Why does it take scandal to get reform?

Once again it has taken a scandal to force the S.C. Legislature to give the governor's office a modicum of additional power. Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely lawmakers will make any further changes this year that would strengthen what arguably is the weakest chief executive in the nation.

What's more, it's equally dubious that the Legislature will even allow the voters to make any restructuring decisions despite the fact that pending proposals would only change the way two of the nine constitutional officers are chosen.

It's important to separate reform efforts into two categories: Changes legislators can make alone by passing new laws, or constitutional revisions that are up to the voters. Unfortunately, voters only get a chance to make those changes if two-thirds of both the House and the Senate agree to put them on the ballot.

This year's forced reform — restructuring of the state's Employment Security Commission — was accomplished only after the ESC become the poster child for the cataclysmic failure of legislative oversight. While the legislatively appointed commission and its staff bore the brunt of the blame, there also was plenty of finger-pointing at legislative inattention. The scandalous result was not only the depletion of an $800 million trust fund over a 10-year period but an $800 million deficit.

The commission, renamed and revamped, has now been moved to the governor's Cabinet, as was the Department of Transportation three years ago in the wake of yet another scandal that involved the waste of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Unfortunately, the Cabinet still is very much a work in progress. Even the late Gov. Carroll Campbell's restructuring success two decades ago left most state agencies still under legislative supervision and many of the executive functions under the supervision of the five-member Budget and Control Board — the only one of its kind in the country. Neither is there any question that the Campbell success was mostly due to a shocking legislative scandal known as Operation Lost Trust that involved legislative vote-buying and drug use.

No question the House consistently has been far more reform-minded than the Senate. Year after year it has been willing to give the voters a chance to put some key constitutional officers in the Cabinet. And last year it agreed to create a Department of Administration, which would give the chief executive more of the powers that should be expected of someone who bears that title. To date optimism that legislation might actually be debated in the upper chamber hasn't panned out.

But Beaufort Republican Sen. Tom Davis, one of that body's most optimistic reformers, isn't ready to throw in the towel. If there were just a way to get the new department on the Senate calendar for debate, Davis believes it has a chance, particularly in view of its support in both political camps. One of his staunchest allies is Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen.

But with only about six weeks remaining in the session, chances of prying the bill out of the Senate Judiciary Committee or somehow getting it on the calendar through a House amendment to a Senate-passed bill appear extremely slim.

Little chance also is given for the Senate's willingness to allow the voters to decide two constitutional restructuring questions even though they had been viewed as among the least controversial. One would make the secretary of state a member of the Cabinet rather than popularly elected and the other would have the governor and lieutenant governor run as a team. Perhaps that's because those determined to keep the governor as weak as possible remember too well that, given the chance, voters want to make the governor more than a figurehead. They proved that in 1980 when they agreed to allow him to serve two terms.

At this point, however, Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell says he's concentrating his efforts on a constitutional spending cap, which he considers far more important and believes still has a chance.

What hasn't had a chance with the Senate in the past few decades, except under duress, is anything that would diminish legislative power and give this state's governor the kind of executive authority power that is exercised by most of his counterparts across the country.

Barbara S. Williams, editor emeritus of The Post and Courier, may be reached at bwilliams@postandcourier.com.