As many of you know, the Spartanburg County Legislative Delegation’s bickering over who is really speaking for the region has become a prime example of the growing ideological rift in the state. The division between the majority of the delegation (who want to elect their leadership through standard voting) and the breakaway faction of Lee Bright, Shane Martin, Glenn Reese and Rep. Joey Millwood (who claim that because they represent more people, their four votes should actually have more “weight” than the rest) has been a surprisingly controversial local topic.
Now, the matter of who gets to sit in the front seat during the carpool to Columbia will finally be settled by the state Supreme Court. Robert Dalton of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal explains …
State Rep. Harold Mitchell, D-Spartanburg, in April asked the high court to decide whether the election of delegation officers requires a simple majority vote or a weighted vote. Weighted voting, which grants lawmakers power based on the number of people they represent, was the center of the dispute that split the delegation from its very first meeting.
… In March, state Attorney General Henry McMaster issued an opinion — also requested by Mitchell — stating the four-member delegation did not constitute a quorum, the minimum number required to hold a legal meeting.
The two sides reached a compromise in May, electing Littlejohn chairman and Martin vice chairman and agreeing the positions would rotate each year.
Spartanburg attorney Charlie Hodge, who is representing Mitchell, said the Supreme Court’s decision, one way or the other, would prevent similar situations in the future.
“It’s simply a choice between deciding whether electing officers is a governmental function or an administrative function,” Hodge said. “If it is an administrative function, as we think it is, it ought to be decided by a simple majority vote.”
Bright asked state Senate attorneys to respond on his behalf. He said they will argue that electing officers is a substantive matter and thus requires a weighted vote.
“I’m surprised (the Supreme Court) took this case,” Bright said. “But they are the highest court in South Carolina, and if they want to take it and rule on it, then I’ll abide by their decision.”
You may be thinking, “Why does this matter? Why are they fighting over this?” As tempting as it is to think this is an ideological battle, really it just boils down to the basic thing most arguments are about in politics: power and money.
The Spartanburg County Legislative Delegation influences how an awful lot of money is spent in the county, and control over that money equals power. We’re talking big stuff here: New county buildings, new county services. The delegation also has the power to appoint members to county boards, as well as to remove established members, which adds a kingmaker aspect to the job, as well as a means of indirectly controlling the boards should, say, four people make the decisions based on “weighted” voting, rather than a simple majority of 13. It’s also quite possibly about control of the judicial system at the county level, hoping perhaps to establish a precedent of weighted voting in general.
So, the state Supreme Court’s decision will, in many relevant ways, decide the direction of Spartanburg County. If they agree that “weighted” voting is fair, the SCLD will largely represent the interests of a handful of districts on these matters, rather than the county as a whole.
Steve Shanafelt
The legislative delegation system is a vestige of the days when the county’s senator and representatives – before the mid-1960s each county had one senator, no matter their population – ran all aspects of county government. Counties in South Carolina had no powers other than what the legislature gave them, and each county’s budget was passed by the General Assembly. It was called the “supply bill” and in effect, only Spartanburg’s legislators would vote on Spartanburg’s bill. There was no county council to speak of, so the delegation acted pretty much as the governing body for the county. The state senator was pretty much the county’s political boss.
Flash forward through the 1970s, when most counties received “home rule” under some changes to the state constitution. The delegations lost some of their authority, county councils became responsible for much of county government, but delegation members still held some powers, especially those appointive powers that these articles refer to. They also had power to allocate funds – some individual legislators had control of pots of highway funds that they could use to personally designate – no vote, mind you – what roads would be paved in their districts. That was eventually ruled illegal as it violated the separation of powers.
This mess we are left with today is sort of the dying gasp of the pre-home rule era. The system of weighted voting is actually legal, and it’s not totally unreasonable as it relates to the way the system has to operate. Before the one man, one vote decisions, no legislator represented more than one county. Spartanburg had 8 representatives, and everyone in Spartanburg got 8 votes at election time. All the representatives were at-large. No need for weighted voting. After single member districts, a few legislators started serving in districts that crossed county lines. With the series of voting rights decisions, the districts become more spread out. So here’s the problem: while legislative districts have to be equal, if they don’t follow county lines, one representative may represent only 2,000 voters in a county, while another may represent 32,000. Should their votes be equal? In Columbia, of course. But in county matters? The courts have said not. Senators represent somewhere in the range of 95,000-100,000 residents, whereas representatives are probably somewhere around 35,000. (I’m estimating here.) So, the 3 senators claim their votes count more. If the three senators and even one of the representatives agree on something, then they constitute the weighted majority for transacting business, since the senators would control 50% of the votes between them.
The courts and the law have made a distinction between procedural votes, which everyone’s vote is equal, and substantive votes, which require weighted voting. The fact that they’ve had to do this shows that the system needs to go. When things get this convoluted and Byzantine, and when the better-than-average educated voter can’t understand them, it does away with responsibility in government.
Also, it is crazy that three senators and one representative could control the delegation. A similar thing can’t happen in real legislative circles – nothing can pass in Columbia if all 46 senators vote for it and only 10 members of the house! The senators want their votes to count more simply because it’s in their interest, and it’s just another House-Senate turf war.
Bottom line for me (this is not as well-written as I would like): I think the system where delegations as a body have power needs to go away. However, if we are going to have them, some system of weighted voting has to be in place simply because otherwise it violates federal law.
That put the whole thing in context, actually. You can start to see why four people would fight so hard for control over that kind of power, and why Glenn Reese would join up with a group of ideological opposites to grab a bigger piece of it.