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South Carolina ‘Republicans’ Try To ‘Opt-Out’ Of Their Massive Pay Raise
Smoke, mirrors and more misdirection…
Smoke, mirrors and more misdirection…
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8 comments
A) Generally agree with Fits position on this. Mr. Smith is able to go to Washington, but certainly cannot afford to go to Columbia. So much for citizen legislators.
B) The need for draconian reforms tied to a the pay increase indirectly acknowledges one of the issues with the unchanged salary since the 90’s – it encourages (does not excuse) corruption.
C) Why not make it a ballot measure? Employers decide on and offer salaries. The people are the employer. The people, not the politicians (employees), should decide the salary.
Individual legislators may not be subject to FOIA (as stated above), but how about the Clerk of the House? He serves as a ‘public servant’, does he not? I’ll let everybody know what becomes of my FOIA request …..
The members of the legislature are immune to any lawsuit for defamation or slander, and exempted from FOIA. Furthermore they may not be even placed under oath and forced to provide a deposition about their activities as a legislator under subpoena – even when they are not a defendant party in a civil lawsuit, but a mere witness. That prevents them from even being confronted under oath and forced to tell the truth about underhanded dirty deeds done behind the scenes. In essence, it means they have total legal immunity to lie with impunity about anything against a private citizen or member of the executive or judicial branch unless it involves a crime or activity that has no relevance whatsoever to their legislative actions. The very narrow exception to that is bribery and campaign finance violations. A Senator could accuse the Governor, the Attorney General, the Treasurer, any cabinet agency head of outrageously false conduct, with zero consequences. But in the reverse scenario, the Senator could go after all of them with civil suits and FOIA requests. This is but one aspect of the Legislature’s great disproportionate power. We do not have 3 co-equal branches of government; even the Supreme Court acknowledges that.
The constitution of South Carolina intentionally makes the legislature the only branch with power, there was never any intent to make co- equal branches. It was to keep northern carpet baggers and blacks who got elected as republicans from having any power. A new constitution, which will never happen, is the only way to solve many of this states issues. The 1868 constitution, the only SC constitution voted on by the people, was much different as it a gave the governor and courts co equal power. Senator Ben Tillman changed all that in 1894 and his ilks main motivation was to keep blacks from getting any power. To quote him”we can trust white men to do right by the inferior race, but we cannot trust the inferior race with power over the white man” in response to a question the papers asked him about calling for a constitutional convention
All BS. Every legislator and public official has to file a Statement of Economic Interest with the state ethics commission annually. Those pay numbers will be in each report. No FOIA needed.
Again the SC legislature needs another Lost Trust operation. The corruption is blatant.
Anonymous, you are so right about that! We need another Operation Lost Trust, yesterday!
The Legislature this year has passed more dumb, stupid, unnecessary, shit than I can remember in decades. I hope we see a huge turnover in the House AND Senate in the next two elections.