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Thursday, August 26, 2010
Nikki Haley wants term limits for Gen. Ass. officials
GOP gubernatorial candidate proposes ballot initiative to bypass legislature
Posted by Chris Haire on Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 2:24 PM
New age "visionary" Simran Singh's ne'er-do-well sister, Nikki Haley, has just unveiled a bold new package to reform South Carolina government.
At the top of the list for the accused adulteress and delinquent income tax payer: Term limits for all elected officials in the General Assembly.
The Haley Administration will establish a ballot initiative to allow the voters of South Carolina to change the state Constitution in order to:- limit the number of years served in the South Carolina House of Representatives to eight years.
- limit the number of years served in the South Carolina Senate to eight years.
- limit the total number of years served in the General Assembly to twelve years.
Government needs a constant influx of fresh faces, fresh voices, and fresh ideas. More than 25 percent of South Carolina House Members have served longer than 10 years. In the South Carolina Senate, over 50 percent have been there for more than a decade. Term limits are not designed to denigrate the service of the men and women who have given their time and energy to the state; rather, they are simply a recognition of the reality that public service is a demanding endeavor and that the people of South Carolina are best served by a legislative body that is consistently bolstered by new Members.
As you can see, Haley knows that the Gen Ass will certainly resist any and all attempts at legislation establishing term limits, so she wants to go directly to you and me, the voters.
Haley also wants on-the-record voting for legislators, capping government spending, and requiring legislators to disclose sources of income and conflict of interests, something that Haley herself is guilty of (She failed to disclose that she had received $42,500 to do consulting work for a firm that hired her because of her, um, connections in government.)
To paraphrase Doc Holliday: Nikki, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
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Comments (18)
Showing 1-18 of 18
This is the first thing Nikki Haley has proposed that I support and support wholeheartedly. There's a direct correlation between time spent in office and corruption. For instance, look at CREW's list of the most corrupt members of congress: the most corrupt ones have on average been in office longer than the average for congress as a whole. I don't know that there's a similar list for the SC legislature, but I would be willing to bet a lot of money there would be similar results. The old saying is that all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well, time spent in the legislature = seniority. And seniority=more power. And more power= corruption.
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i won't forget this. i'll kep reminding you after you take office, so,keep your word! re-electing the same old faces to public office is like re-using the same underware after a shower... after a couple of times it gets really STINKY!!
Let's get real--- the monied interests in this state won't stand for something as democratic as this!!!! However, I REALLY hope she can pull it off------and make it stand up against the (guaranteed) continuing court test!! What may work better is to limit service to an 8-year term (either house or Senate) with a required service break of at least 8 years, then provide the ability to serve in the OTHER legislative body for an additional 8 year period (MAXIMUM). This will minimize the "old boy network" effect, yet allow those who really want to serve as public servants the ability to do so.
And let's add campaign funding limits - 10 cents for constituent. So you say how can you ran a campaign with so little? You get out and go door-to-door at the local level. By the time you get to the county level, you can afford a few signs. At the state level, TV comes into play. And, the granddaddy of them all, the national arena. As of today, you get $31M to play with, no more! If that isn't enough then tough.
Next, you cannot run for another office until you have completed your current term. This nips the professional politician in the bud and brings back the "citizen statesman" concept.
Finally, all bills in the legislature MUST be a single topic. In other words no riders or coat-tailing or whatever you call the process. Each bill would have to stand on it's own. No getting that dam built by linking it to money for orphans.
Your a hypocrite if Nikkie was a Democrat, being a adulteress and delinquent income tax payer, that would have been a resume enhancer...
I have not seen such sophomoric writing since I was in college... no in high school.
Obviously, you have nothing intelligent to say, either pro or con, about Nikki's recommendations, so you malign her in any fashion that you can.
What a pathetic piece of attempted "journalism".
Yes - Boss Hog (Mayor Riley) ran on a platform of term limits for mayor many years ago, it was all he could talk about. After he got elected no one every heard a peep from his lips about term limits again!
Not that anyone needed to read the byline to figure out who wrote this, but really Chris this does read as if it was hammered out on a smart phone 20 minutes after last call. Your paper has chosen to publish blog entries, by its editor no less. Realize that this offers tacit and perhaps even outright endorsement to shoddy writing and reporting standards. Moredock's blogs are just as embarrassing.
This is an editorial, on a legitimate political news item no less, and your over-arching opinion on the policy is that the messenger needs to be shot? Are you saying that term limits are a bad idea because Nikki Haley was accused of cheating on her spouse? Are you saying that financial disclosure requirements would damage government because someone was accused of hiding income?
Let's just pretend for a minute that Vincent Sheheen proposed these items; now consider them on their merits.
Don't forget, we need term limits at both levels, state and national. Get the complacient crooks out of the country club atmosphere.
Factoryconnection,
One, I don't believe in last call. Happy hour is a state of mind.
Two, of course, this is a commentary. Haire of the Dog is an opinion blog. I show my ass each and every time, for better or worse.
But the issue with Haley, specifically in this piece, is this: She is a hypocrite when it comes to income disclosure. No argument there.
As for the adultery stuff, come one, we've got to pick on her about that. It's hilarious, although so far it hasn't been proven or disproven, thanks in part perhaps to Nikki's ability to stonewall and Will Folks' incompetence. I wonder what is the more likely prospect: Nikki will sue Will or Will will get a book deal or perhaps a pay-to-play segment on Dateline.
And just so that we're all up to date: Larry Marchant claims he slept with Nikki, while Will Folks claims that he had an inappropriate relationship with her. Folks has since floated the rumor that Nikki also had a "specific encounter" with Myrtle Beach Rep. Thad Viers. My vote is for a paid tell-all in the National Enquirer for Sic Willie.
As for term limits, I am not against the idea. It's all well and good. That said, it'll never happen. Not at the national level, not at the state level, and never ever at the local level. (And when it comes to corruption, I would argue that the level of corruption increases as you move from the bigger stage to the little stage. How about we start requiring city and county council members to be party affiliated? You know, so that we'd see once and for all that the Republican Party has no problem with raising taxes.)
As for Vincent Sheheen: He's a bore. He could have release the exact same platform and I would have been equally indifferent.
As I said before, I'm voting for Nikki. Not Sheheen.
So we should just accept the status quo because the odds seem long? Fuck that. I understand why it'd be practically impossible to pass term limits through the legislature, but why do you think it's impossible to pass as a ballot initiative?
Folks want term limits for everybody else's guy, not theirs.
Glenn McConnell. Nobody's itching to send him packing. Same goes for Hugh Leatherman, Bobby Harrell, and even Jakie Knotts.
Folks know that with seniority comes power and they want their guy to be the guy with clout. And that's not even taking into account the relationships that various long-serving incumbents have with the GOP or Dem Party base in their respective districts and whatnot.
The only reason this is floated is to get the masses excited about voting. There is no intention for this to ever take place. (See the GOP and all of their anti-abortion BS. It's in their interest to bitch about Roe v. Wade, but not in their interest to try to do much of anything about it ... that is if there is anything they can do. Or see Henry McMaster and Andre Bauer on the whole "I Believe" license plate thing.)
I could be wrong.
One of the reason I support term limits (I'd like the terms to be 2 years, max) is that they destroy the whole anti-democratic of seniority. With seniority, all districts may be created equal, but some are more equal than others. Can anyone give a logical reason why a legislator from one district should be more powerful than a legislator from another, supposedly equal district?
I'm aware of the phenomenon where people disapprove if congress, but love their congressman. I just wish people weren't so goddamn stupid as to think that there's only one person in their whole district who can represent their interests.
I totally understand your sentiments, Sark. And in many ways, I agree with you.
But isn't half the problem with the state is that virtually all-white — and ultra-Christian fundamentalist — counties of the Upstate have power over the res tof the state, Charleston County specifically. Charleston is the population center of this state, and if it wasn't for McConnell and Harrell, we'd be up the creek.
The truth is that the Republican Party in this state is run out of Greenville-Spartanburg. They are the decision makers, the platform makers. Most Republicans down here are of the far more sensible mold (the kind that Upstaters claim are RINOs.)
The Democratic Party doesn't exist in this state. It is a figment of our collective imagination.
Haire of the Dog,
You wrote:
"As for term limits, I am not against the idea. It's all well and good. That said, it'll never happen. Not at the national level, not at the state level, and never ever at the local level."
Isn't that the point of putting it to the electorate as a ballot initiative?
There are not enough honorable representatives left to vote themselves out of office, but the electorate would love to impose term limits. Of course, we have the power to impose term limits at any time we wish - it just requires pushing the buttons next to lines that do not include the word "incumbent"!
I think your pessimism is misplaced.
Chris, don't get all defensive about making fun of the sordid cloud that hangs over her head. There's nothing wrong with poking fun at politicians for being hypocrites, philanderers (is that appropriate to call a woman?), and the like. People read gossip columns for what they are. I just take exception to the poor writing style and the careless mash-up of political commentary and farce. I don't demand things be one or the other, but cross-over commentary takes a steady hand.
Thank you for actually addressing the question. I'd vote for term limits, no question. I think that it would make politics more attractive to the intelligent non-scoundrels, knowing that they wouldn't be trying to win over 30-plus-year-served representatives with their 30-plus years of golf and vacations courtesy of lobbyists. Ballot initiative seems like the only plausible way.
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