GOP leaders want more control of bills

COLUMBIA — House Republican leaders are pushing plans to put more power in the hands of House Speaker Bobby Harrell so he could appoint committee chairmen in an effort to advance the GOP's agenda and clear the House floor of bills they don't like.

Speakers have that appointment authority in other states, but critics in South Carolina claim it will concentrate too much power in one person's hands — silencing the speaker's political opponents and stifling legislation.

Supporters say the change will keep the GOP's agenda moving and stall bills that don't square with their philosophy in a chamber they control by a 71-53 majority. It's inside political baseball that will shape how the state taxes and spends on everything from health care to highways.

"If the speaker gets that kind of authority, it is no longer the House of Representatives," said Rep. Nathan Ballentine, R-Irmo.

"We don't want anything that implies a dictatorship," said Rep. Nikki Haley, a Lexington Republican whose bid to become the House's only woman committee chair stands to crumble with the rule change.

It's unusually harsh criticism in a lower chamber where the speaker can reward or punish members by moving them from plum committees — such as Judiciary or Ways and Means — to relative backwaters dealing with farming regulations or municipal affairs.

Expanding that authority to the naming of committee chairs, however, will make it less likely legislators will speak their minds and vote their convictions, Ballentine and Haley said. And it's more likely that popular and important legislation will end up marooned at the speaker's behest.

Ballentine said that type of power was at play last year when a bill overhauling payday lending regulations was killed in the Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee. "That's why payday lending didn't get a final hearing. For whatever reason, leadership said: 'That ain't going to come out,'" Ballentine said.

House Majority Leader Jim Merrill, R-Charleston, and Rep. Kenny Bingham, R-Lexington, both want the rules changed. Merrill, who steps down in a couple of weeks, and Bingham, unopposed to be the House's new majority leader, talked up the rule change a couple of weeks ago at a House Republican Caucus meeting.

Harrell said South Carolina is the only Legislature where committee members elect their chairmen, but he's ambivalent about Merrill's and Bingham's proposal.

"I will certainly make the appointments if that's what the body wants to do. I think it's probably more efficient. But I'm fine staying with the current system where the committee members elect the chair," Harrell said.

Merrill said the current system let bills move out of the Education Committee in the past couple of years that brought outcries from House Republicans when they reached the floor.

"I think there are some committee chairman that were too beholden to too many people — some of them who are not as conservative as the caucus would like," Merrill said.

And it would make speakers more accountable. "If he's the guy who appoints the committee chairs there are no more excuses. The buck stops with the speaker."

Ballentine and Haley said the move will stifle dissent and debate. "We sure can't expect people who are hand-picked and put into place to have free will of their own," Ballentine said.

The episode plays out as Haley lines up votes in a bid to become chair of the Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, where last year she had shepherded the payday lending bill and saw it killed by leadership. She thinks Harrell is miffed at her for pushing efforts for more recorded votes on legislation.

"He's made it very clear to everyone that I'm not someone he wants to see become chairman," Haley said.

Harrell disagrees. "That has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion at all," he said.

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