State Sen. Vincent Sheheen has been leading the charge to restructure South Carolina’s government for years, but now he’s going all-in. The Democratic leader on Thursday called for the state to establish an entirely new constitution through a constitutional convention.
Sheheen, who barely lost the governor’s office to Nikki Haley during the Republican upheaval in 2010, said a new constitutional convention is the only way to “change the [political] culture” in the Palmetto State, according to the South Carolina Radio Network.
Sen. Sheheen’s proposal for a new constitution is hardly a radical suggestion. South Carolina has had seven different constitutions since 1776, including the current one passed in 1895. The 1895 constitutional convention was called by notoriously racist Gov. ”Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, and enacted several measures aimed at suppressing the African-American vote through poll taxes, literacy tests and other Jim Crow laws. The constitution also banned interracial marriage, a provision that wasn’t removed until 1999.
Sheheen called for a new constitutional convention on Thursday while discussing restructuring measures such as replacing the state’s Budget & Control Board with a Department of Administration under the control of the governor, a measure which has narrowly — and consistently — failed to pass. Sen. Sheheen has pre-filed another Dept. of Administration bill for the current legislative session, along with Sens. Larry Martin and Shane Massey — both Republicans.
Sheheen also pre-filed legislation to make the offices of Adjutant General, Commissioner of Agriculture, and Superintendent of Education appointed by the governor. According to Patch’s Chris Winston, Sheheen also plans to file legislation abolishing the offices of Secretary of State and Comptroller General entirely.
I agree with everything Sheheen is doing – just give Nikki Haley any more power or put her in charge of Dept. of Administration. She doesn’t have a clue how to govern or doesn’t have a clue what she is doing. Nikki Haley is more interested in Partisan Politics than she is in what is best for the residents of SC or more interested in posting music lyrics on her facebk pg.
I will definitely being voting for Sheheen now. I totally agree with him. The fact that the state is still using a document that was originally designed to deny black South Carolinians their civil rights is absurd. The current 1895 constitution was designed to prevent the majority of South Carolinians (who happened to be black at the time) from having any say in running the state by creating a dysfunctional system of government.
State government needs a total makeover. First, have the governor be able to appoint most of the executive officers, second replace both the state senate and house with an unicameral legislature, and third allow the citizens to have input in state government by giving them the ability to recall elected officials and giving them the right to call for referenda on bills passed by the legislature. And finally get rid of first-past-the-post voting and replace it with a system of proportional voting (e.g. STV, MMP, or open list voting). The fact that in the 21st century America is still a two-party system and not a pluralistic democracy astounds me.
Sounds like a parlimentary system. Also remember we have a diffusion of power as the last totally powerful Governor we had by law, was a Royal Governor. If we give the Governor more power, I want stronger checks and balances. This Governor has tried to usurp power wherever she could.
I know. I like the idea of having a parliamentary system (as did South Carolina’s founding fathers just read the 1790 state Constitution) as opposed to the current quasi-presidential system we have currently.
Giving the citizens the right to recall the governor would be a major check on his/her power. The same could be said of giving citizens the right to hold referenda on bills passed by the legislature.
As for your argument that a diffusion of political power being a good thing. Just look at Washington now they can’t pass a simple debt deal because one party controls one half of the Congress, along with the executive and the other party controls the other half of the Congress, and they can get away with doing nothing by blaming the other side. Diffusion of power leads to a lack of accountability. You don’t hire five CEOs to run one company, you don’t have a single battalion lead by seven colonels, and you don’t need nine separate executive officers to run one state.