PROPOSALS FAIL TO STOP CORRUPT “SELF-POLICING”
|| By FITSNEWS || South Carolina lawmakers are patting themselves on the back for pushing various “ethics reform” proposals this year. Unfortunately – as was the case with last year’s “reform in name only” bill – this year’s legislation is more bark than bite.
In fact it’s shaping up to have zero bite … although we’re sure S.C. governor Nikki Haley (who has zero room to talk on this issue) will be clamoring for its passage regardless.
Because remember … it’s not about actually accomplishing anything, it’s about giving the appearance of accomplishing something (while the thievery goes on unmolested).
Anyway, lawmakers would retain vast “self-policing” powers under the various ethics proposals being floated – which is totally unacceptable (and totally inconsistent with the goal of creating true “independent” oversight). According to an analysis prepared by the S.C. Policy Council – a libertarian-leaning think tank – the current legislative proposals “don’t even achieve independent investigation – let alone independent punishment.”
In other words, corrupt state lawmakers would continue to wield disproportionate influence whenever citizen complaints are filed against sitting or former lawmakers – a process that has proven adept at whitewashing and burying scandals.
But not so adept at that whole “accountability” thing …
The legislative self-policing process has also opened up those filing the complaints to legal repercussions.
“The reason lawmakers are being forced to deal with the question of self-policing at all … is that state lawmakers, unlike any other elected officials in South Carolina, are governed by their own set of laws – a set of laws they and they alone enforce and adjudicate,” the analysis continued. “That’s a large part of what allows them to control the other two branches of government, ignore the concerns of citizens, and profit from state government.”
Indeed … so how do we fix it? (Well, aside from removing legislative control over other branches of government).
“The only way to end legislative self-policing is by putting lawmakers under the same laws that govern everybody else,” the Policy Council report continued. “After all, every other person in South Carolina is independently policed: why should state lawmakers be any different?”
Absolutely …
Strip away the “self-policing” and state lawmakers would be bound by the same consequences as the rest of us … which is what real “accountability” is all about. In fact we would argue that “leaders” – to the extent anyone at the S.C. State House deserves to be labeled as such – ought to hold themselves to a higher standard than the rest of us.
10 comments
Ethics reform? First there have to be some ethics to reform.
Hey FITS, wipe the feces off your face…
Darren Wilson was TOTALLY EXONERATED…Obama-Holder-Democrat Party LIED…
Well that’s certainly on topic. What’s your problem. You seem so obsessed with a) Wil and his site, and b) feces. You’re starting to remind me of the feces throwing monkey at the zoo.
Whatever I say is the topic, you lemming [email protected]$$…I talk about what I want to…especially since FITS avoids reality when it works against the Democrats’ chances for election…
And: You notice FITS wants to talk about anything BUT Hillary crashing and burning…because she is your only nominee…and you have no bench, other than Joe Biden…LMAO…I’d REALLY LOVE to see Biden (does he looked drugged to you? ) as your nomicnee. That would be HILARIOUS…
He just posted that story. Happy now?
He knows – by experience – to do what I tell him…he’s just punch drunk too much..
Now boys, we don’ts need no indeeependant Yankee-loving oversight group. We cans oversee our buzness just fine.
I wonder when they’ll vote to have the DOJ offices closed and removed from SC too?
It is true that many of the state’s ethics laws and proposed changes are “toothless tigers”, however how has the separation of powers concept been addressed. Each of the branches have oversight within their own branch ethics commission (executive), judicial (commission on judicial conduct) and legislative (respective ethics committees) and each has certain authorities over the other. Why is it so horrible that the legislature oversees its own members when the executive and judicial branches police themselves?
You can put a dress on it, or pretty flowers etc, but a pig is still a pig.
Speaking of putting a dress on a pig, imagine Larry Martin in a miniskirt while Carroll Campbell was recruiting BMW and everybody thought it was coming to upper Anderson County. That would have resulted in suppliers coming uncomfortably close to Alice Manufacturing Company’s mills. For a while there I bet Carroll Campbell was greeting him some booty while Larry Martin was squealing like a pig all the way to the bank.