The State:Legislature must protect magistrates from Senate abuse
Legislature must protect magistrates from Senate abuse
July 15, 2008
STATE LAW SAYS the governor appoints magistrates, subject to Senate confirmation. If the system actually worked this way, a handful of senators wouldn’t be able to keep the local magistrates under their thumb — and have the audacity to defend this perversion.
The system does not work that way. The local senators select the magistrates and “recommend” them to the governor. The governor could ignore the recommendations and appoint whomever he chose, but then the Senate would refuse to confirm them. So he appoints the local senators’ choices, and the Senate rubber-stamps those recommendations.
When you combine this practice with the law that allows magistrates to serve indefinitely in holdover position after their four-year terms expire, you create the potential for individual senators to perpetrate one of the most serious abuses of legislative power that we have seen in South Carolina, which is saying quite a lot.
And abuse it they have. The State’s Rick Brundrett reports that a full third of the state’s magistrates — including all the magistrates in seven counties — are serving in legislative limbo: Their terms have expired, but they have been neither replaced nor reappointed. State law says magistrates can only be removed by the Supreme Court, for cause, but this arrangement means they can be replaced at a moment’s notice, at the senator’s instigation. And they know it.
As Cherokee magistrate Franklin Crocker, who has been stuck in legislative limbo for more than a decade, said of Sen. Harvey Peeler: “If I’m not doing my job, he’ll get rid of me.”
Mr. Peeler explained that “you shouldn’t have to wait four years” to replace someone who is “not doing his job.” Dorchester Sen. Randy Scott, who lost his re-election bid in last month’s Republican primary in large part for the way he threw his weight around after a DUI arrest, said: “I certainly don’t want somebody on the payroll for four years who’s not doing a good job.”
Out of context, those statements sound logical. But when an individual senator gets to define what doing a good job is, there’s room for all sorts of mischief. And the hypocrisy in this set-up is mind-boggling: Senators won’t give the governor that power over directors of state agencies, yet they twist our laws to give themselves the individual right to fire judges.
Many senators do not abuse the system; they are prompt about asking the governor to act when a magistrate’s term ends, and when they aren’t prompt, it’s often because they get behind or senators from the same county can’t agree on a selection. But all senators are culpable for the abuse of their colleagues.
The Senate and the governor could easily eliminate this abuse if they wanted to. The governor could reappoint or replace magistrates when the local senators sit on their hands, and the full Senate could confirm those appointees over the objection of the abusive senators. This is what should happen. This obeisance to each others’ senatorial prerogatives is a big reason that our state hasn’t been able to move out of the 19th century.
But if standing up to a colleague on an individual appointment is too much to ask of senators, then the Legislature needs to change state law so that won’t be necessary: Treat magistrates like regular judges, and prohibit them from remaining in office after their term expires. As long as governors feel compelled to hire or fire the magistrates whom senators recommend, the system will be open to abuse; but at least this way, it’ll take a little more work to abuse it.
July 15, 2008
STATE LAW SAYS the governor appoints magistrates, subject to Senate confirmation. If the system actually worked this way, a handful of senators wouldn’t be able to keep the local magistrates under their thumb — and have the audacity to defend this perversion.
The system does not work that way. The local senators select the magistrates and “recommend” them to the governor. The governor could ignore the recommendations and appoint whomever he chose, but then the Senate would refuse to confirm them. So he appoints the local senators’ choices, and the Senate rubber-stamps those recommendations.
When you combine this practice with the law that allows magistrates to serve indefinitely in holdover position after their four-year terms expire, you create the potential for individual senators to perpetrate one of the most serious abuses of legislative power that we have seen in South Carolina, which is saying quite a lot.
And abuse it they have. The State’s Rick Brundrett reports that a full third of the state’s magistrates — including all the magistrates in seven counties — are serving in legislative limbo: Their terms have expired, but they have been neither replaced nor reappointed. State law says magistrates can only be removed by the Supreme Court, for cause, but this arrangement means they can be replaced at a moment’s notice, at the senator’s instigation. And they know it.
As Cherokee magistrate Franklin Crocker, who has been stuck in legislative limbo for more than a decade, said of Sen. Harvey Peeler: “If I’m not doing my job, he’ll get rid of me.”
Mr. Peeler explained that “you shouldn’t have to wait four years” to replace someone who is “not doing his job.” Dorchester Sen. Randy Scott, who lost his re-election bid in last month’s Republican primary in large part for the way he threw his weight around after a DUI arrest, said: “I certainly don’t want somebody on the payroll for four years who’s not doing a good job.”
Out of context, those statements sound logical. But when an individual senator gets to define what doing a good job is, there’s room for all sorts of mischief. And the hypocrisy in this set-up is mind-boggling: Senators won’t give the governor that power over directors of state agencies, yet they twist our laws to give themselves the individual right to fire judges.
Many senators do not abuse the system; they are prompt about asking the governor to act when a magistrate’s term ends, and when they aren’t prompt, it’s often because they get behind or senators from the same county can’t agree on a selection. But all senators are culpable for the abuse of their colleagues.
The Senate and the governor could easily eliminate this abuse if they wanted to. The governor could reappoint or replace magistrates when the local senators sit on their hands, and the full Senate could confirm those appointees over the objection of the abusive senators. This is what should happen. This obeisance to each others’ senatorial prerogatives is a big reason that our state hasn’t been able to move out of the 19th century.
But if standing up to a colleague on an individual appointment is too much to ask of senators, then the Legislature needs to change state law so that won’t be necessary: Treat magistrates like regular judges, and prohibit them from remaining in office after their term expires. As long as governors feel compelled to hire or fire the magistrates whom senators recommend, the system will be open to abuse; but at least this way, it’ll take a little more work to abuse it.
posted by Matt Moore at
3:10 PM
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