SC General Assembly Should Record Votes
South Carolinians deserve to know how their elected leaders vote when making financial decisions that have an impact on the pocketbooks of taxpayers. Roll call votes are the default practice for legislation with fiscal impact in every single Southeastern state, except for South Carolina. In the Palmetto state roll-call voting is the exception rather than the rule.
Voice votes make it impossible for citizens to determine how their elected official voted and this practice should be avoided whenever possible. An attempt by lawmakers to give themselves an anonymous pay raise this week highlights the severity of this problem.
What happened
House Bill 4673 was approved Tuesday via a non-recorded voice vote to give an automatic 2 percent cost-of-living increase to retired lawmakers and state employees each year. Given the Bureau of Economic Advisors’ forecast of a $90 million shortfall in state revenue, citizens deserve to know which lawmakers voted to give themselves a pay raise while state agencies face cuts.
After an outpouring of criticism over granting a pay raise anonymously, Representative Herb Kirsh attempted to reopen debate on the bill through a motion to reconsider. Representative Dan Cooper instead moved to table the motion to reconsider, effectively shutting down any further debate.
Representative Kirsh then called for a roll call vote to force lawmakers to commit themselves, and the House voted 72 to 25 — Click here for individual lawmaker votes on H.4673 — to reject tabling the bill. Lawmakers then held another anonymous voice vote and rejected the previous motion to reconsider and passed the bill on to third reading.
Typically, the third and final reading is just a formality, meaning the bill will pass out of the House and move to the Senate. However, public outcry continued to build and taxpayer-friendly Representatives rallied, gathering enough votes Wednesday to block passage during the third reading and instead send the bill back to committee on a 58 to 51 vote. Click here for individual lawmaker votes — this move effectively killed the legislation.
Representative Cooper then submitted House Bill 4992, which would grant the two-percent cost-of-living adjustment to all state employees except for the General Assembly. House Majority Leader Representative Jimmy Merrill objected, and the bill was referred to the Ways and Means Committee.
The lesson
State lawmakers understand voice votes are an effective way to pass legislation their constituents oppose while shielding themselves from personal accountability. Keep in mind, legislators are part-time officials who have regular full-time employment to provide for their retirement. No other part-time state employee is eligible for state retirement – lawmakers have given themselves a generous perk and should be held accountable for the attempt to now pad that benefit.
Just 19 percent of private-sector employees participated in a defined-benefit pension plan in 2007, according the U.S. Department of Labor. Seventy-eight percent of state employees participated in a pension plan. The result is that taxpayers struggling to fund their own retirements are forced to limit their own savings in order to subsidize the lavish retirement packages afforded government workers.
Legislators are citizen-representatives and should not lump themselves in with retired full-time state employees that rely on pensions for the bulk of their retirement income. Taxpayers currently contribute four dollars for every one dollar lawmakers contribute to the legislative retirement fund. This benefit is already more substantial than any plan offered to the average taxpayer.
What retirement plans look like in the Southeast
During the last two decades the number of American companies providing worker pension guarantees has dropped from 39 percent to 19 percent – the Southeast is even lower at just 13 percent.
Even among large employers with more than 100 workers, less than a third receive defined benefit plans, according to the 2007 Department of Labor National Compensation Study.
Lawmakers should not be allowed to vote off-the-record when they spend taxpayer dollars. Voice votes on fiscal legislation make it impossible for the average taxpayer to hold their elected officials accountable – clearly South Carolina citizens deserve more transparency in government.
Summary
As the South Carolina Policy Council has previously cited, roll call votes are the default practice in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Florida and Tennessee. In North Carolina, roll call votes are required by law for all bills with a fiscal impact. In South Carolina however, electronic roll call voting is the exception rather than the norm.
This week’s events illustrate why South Carolina must fall in line with its fellow states and mandate roll call voting. Such practices are critical for taxpayers to make informed decisions regarding their legislators and for personal accountability in government.
Bryan D. Cox
Communications Director
South Carolina Policy Council
1323 Pendleton Street
Columbia, SC 29201
Phone: (803) 779-5022 Ext. 4
Cell: (803) 521-1988
Fax: (803) 779-4953
