Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Local Government – An Introduction -- Question 3
Question for Warren K, Randy L, and Sarah L. What is “home rule’ and when did this begin to happen in South Carolina? You should note in your answer that the goal of giving local government control over local matters and the tools needed for that control is far from complete. This also comes up in the latter part of the chapter under "issues."
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4 comments:
The Home rule was put into the South Carolina generalassmbly in 1973 after being ratafied from the 1895 constitution. The home rule is jus the governing power to some parst of self governing administrations within the government.
Home rule gives local governments more freedom so that the state legislature does not have to make decisions for them on an individual basis. South Carolina was granted home rule in 1973 after a revision was made to the state constitution. The revision did not give full home rule; cities and counties did not have the power to decide what to tax. In South Carolina, home rule has given cities and counties the ability to consistently organize themselves and has given cities and counties equal powers throughout the state.
-Sarah Luckey
The home rule act was granted in 1973 to the state and revised to the state constitutions which required that they be operated under a framework of general laws passed by the state legislature. So the whole idea was to give more freedom to the local government so that the state legislature wasn’t dealing with local decisions such as local policy decisions.
Randy Lucas
Sarah gave the most complete answer bacause she spoke of the severe limits the legislature has placed on local governments being able to raise revenue to provide services.
Randy did make the important comment that all laws passed by the legislature are supposed to be general laws that apply to all of the municiplaities or counties in the state. Sounds logical! However, the legislature has chosen to ignore this in practice. In the legislative session that just ended, the General Assembly passed a law that allowed people in Richland County to drive golf carts on public highways in certain circumstances that apply ONLY to Richland County. That is in clear violation of a seemingly obvious meaning of the home rule amendment. This could be challenged if local authorities charge someone with violating local laws who tries to take advantage of the exception the legislature allowed, and if the appeal of a conviction ends up in the state Supreme Court. But that is a lot of ifs! This happens because if one legislator wants something in her or his county, other legislators defer in the spirit that they want deference to what they want in their own counties. I suspect that only Supreme Court action could stop this ongoing mutual deference.
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