HR3047 and S11
Bills to require votes on all laws and resolutions to be recorded by name.
Action items:
- Call Representative Dan Cooper, chairman of the Ways and Means committee, at (803) 734-3144 and nicely tell him that you want him to have a vote on Nikki Haley’s “Accountability Act” H3047 in his committee ASAP.
- Call your representative and tell him you want him to support Nikki Haley’s “Accountability Act” H3047. Find your representative at http://www.scstatehouse.gov/cgi-bin/zipcodesearch.exe by entering your zip code. We will work on the Senate later. Right now, we are focusing on the House of Representatives only.
- The office staff will answer the phone.
- “Hello, this is ________. I am a constituent of Representative _____.I’m calling to find out his/her position on the Accountability Act, H3047″.
- If the representative supports it, tell the office staff to thank him.
- If the representative doesn’t support it, say that you do support it and would like your representative to support it too. It would be great if you politely told the office staff that you will not vote for your representative in November, if he doesn’t support this. Not necessary, but it is effective. You may also mention that you don’t understand how any honest politician can oppose it.
- If they say they don’t know if the representative supports this bill, ask them to find out and let you know. They should take down your phone number for a call back.
- Be prepared to go to the committee hearing in the Blatt building on the state house grounds. We may only have a couple of day’s notice of the meeting. Details will be communicated as soon as we have them.
Summary:
- Two years ago 1% of all Senate votes are recorded.
- Two years ago 8% of all House votes are recorded.
- Last year, after being pressured to pass new rules, 25% off votes were recorded.
- If this bill becomes law, 100% of the votes that create a law or approve a resolution will be recorded.
- Additionally, it will require the budget to be debated one section at a time and to have a roll call vote for each section.
- With this bill, we will have the tools to hold our representatives accountable for how they voted when it is election time.
- Without it, they can tell us they voted however they think we wanted them to vote and we will have no evidence otherwise.
Opposition, the Representative/Senator may say:
- “It will take to long.” FALSE. In the house, each desk has a button for the legislator to press to electronically record their vote. It can literally take only seconds.
- “It will cost too much money.” FALSE. It only costs the money it takes to print an extra page in the journal. Well worth the cost for our liberty and freedom.
- “We already record our votes.” FALSE. Roll call only happens when 10 house members request it or 5 senate members.
- “If I want to, I can ask the house clerk to record my vote on any bill.” NOT GOOD ENOUGH. We want to know how they vote when they don’t want it recorded.
- “If it’s a unanimous vote, the house journal will say so.” NOT GOOD ENOUGH. That doesn’t cover all the non-unanimous votes.
- “We’ve already passed House/Senate rules to record our votes. We don’t need this bill anymore”. NOT GOOD ENOUGH. While the house and senate rules improved the number of recorded votes, 75% are still done anonymously, with no record of who voted ‘yes’ or who voted ‘no’.
- “It violates South Carolina’s Constitution”. FALSE. Although some are saying it might, the only way we will find out is if we pass the bill. If it is challenged in court and the judge finds it violates the South Carolina, then we can work to change the SC Constitution. If the SC Constitution is in the way of government transparency, then we need to change the SC Constitution, not throw away good bills.
- “This bill will invite lawsuits from greedy lawyers.” FALSE. Most other states have laws requiring roll call votes and they are not having problems with lawsuits.
- “This bill doesn’t cover all votes”, TRUE, but it covers much more than what is currently covered by the house rules. It is a huge step in the right direction.
- “Rules can only be changed at the point of seating a new Senate or House. The rules are more steadfast than statutory language”. FALSE. House rule 4.15 states that any House rule can be rescinded, suspended, or altered by 2/3 of the members present or by a simple majority in January of each year. The Senate nor the governor need not agree. Senate rule 45 states that any Senate rule can be suspended by unanimous consent, or by 2/3 majority vote of the membership. The House nor the Governor need not agree. To change a law, both the House and Senate must agree and the Governor’s signature is required, except in the case where 2/3 of both the House and Senate agree.
Bottom line:
- No honest politician can oppose this bill with any credibility.
We must get this bill passed into law. It is the foundation which we will build upon to get the rest of our agenda through. Without it, we will not have any idea of how our representatives vote on any other issue. When election time comes around, we won’t know if our incumbent is good or bad because there will be no record of how they voted.
South Carolina’s Campaign for Liberty will be running a 60 second commercial spot on WAIM in Anderson to promote this accountability legislation and to put some pressure on Danny Cooper to move it through his committee expeditiously.
This radio spot will be completely funded by donations from South Carolina. Our plan is to run it four times between 7:00 and 8:00 each morning. That will cost us nearly $100 each day. The more money we have, the longer we can run it and the more pressure we can put on Danny Cooper to move it through his committee.
You may also make an online contribution by credit card by going to: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/contribute.php?projid=181
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