I appreciate the SC Policy Council’s efforts to educate the public on limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. They’ve rightly criticized the legislature for wasteful spending and back door politics. I will vouch for the accuracy of this report except it only reports on roll call votes and leaves out voluntary recording of votes. In early 2009, during the debate on rules changes requiring more roll call votes, I was very vocal on changing on mandatory roll call votes on everything. We made some progress, yet not enough. At that time, Sen. Greg Ryberg (R-Aiken) and I made the commitment that we’d voluntarily record our votes in the journal on every bill on either 2nd or 3rd reading. Here’s a link to the Senate Journals. I would like to see a change in format of the Senate Journal as it is often difficult to decipher.
Here’s an excerpt from the SC Policy Council’s article:
2009 General Assembly Voted Anonymously 75 Percent of the Time
Written by SC Policy Council
The South Carolina General Assembly recorded its votes on 532 out of 2,116 bills considered during the 2009 legislative session, according to the final vote count tracked by the Policy Council. This total excludes votes on congratulatory resolutions that did not impact actual legislation.
74.9 percent of votes held by the General Assembly were taken via anonymous voice votes despite new rules adopted by the legislature in January requiring more accountability. The House recorded votes 31.2 percent of the time in 2009. The Senate recorded votes 15.6 percent of the time.
Both legislative bodies held more votes on the record this year than in 2008, but even with this improvement the South Carolina legislature remains among the nation’s worst with just 1 out of every 4 votes being recorded. Read on
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