COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The 2013 legislative session may be characterized more for what South Carolina lawmakers did not accomplish than the laws they passed.
Only one of the items that both parties called a top priority in January is on track to become law. Legislation that prevents another round of candidates from being booted from primary ballots received a final vote in the House on Thursday — the last day of the regular session — sending it to the governor’s desk.
“What happened last election, when hundreds of qualified candidates were removed from ballots because of a technicality, was undemocratic and wrong,” said House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston. “This legislation corrects that injustice.”
The measure would synchronize the candidate filing process for incumbents with those seeking to be officeholders. All would have until March 30 to electronically file their financial disclosure forms with the state Ethics Commission. The measure also would allow those who don’t file properly to pay a fine and remain on the ballot.
Despite committee work that began in both chambers last fall on legislation aimed at strengthening ethics laws and better securing taxpayers’ data across state government — stemming from other episodes that angered voters in 2012 — both bills are carrying over to 2014.
House Majority Leader Bruce Bannister called the last five months “a good start to a two-year session.” Ethics reform is just too complicated to expect it to be done swiftly, he said.
“Everybody knew ethics would be a process,” said Bannister, R-Greenville.
Republican Gov. Nikki Haley continued Thursday to blame the demise of ethics reform on Senate Democrats.
Efforts to improve the oversight of agencies’ cyber-security followed last fall’s massive hacking at the Department of Revenue — the nation’s largest for a state agency — that exposed 6.4 million residents and taxpayers to identity theft. A bill to centralize technology standards, and make agencies adhere to them, remains stuck in a House committee over disagreements on who’s ultimately in control.
Sen. Vincent Sheheen, D-Camden, said all taxpayers notified that their data was stolen should be incensed.
“It’s just wrong that the biggest issue by far we’ve dealt with all year is not addressed,” he said.
House leaders insist key pieces of the legislation will be written into the 2013-14 budget, including hiring a cyber-security chief and staff, and extending credit monitoring for taxpayers. The chambers’ separate budget plans include between $20 million and $25 million for the effort.
Another bill stuck in a House committee would strengthen the state’s public records laws. But for the third consecutive year, it was waylaid by an amendment ending a legislators’ exemption. Rep. Bill Taylor, the main sponsor, had hoped to separate the issues.
“Clearly, the legislative exemption issue is problematic for a few members of the House who have worked to sidetrack the bill,” said Taylor, R-Aiken.
Legislators and Haley all touted the need to fix the state’s crumbling roads and bridges. But lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to fund it.
A Senate proposal to pay for infrastructure improvements through by shifting revenue, borrowing money and raising fees never got a vote on the floor. Proposed fee increases that included raising the state’s gas tax, unchanged since 1987, by an expected 4 cents over 10 years were quickly dismissed by many Republicans.
“I knew it would be a long shot to not only get to debate but actually to get it to the House,” said Sen. Ray Cleary, R-Murrells Inlet, who led the study panel on the issue. “I do think it raised everybody’s focus and attention.”
Republicans can check off their to-do list a pledge to not do something.
They successfully rejected Democrats’ attempts to expand Medicaid eligibility to hundreds of thousands of poor adults under the federal health care law. The majority party in both chambers argued the state can’t afford the eventual price tag to the state — after the three years the federal government promises to pay all but some administrative costs — and that having Medicaid coverage hasn’t proved to equal better health among South Carolina’s poor. The federal government would cover 90 percent of the costs after a few years.
House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford called rejection of the proposed expansion — made an option by last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision — his biggest disappointment of the session. He called 2013 a “do-nothing” session.
“The one thing we were able to do as a body was to make sure people did not get health care,” said Rutherford, D-Columbia.
Despite the disappointments, legislators celebrated some highlights. They include laws that provide incentives to the Boeing Co., allow for legal raffles, define “sweepstakes machines” as illegal video gambling, and ensure background checks for gun purchases to catch those deemed mentally ill by a court.
