Legislature’s lawlessness cries out for rebuke

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY has always acted as though it were a law unto itself — something you can get away with when you divide the executive branch of government into so many tiny islands that it can’t check your power, and keep the judiciary under your thumb.

But even by S.C. standards, our lawmakers’ latest display of impudence is breathtaking.

Despite the warnings of some of the most respected legal minds in the House and Senate, the Legislature ignored an unequivocal Supreme Court ruling and passed a bill last month that clearly violated the state constitution’s mandate that bills relate to “a single subject,” by coupling a tax break for guns with tax breaks for fuel-efficient appliances and then tacking onto the end of that combination a mandate that oil companies sell “blendable” fuel to S.C. distributors.

That’s only the beginning, though.

Gov. Mark Sanford, taking seriously his oath to uphold the constitution, vetoed the bill, giving lawmakers a chance to redeem themselves. Five days later, a unanimous Supreme Court again upheld the single-subject mandate, striking down parts of yet another “bobtailed” bill. Two days after that, the Legislature overrode Mr. Sanford’s veto, ignoring Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell’s warning that “there’s no education in the third kick of a mule” and thumbing its nose at the high court

Lawmakers didn’t dispute that the legislation was unconstitutional; how could they? Supporters instead argued that S.C. oil distributors would be hurt, and gas prices would rise, if the bill didn’t pass; some even nonchalantly noted that they could always pass a stand-alone bill next year if the court struck this one down.

It was the Legislature’s way of saying, “So sue us.” Which the oil companies did, less than 24 hours later. Within mere days, the Supreme Court accepted the case, and slapped an injunction on the state, barring it from enforcing the fuel mandate.

It’s hard to imagine the court not administering that third kick. The only suspense involves how quickly it will act, how much of a lecture it will give, how many parts of the bill it will invalidate, and just how much this will cost the taxpayers in legal fees.

Accepting the case and issuing the restraining order so quickly was about the only thing the court could do immediately to signal its impatience with the Legislature’s lawlessness, and it was right to do so. The single-subject rule wasn’t included in our constitution out of some legalistic fetish for order. It was included because stringing unrelated items together in a single bill subverts majority-rule, shuts out the public and invites mistakes. Narrow minorities form coalitions to cobble together pet projects and ideas that could never pass if they had to stand on their own. Voters can’t possibly keep up with, and weigh in on, what’s happening unless they read every single word of every single bill. And the same is true for legislators, who don’t, which allows the devious among them actually to sneak proposals into law that no one would have knowingly voted for.

At this point, it looks as though our Legislature has no intention of ever obeying the law, which makes it all the more important for our court to be vigilant about overturning its unconstitutional actions.