branch of government that is comprised of just one deliberative body.
First, from the legislation:
PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO SECTION 1, ARTICLE III OF THE CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1895, RELATING TO THE LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THIS STATE VESTED IN TWO BRANCHES, SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT THE LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THIS STATE SHALL BE VESTED IN A UNICAMERAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY WITH ONE BRANCH STYLED THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO PROVIDE THAT THE POWERS, DUTIES, AND FUNCTIONS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AS THE SINGLE BRANCH OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY SHALL BE PROVIDED BY LAW; AND PROPOSING AMENDMENTS TO SECTIONS 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 20, 22, 23, AND 25, ARTICLE III, AND SECTION 12, ARTICLE IV, SECTION 26, ARTICLE V, SECTION 13, ARTICLE X, SECTION 4, ARTICLE XIII, SECTION 2, ARTICLE XV, AND SECTION 1, ARTICLE XVI OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THIS STATE, AND TO DELETE SECTIONS 6 AND 15, ARTICLE III, AND SECTIONS 9 AND 10, ARTICLE IV, ALL RELATING TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND ITS ORGANIZATION, OPERATION, AND PROCEDURES, SO AS TO REMOVE REFERENCES TO THE “SENATE”, “SENATOR”, OR SIMILAR RELATED TERMS.
In a word? Awesome.
The S.C. Senate is not only the biggest waste of valuable oxygen in the history of democratic governance, it’s also irretrievably liberal – no matter which party is in power. In fact, not only should it be done away with, if there was any justice in the world the vast majority of its members would probably be in prison right now.
Seriously, what better way to reduce government than by sending 46 of its biggest spenders home?*
There is currently only one state in America that has a unicameral legislature in place – Nebraska. How’s that working out for them?
Well, Nebraska’s graduation rate is 87 percent – 21 percent higher than South Carolina’s. Nebraska’s SAT scores are more than 300 points higher than South Carolina’s, too, and their ACT score is 2.3 points higher.
Only 9.5 percent of Nebraskans live in poverty, compared to 15 percent of South Carolinians. Also, median income in Nebraska is $5,300 higher and per capita personal income is $6,000 higher. The state’s income tax rates are comparable, but Nebraska’s top rate kicks in at $27,000. South Carolina’s kicks in at just $13,700.
Meanwhile, government spending as a percentage of gross state product is just 30 percent in Nebraska (tenth best in America) compared to 40 percent in South Carolina (tenth worst nationally).
Yeah … looks like things are working out just fine for the Cornhusker state.
*Actually, as far as we can tell there are eight true fiscal conservative in the State Senate. They are Lee Bright, Kevin Bryant, Tom Davis, Larry Grooms, Mick Mulvaney, Greg Ryberg, Phil Shoopman and Danny Verdin.
By Florida Watching June 24, 2010 at 3:08 pm
“make South Carolina a “unicameral” legislative state”……..won’t need a Governor then….so you can cancel that election.
By Ohmaar June 24, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Number of College Football National Championships:
Nebraska: 5
South Carolina: 1
By Bull Moose June 24, 2010 at 3:24 pm
I say we get rid of the House and keep the Senate. The House is responsible for so many of our state’s ridiculous, arcane, and draconic laws and it often falls to the Senate to put a stop to the House’s childishness. Let’s send 124 House members home instead of 46 Senators. More savings that way.
By ceilidh10 June 24, 2010 at 3:25 pm
The only thing that will change SC is to have divided government, a balance of Dems and Republicans who are not cantankerous, and an enlightened electorate aware of who is serving their needs and who is saying they are but really aren’t.
Going to a unicameral concept is simply changing the appearance of things but not the reality. SC is truly old-fashioned, a strength and a liability. Isn’t the State House a beautiful old building?
We have poor schools and lousy students because parents do not give a damn about their kids what with their own unemployment, low/stagnant wages, their own affairs, their worries, and their fears for the future.
Who can be nurturing when your own future is in doubt in this greatest of all recessions created under George Bush and his Wall Street buddies? who can help kids out when your wages are stagnant. Everything is so expemsive now.
Is your world any better than it was 8 years ago? I am a professional with my own business and I do not see a whole lot of upward mobility and movement in the Upstate. People are being kept back. Prices for everything are through the roof. I paid 800 bucks to unclog my tub and get a new Dispoz-all put in. Everyone is on the take. We are creating a permanent underclass of middle and lower middle class people who will never rise. My 25 yo kids cannot afford tennis shoes, cable TV, and cell phones.
The answer is to do for business but also do for Average Joe. Can Haley do that? I doubt it. She cares only about the haves in our great beautiful state. She needs to do a lot of convincing that she cares for ALL South Carolinians. As guv, she would need to evince that attitude.
Less friction among the parties, more cooperation between diverse groups, less name calling, and more Christian caring ( and less judgmentalism) from all will go a long way.
By Boat June 24, 2010 at 3:35 pm
So, the one state that has a unicameral legislature has better stats than SC. Considering that SC is at the bottom in almost every stat, wouldn’t that mean that many states with bicameral legislatures are doing better than us too? Do you have any research to connect the unicameral legislature to Nebraska’s success in those categories?
By Florida Watching June 24, 2010 at 3:50 pm
How did states do with female Governors????? (Just Asking) That Alaska deal was an unmitigated disaster. And you know……..Palin was lazy and all kinds of trouble while mayor, yet they let her bring those fine qualities to the Governorship. How is Nikki any different?
By Florida Watching June 24, 2010 at 3:53 pm
SCVoter – If you desire, I could produce a Palin-Nikki comparison for you…..it would kinda be lenghty though.
By Florida Watching June 24, 2010 at 3:54 pm
BALSAK – Only problem with Palin-Haley 2012 is……who is gonna do the work?
By ManWithoutaParty June 24, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Lee Bright’s only fiscally conservative because it’s popular. Don’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth.
Also, is Nebraska doing so much better than SC simply because it has an unicameral legislature?
By piepton June 24, 2010 at 4:08 pm
I completely agree. Unicameral is much better than bactrian camels. I couldn’t resist, but seriously:
A bi-cameral legislative branch made some sense at the federal level until we started voting directly for senators but I’ve never understood the reasoning at the state level. We have a representative body and then… we have another representative body with half the number of people in it.
However, I don’t think its the unicameral house that is making Nebraska more successful; its where they choose to put their money that matters. In FY 2008, Nebraska spent $10,565 per pupil whereas we only spent $9,060. Furthermore, because the state actually funds its universities, University of Nebraska’s in-state tuition is $5,610 per year whereas USC charged $8,756 last year while simultaneously cutting funding for little things like keeping buildings in repair and teaching students.
I’m not saying throwing money at the problem solves everything, but if we’re throwing the money around anyway, the least we could do is throw it at schools. Maybe if kids didn’t have to take classes in buildings that are falling down less of them would drop out. Perhaps if they could afford college we could get some more corporations down here hiring because there would actually be a trained work force.
But eh, that’ll take too long. Lets just keep calling for tax cuts because the elite citizens of SC who benefit from them can afford to send their kids to private school anyway. Some of them (ahem, Mulvaney) can even afford to send their kids to out-of-state private schools to avoid being tarnished by our SC students altogether.
By fitsnews June 24, 2010 at 4:16 pm
MWOAP,
Of course all of that is not a RESULT of Nebraska’s unicameral status.
Our point in raising Nebraska’s situation was preemptive (something we do a lot of around here). It was raised so that the Good Ol’ Boys wouldn’t be able to play their “this would be the end of the world as we know it” card.
Clearly, a unicameral legislature can work.
-FITS
By Florida Watching June 24, 2010 at 4:37 pm
YO – Interesting developments on the Sheheen thread…………..
By eggaday June 24, 2010 at 5:44 pm
no we need to stop changing everything that used to work
we need to make it work again
By R June 24, 2010 at 7:26 pm
“Florida Watching” actually The female governor of Alaska accomplished quite a lot during her 2 years. She pushed through significant changes to government ethics, tax reform, and the way that the state dealt with oil companies. She even took on members of her own party for government reform. I’d say that worked out pretty well.
By Pimp-alicious June 24, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Bicameral on the state level served its purpose.
Before the Supreme Court ruled one-man, one-vote for everything but the U.S. Senate. See, every county used to have its own Senator. So the big counties, the ones now with urban centers, couldn’t pick on the little counties.
Why, back in the day, the S.C. House and S.C. Senate were both run by little counties. Or a little county. Barnwell.
But now, some counties have more than one Senator, but none of the rural counties, small counties, have one that cares just about it.
And as a result, rural infrastructure fund is a joke. Rural economic development, desperately needed, is a joke.
it all goes to the big cities and counties.
By Correction June 24, 2010 at 9:42 pm
The above comparison about Nebraska and South Carolina should be –
Number of College Football National Championships:
Nebraska: 5
South Carolina: 1*
* Bought and paid for.
By Ted Downing June 25, 2010 at 1:19 am
South Carolina has competition for dysfunctional government – Arizona. A bipartisan and non-partisan group in Arizona is also interested in seeing a unicameral simplification of government. We want to cut our legislature in half – from 90 to 45. And, this is important, we want to follow California voters in nonpartisan elections where ALL voters have a right to select who governs them…not the “party selection”. How many of your elections have only one candidate – who will win unopposed. No checks and balances. No accountability possible. So, nonpartisan, unicameral may free us from the two largest special interests in America….the political parties. This is a national movement now. Turn up the heat. Go SC!
By Katherine Jenerette June 25, 2010 at 6:39 am
The bottom line is Government Structure and Rules.
BOTTOM LINE: Whoever determines the Structure and makes the Rules will ultimately determine who can participate and what the outcome will be.
This applies to lots of things; change the dimensions – STRUCTURE – of a basketball court from 94-feet to 880-feet and players with running endurance become as valuable as players with height but the score outcome will go down. Change the RULES of the free throw line to the backboard to 30 feet and the rules of participation and outcome will also change.
So, a change in the Structure of South Carolina State Government and a corresponding change of the Rules in the selection and the procedures of that Government would “…ultimately determine who can participate and what the outcome will be.”
We could actually change some things for the better: how about starting with education and taxes.
By Old Bike Dude June 25, 2010 at 7:19 am
Nebraska has no sweet tea, grits, trees, collards or coloreds. How you gonna trust anything they do.
By Toyota Kawaski June 25, 2010 at 8:25 am
Great article by Worthless Tammy tranny C and Man-d!
By Confederati June 26, 2010 at 10:10 am
unicameral = awesome. The U.S. Senate is way more conservative than Congress. “State borders are a higher priority than equality”—that’s what Cooter Brown says. I’m curious, though…How and when did SC Senate districts get re-drawn to reflect population density, like the House districts? That defeats the point of having a Senate. We essentially have two Houses of Representatives, and of course the one with bigger districts (the Senate) is going to be worse and more like mobocracy. We only have 6 Congressmen, and Congress really, really sucks.
Until 1907, the Constitution required 1 Congressman for every 30,000 citizens (compared to 650,000 today). If we returned to the original Constitution, we’d have 9,000 Congressmen. Congressmen suck—they really, really suck—but having 9,000 of them would make them infinitely weaker. It would be too big, and the Union would have to split up (a very past-due thing, btw).
So, yeah…hell yeah…unicameral…It’s not like it’s even a pipedream of a possibility. We might as well keep hoping for the return of the Articles of Confederation. Come to think of it…that would be even better, but a unicameral SC would be interesting. Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul would agree.
btw, Rand Paul is a pussy for fawning himself all over Rachel Maddow, criticizing his father’s anti-Khazer foreign policy, and saying so many nice things about the worst of all Abolitionists. I mean, Theodore Weld and Wendell Phillips? Jeez. I don’t even like Lysander Spooner.
By Confederati June 26, 2010 at 11:42 am
Why not go to one seat per county? Here’s the problem I’m talking about: http://www.scstatehouse.gov/redist/senate/S591.jpg
That would really right-wing-up the place.
By Confederati June 26, 2010 at 12:12 pm
The Founding Father Libs (aka Yankees + Madison) had to wait for Jefferson to leave the country before they could switch us over to bicameral. I was going to say we’d have to wait for the entire SC legislature to go to France before we could get away with it, but then I remembered Sanford’s State of the State Address where he kept yammering on and on about how racist our current 1895 SC Constitution is. Why do I feel duped by Sic talking about “Bring back the Henry Laurens (1776) SC Constitution!”? I’m sure Sanford and Sic are totally comfortable with the give-the-darkie-a-vote ’60s gerrymandering that gave us the current RINO Senate. The new SC GOP motto should be “1865 today! 1865 tomorrow! 1865 forever!” But that would be a disgrace to George Wallace.
By WorkingTommyC June 26, 2010 at 1:38 pm
A unicameral legislature in (what is essentially) a corrupt one-party state?
Two houses are better for, if no other reason, there’s an extra roadblock.
The SC Demopublican party members have figured out how to get past those roadblocks. If they only had to pass legislation in one house, they’d go even crazier spending.
If we do anything, we need to defy the Federal government’s illegal intrusion on state matters and go back to having a senator from each county rather than based on population as with state representatives.
By Cooter Brown June 26, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Kuldn’y bee no worss, altho I doubt deir iz a correlashun betwixt th’ “edukashun” ov deir young’uns an’ deir form ov representitave gobmint.