Friday, June 15, 2007
Counties – Question 4
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About The Course and this Blog
- Robert Botsch, USCA Political Science
- I am the one on the right! I have been a professor of political science at USCA since 1978. We will use this blog for class discussion and for posting written assignments that I may make. When you post you may do so using the anonymous profile, but please sign your name to all your posts! Posts are shown REVERSE chronological order. The most recent post is at the top. So READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP in the topics shown in the BLOG ARCHIVE above.
2 comments:
In 1682, the Lord Proprietors created three counties: Berkeley, Craven, and Colleton. The purpose of these counties was to administer justice, grant land and election representative to the legislative assemblies. However, these counties did not accomplish everything they set out for. The Anglican Church provided services that counties provide for today. Charleston was the main focus of government. When Charleston’s population grew, the General Assembly divided the colony into seven judicial districts. County courts were created to hear small claims; however, as time moved on, jurisdiction among county courts and district courts began to overlap. After the Civil War, the Constitution gave local government more power and allowed judicial districts to be referred to as counties. Counties were limited by the county purpose doctrine. Counties were relegated to providing for schools, roads, ferries, bridges, and ect. Before Home Rule, counties were ruled by the General Assembly through their state legislative delegation. There was a State Senator from each county and the House members from the county. Counties had a supply bill, which represents the county budget. The State Senator had the most power in the county. The legislators were used to represent statewide issues and local issues.
In the case of Reynolds v. Simms, the federal courts established the idea of “one –man, one- vote” for electoral representation at the state level. Legislators were now supposed to represent more or less equal numbers of people. A lot of counties lost their senator and house members. After the Home Rule, the legislature offered up to five forms of county government.
Julie Kate Keeney
Really good answer! The county legislative delegation did in fact run counties for most of our history. (And because of severe limits on raising taxes that still exist, they still do in many ways.)
The reason the state senator was the most powerful was that he alone decided whether the local bill for the budget or for some local appointment passed the senate -- house memebers had to share power with each other. This delegation really ran everything in each county, even appointing all the district school superintendents! You could not even paint the local count offices without delegation approval!
We still have county legislative delegations, but they are more complex now that district lines no longer correspond to county lines. You may have a member with just a few constituents in a county. Recently voters have challenged delegation votes on the basis that not all legislator votes should be weighted equally because they have different numbers of constituents withint eh county -- one-person-one-vote!
Some day delegations will be put out of business in so far as local govenment is concerned, but I do not think I will live that long!
Bob B
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