Give Us Our Seats



A new congressional district means more seats to be filled on state boards and panels. We think it’s time to get that process moving along:

What do the South Carolina DOT Commission, Board of Chiropractic Examiners, Human Affairs Commission and Winthrop University board of trustees have in common?

Each of the panels – as well as dozens of others – must be revised to accommodate the state’s new 7th Congressional District. For the sake of fairness, many of our state’s oversight boards are composed of members appointed by congressional district, to include members that represent the entire state. When the 2010 census added a new district to the mix, each of these panels became in need of updating.

Some of these groups we’d wager aren’t well known by the general public – such as the impressively named but obscure Board of Examiners for the Licensure of Professional Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists and Psycho-Educational Specialists – but others, like the board that oversees the Department of Natural Resources and the one in charge at the Department of Health and Environmental Control, have a much larger impact on the lives of all S.C. citizens.

It would be to residents’ benefit to update these appointments as quickly as possible. Especially for those of us on the Grand Strand, the new district offers a valuable opportunity for a larger voice on these panels that oversee much of state public policy. In the old 1st District, we were often overshadowed by the larger influence of Charleston. No more. At the risk of mixing metaphors, we’re no longer playing second fiddle; the Grand Strand is now the top dog in our district, with the highest population and political influence.

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce highlighted the inclusion of the 7th District into these state boards as one of its legislative priorities for 2012, and it’s a goal we can easily support. Now we just need our state legislators to rewrite state law. And that’s going to be a frustrating, detailed, painstaking process.

In what seems a rather baffling failure to plan ahead, there has been little work done so far to change these boards, with the notable exception of a Senate bill by Sen. Harvey Peeler, which would change the representation on health and medical committees. The wording of the laws that created each of these state commissions is also plagued by varied wording, all of which will have to be changed.

The specific number of seats on some committees is explicitly set out in law. Others, thinking farther ahead, tie the membership only to the number of congressional districts. In others, such as the DHEC board, there’s a strange hybrid. In DHEC’s case, that means the “board shall consist of seven members, one from each congressional district, and one from the State at large.” Obviously, that sort of language will need to change.

It will be a gargantuan task to update the language creating each of these committees, and Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell took to the Senate floor Jan. 11 to urge senators to get to work now. He noted one remaining roadblock – the redistricting lawsuit filed by Democrats challenging the maps of the new districts – but said he hoped that would be resolved in February. And there’s plenty of preparation to do in the meantime. Now’s the time to write the bills, get them moved through subcommittees and get them to the House, he said, “so that the minute the cloud is removed, you can go right forward.”

After the updates are finally complete, will we automatically get local folks on each of these state agencies and panels? Not necessarily. The new district is made up of eight counties, after all, but we will likely end up with more of a voice than we did when we were tied to Charleston, and that’s something to celebrate and work toward, as quickly as possible.

 

Some of these groups we’d wager aren’t well known by the general public – such as the impressively named but obscure Board of Examiners for the Licensure of Professional Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists and Psycho-Educational Specialists – but others, like the board that oversees the Department of Natural Resources and the one in charge at the Department of Health and Environmental Control, have a much larger impact on the lives of all S.C. citizens.

It would be to residents’ benefit to update these appointments as quickly as possible. Especially for those of us on the Grand Strand, the new district offers a valuable opportunity for a larger voice on these panels that oversee much of state public policy. In the old 1st District, we were often overshadowed by the larger influence of Charleston. No more. At the risk of mixing metaphors, we’re no longer playing second fiddle; the Grand Strand is now the top dog in our district, with the highest population and political influence.

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce highlighted the inclusion of the 7th District into these state boards as one of its legislative priorities for 2012, and it’s a goal we can easily support. Now we just need our state legislators to rewrite state law. And that’s going to be a frustrating, detailed, painstaking process.

In what seems a rather baffling failure to plan ahead, there has been little work done so far to change these boards, with the notable exception of a Senate bill by Sen. Harvey Peeler, which would change the representation on health and medical committees. The wording of the laws that created each of these state commissions is also plagued by varied wording, all of which will have to be changed.

The specific number of seats on some committees is explicitly set out in law. Others, thinking farther ahead, tie the membership only to the number of congressional districts. In others, such as the DHEC board, there’s a strange hybrid. In DHEC’s case, that means the “board shall consist of seven members, one from each congressional district, and one from the State at large.” Obviously, that sort of language will need to change.

It will be a gargantuan task to update the language creating each of these committees, and Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell took to the Senate floor Jan. 11 to urge senators to get to work now. He noted one remaining roadblock – the redistricting lawsuit filed by Democrats challenging the maps of the new districts – but said he hoped that would be resolved in February. And there’s plenty of preparation to do in the meantime. Now’s the time to write the bills, get them moved through subcommittees and get them to the House, he said, “so that the minute the cloud is removed, you can go right forward.”

After the updates are finally complete, will we automatically get local folks on each of these state agencies and panels? Not necessarily. The new district is made up of eight counties, after all, but we will likely end up with more of a voice than we did when we were tied to Charleston, and that’s something to celebrate and work toward, as quickly as possible.