A state House study panel considering ethics reforms has endorsed legislation to remove lawmakers’ ability to police themselves on legal issues. A similar bill failed in the Senate during the last legislative session.

The draft proposal unanimously approved by the panel would create a new independent commission to investigate allegations against public officers. Opponents to last year’s proposal believed the measure to be unconstitutional since the state constitution explicitly requires the House and Senate to discipline their own members.

Additional ethics bills have been prefiled to increase lobbying fees, change reporting dates, and remedy the unconstitutional definition of “committee” for campaign finance purposes. The decision to push several separate bills rather than an overall ethics reform measure is a significant difference from last session.

The state’s Supreme Court has issued a stay allowing voters to choose a House District 114 candidate on November 4, as originally planned. The ruling suspends the recent decision by the State Election Commission to postpone the election for former House Speaker Bobby Harrell’s seat until December.

Although the vote will take place, there is still a possibility the results will not count. The court may rule on the underlying case by deciding to allow the results of Tuesday’s election or to throw out those results and side with the commission’s special election plan.

Independent candidate Tom Ervin suspended his campaign for governor this week and endorsed Democratic Sen. Vincent Sheheen. Ervin, a self-funded attorney and former judge, had the support of just 3.9 percent of likely voters, according to an October 1 Winthrop poll.

The poll also indicated Gov. Nikki Haley led Sheheen by a 43.6 percent to 33.6 percent margin. Haley, the state’s first female and Indian-American governor, beat Sheheen in 2010 with 51.4 percent of votes.

Days after election officials announced no special election would be needed to replace former House Speaker Bobby Harrell in House District 114, the State Election Commission unanimously voted to hold the special election.

The commission reversed the earlier ruling after Harrell submitted a signed affidavit contending he resigned on the nonpolitical grounds of family crisis, including the loss of his job after pleading guilty to ethics violations.

State law allows a political party additional time to field a new candidate if the party’s candidate steps down for nonpolitical reasons. If Democrats do not prevail on appeal, the Republican primary would take place on November 25, followed by a special election on December 9. If a runoff is necessary after the primary, the runoff would be December 9, with the special election pushed back to a date to be determined by the commission.

No special election will be held to replace former House Speaker Bobby Harrell in House District 114. Harrell, who recently pleaded guilty to ethics violations, will remain on the November 4 ballot, but will not be eligible to win the election.

The plea agreement requires Harrell to resign, not seek office for three years, and cooperate in other investigations. The race for House District 114 will be decided between Democrat Mary Tinkler and Green Party nominee Sue Edward.

House Speaker Bobby Harrell has been suspended following an indictment on criminal charges of misconduct in office, using campaign funds for personal use, and falsifying candidate campaign disclosures. The nine-count indictment claims Harrell used hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds for personal expenses and falsified his private plane’s logbook to seek payment for travel that did not occur.

The complaint was filed by the director of the nonpartisan South Carolina Policy Council and follows a fight between Harrell and Attorney General Alan Wilson, who ordered an investigation of the speaker’s conduct last year.

House members will hold a special, one-day session to consider two bills vetoed by Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday, August 27, 2014. The bills would allow public libraries keep out disrupters and permit a local tax hike for firefighting in coastal Murrell’s Inlet and Garden City.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to override the vetoes, but those votes occurred after the House had adjourned in June. An override requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers.

Republicans have chosen former Attorney General Henry McMaster as the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor. McMaster easily won the runoff against businessman Mike Campbell, the son of late Republican Gov. Carroll Campbell, despite campaign support from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The win is also a positive for former Sen. Rick Santorum, who campaigned for McMaster in the closing days before the runoff.

McMaster will face Democrat state Rep. Bakari Sellers in the November general election.

Lawmakers adjourned sine die without passing the ethics reform bill on Thursday, June 19, 2014.

House Bill 3945 was blocked from a vote by Sen. Lee Bright and Sen. Tom Davis. On Wednesday, Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell formally resigned to become president of the College of Charleston.

Senators then selected Sen. Yancey McGill to be the new lieutenant governor and Sen. Hugh Leatherman to be the new President Pro Tem.

Photo of the South Carolina State House by Florencebballer on Wikimedia Commons.

Lawmakers adjourned the regular session on Thursday, June 5, 2014, but will return for a veto session on June 17. House Bill 3945, the ethics reform bill, passed the House, but was filibustered by Sen. Lee Bright. The Senate will have a final opportunity to vote on the measure during the veto session.

Gov. Nikki Haley confirmed on Twitter she would sign the bill if passed.

The Senate is also expected to select a new President Pro Tem, who will automatically be promoted to lieutenant governor and replace retiring Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell. Former President Pro Tem John Courson resigned to avoid becoming lieutenant governor.

The conference committee formed to resolve differences in competing ethics bills has reached an agreement. House Bill 3945 is now poised to revise the state’s ethics laws, but will not include an independent committee to review complaints against lawmakers. Members of the House and Senate will continue to investigate their own members, described by critics as the “fox guarding the henhouse.”

Lawmakers agreed to raise the annual fee for registered lobbyists to $200 from $100, but rejected a proposal to require consultants to register and pay fees with the state. The bill also revises the previously unconstitutional definition of “committee” in order to require reporting for anonymous political groups attacking candidates.

The final version of the bill needs approval from the House and Senate before heading to Gov. Nikki Haley for consideration.

Gov. Nikki Haley has rejected a proposed compromise on ethics oversight by the House ethics reform panel. The panel unanimously advanced a proposal in House Bill 3945 to create an independent investigative commission.

The commission would consist of 12 members selected by all three branches of state government and have the power to investigate allegations of violations by officials and candidates. Power to punish violations would remain with the existing House and Senate ethics committees. The governor has also rejected the panel’s previous attempt to create an omnibus commission with the power to investigate, judge, and punish.

The panel is attempting to find compromise between the House version containing a combined ethics committee and the Senate version maintaining separate ethics committees. The investigative committee proposal will go before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, May 6, 2014.

The lieutenant governor’s office could be vacant if Glenn McConnell is selected as the College of Charleston’s next president on July 1. Senate President Pro Tempore John Courson is next in line to become lieutenant governor, but said he would not take the office if school trustees choose McConnell.

South Carolina would not have a lieutenant governor until January, 2015 when the winner of the November general election takes the oath of office. A constitutional amendment passed in 2012 will end the separate ticket for lieutenant governor beginning with the 2018 election.

The Senate has approved a new version of a bill to overhaul ethics. The Senate version of House Bill 3945 requires public officials to report sources of private income, but not the amounts paid. The bill creates educational ethics seminars for public officials and requires anonymous political groups to register and report if more than half of their activity goes toward influencing elections.

The bill as passed would make no changes to who would enforce the new ethics laws or to the practice of lawmakers policing themselves. An earlier version of the bill extended state lobbying regulations to the local level, but the Senate has removed this provision.

The bill now moves back to the House for approval. If the House does not approve the Senate version as is, the bill will go to conference committee.