Over the last two years, House and Senate members have traded boasts about which chamber passed real ethics reform. Some are giant “omnibus” bills; others take smaller, more targeted approaches.
The problem? Those “omnibus” bills are so large and complicated that legislative leaders are able to slip in provisions that are the very opposite of ethics reform (for example, allowing PACs to avoid disclosure and decriminalizing the entire ethics code), whereas the smaller ones either don’t pass or end up riddled with loopholes.
Truth, of course, is that no one cares which chamber passed what. What many people do seem to care about, however, is that South Carolina lawmakers always seem to have an excuse why substantive, loophole-free reform legislation didn’t pass.