S.C. Lawmakers Put The Brakes On A Terrible Idea

By Lee Bandy
SouthCarolina Insider

(4/11/08) Republican Gov. Mark Sanford caught the House members with their hands in the cookie jar, again.
This time the issue was a pension increase for themselves.

The House was on the verge of approving the boost when state Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a Republican from Lancaster, noticed the pay raise provision and immediately moved to send it back to committee with instructions that the salary boost be stricken from the legislation.

The governor praised Mulvaney for his action.

“The issue of backdoor pay increases needs to be revisited by the committee,” Sanford urged. “And the first order of business should be to strip out this legislative pay perk.”

The pension increase for members was attached to a bill giving state retirees a guaranteed 2 percent cost-of-living increase.

“While we still have a number of concerns about the rest of this will as well, this vote showed that a majority in the House have enough respect for taxpayers to put the brakes on this terrible idea,” the governor said.

A handful of lawmakers, led by Mulvaney, organized a revolt against the bill to stop it dead in its tracks. They rounded up just enough votes to send the bill back to committee, a rarely used tactic, on a 58-51 vote.

The lawmakers hope to remove the pension boost for members and pass the bill later in the session.

“If this provision does, however, survive the committee process again, we believe that at a minimum House members need to take a recorded vote on the matter so that taxpayers can hold them accountable for their actions,” Sanford said.

The bill would have increased legislators’ already generous pensions – which already are three times more generous than that given to the average state worker.

The vote came a day after the state’s Board of Economic Advisors voted to cut the state’s revenue estimates by $90 million this year and $90 million in the coming year.