House sustains 51 vetoes
The Senate ended three days of gridlock Thursday by voting to scrap a joint House-Senate plan on controversial voter ID legislation.The issue is likely dead for the year, as House leaders indicated they would not support the Senate plan.
The Senate move capped a marathon three days in the General Assembly where:
- Gov. Mark Sanford saw the House sustain the most budget vetoes in any year since the Carroll Campbell administration, carrying with it the biggest budget cuts by a governor in state history. The House agreed with 51 of Sanford's 107 vetoes, worth about $300 million in cuts. The success stands in sharp contrast with last year, when Sanford issued 10 budget vetoes and the General Assembly rejected all 10.
- The S.C. Budget and Control Board was defunded on a $25 million Sanford veto, leaving lawmakers and leaders in state government unsure about how the state's administrative agency will operate after July 1.
- Lawmakers learned the state has been beating revenue projections over the past two months by $50 million. That means the state, expecting a $1 billion shortfall next budget year, could get $600 million in new revenue on a rebounding economy.
- Both House and Senate members rejected bids by Sanford to cut millions of dollars devoted to technical colleges, local libraries, the state Arts Commission and ETV.
But Thursday belonged the Senate and its vote that may have killed a two-year effort by lawmakers to require voters to present a photo ID at the polls.
The Senate bill passed Thursday stands in sharp contrast to a House-passed voter ID bill, which Senate Democrats steadfastly have opposed, saying it was a blatant Republican attempt to diminish the rights of South Carolinians to go to the polls and cast a ballot.
"On my ancestors' graves" am I opposing this, declared Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, one of the Senate leaders against the bill. "This is the core of the Democratic foundation - defending the rights that are invested with our citizens."
Both versions of the bill take the new step of requiring photo identification, which is not a current requirement in the state.
But other major differences between the House and Senate version of voter ID exists.
The Senate bill creates a window starting 15 days before an election for early voting, which must include at least one Saturday in statewide primaries and general elections, which can continue up to three days before the election.
The joint House-Senate compromise allowed only seven days of early voting.
The Senate bill allows counties to establish multiple early voting centers; the House only allowed one such center.
The Senate bill allows absentee voting on paper ballots any time before an election and by voting machine 30 days prior.
The House version required a qualified elector to request an absentee ballot in person, rather than by mail or phone.
"It was a fine piece of legislation," said Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.The Senate bill would take effect in January 2012.
Under an uncommon resolution, the Senate gave the House a point-blank option on Voter ID, one //of// the GOP's signature issues this year: agree or forget it.
When the House returns to Columbia on June 29, it can either approve the Senate version, which was worked out over several months and received near-unanimous support, or the issue dies.
Republican House members were angry over the Senate bill, the mandate to agree with the House or kill the bill and Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, being allowed in a Republican-controlled body to filibuster and move the Senate to a bill Democrats prefer.
"To let this single senator hold our entire state hostage, while Republicans in the Senate hold enough votes to end the filibuster, is an unbelievable extension of personal privilege to the detriment of the needs of South Carolina," said House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham. "It's a sad state of affairs, but as conservatives have seen over the past eight years, this is politics as usual in the Senate."
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