Editorials from across South Carolina: judicial independence, Confederate flag, Guantanamo detainees in Charleston

Legislature wants to control court

(Associate Justice Don) Beatty’s greatest sin in the eyes of lawmakers was voting with two other justices in ruling that the state is not providing a minimally adequate education to children in poor, rural school districts and ordering the state to do more.

Lawmakers were outraged by that decision. They don’t want to be held accountable by the courts. They don’t want the three branches of government to serve as “checks and balances” as they do in the federal system. They don’t want any other power to exist in the state other than the General Assembly.

So, since Beatty had the effrontery to rule against the General Assembly, they want to elect someone else to head the Supreme Court.

What does that give the state? It gives us a Supreme Court made up of judges who are afraid to anger lawmakers. It gives lawmakers unfettered control over all aspects of state government.

South Carolina needs to change the way it chooses its judges. Allowing all our judges, from magistrates up to the chief justice, to be chosen by lawmakers gives those politicians too much control.

A system in which the governor could nominate judges, who could be confirmed by lawmakers, would establish a more independent judiciary.

Keep flag in Columbia

Charleston still has its credentials as a polite place, so it is with due respect for our legislators who are pushing the idea that we say, “No thank you. We do not want the state’s Confederate museum in the Lowcountry.”

We do appreciate Rep. Chip Limehouse’s efforts to save South Carolina taxpayers $3.6 million.

That is the amount being requested to renovate and add to the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in Columbia in order to accommodate the last Confederate flag to fly on the Statehouse grounds.

But we have a different suggestion: Spiff up the museum with donated money — even if it means a more modest redo.

After all, the only thing that has to change at the museum is the addition of the flag. Putting that in a very nice glass case couldn’t cost more than a couple of thousand dollars, and that should be easy for groups dedicated to Civil War history to raise.

It doesn’t need to be a $550,000 display as requested, and surely that one case shouldn’t require the addition of another room, costing an estimated $3.05 million.

No Guantanamo terrorists in S.C.

South Carolina is proud to be home to U.S. military facilities and proud of the role the state has played in the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Leaders such as former Sens. Strom Thurmond and Ernest Hollings, and former Reps. Mendell Rivers and Floyd Spence, used their influence in Washington to make the Palmetto State a military bastion.

Though facilities such as the huge naval base at Charleston have closed, South Carolina remains a key player in meeting the nation’s military needs with facilities such as Shaw Air Force Base and the U.S. Army’s training center at Fort Jackson.

With the military connection comes obligations, which South Carolina continues to meet in ways such as “temporarily” storing high-level nuclear waste associated with the nation’s weapons programs. Political opposition in other states and in the nation’s capital have leaders here wondering whether the state is the de facto permanent home.

Fearing South Carolina is again about to become the home that no other state wants to be has leaders rightly standing up against federal plans to transfer terrorist detainees from the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay near Cuba to military prisons in South Carolina and Kansas. This goes beyond the states’ collective call of duty as there is no agreement on a plan for what to do with the detainees in the long term.

This story was originally published February 29, 2016 at 1:21 PM.