South Carolina legislators pass a lot of laws simply by shouting “yea” or “nay.” But critics contend that system doesn’t allow the public to figure out how a politician voted because those shouts aren’t written down.

But a state House push for greater accountability appears to have backfired in a remarkable way: turning it all into a chorus of “yeas.”

No matter how many or how loud House members shout “nay,” a new rule will record all voice votes as “yeas” and leave it up to those voting “no” to head to the clerk’s desk to have their votes properly recorded.

And what about lawmakers who could have left early or ducked out for a bathroom break, coffee or a phone call? The rule records them all as voting “yea,” too, unless they tell the clerk they were out during the vote.

House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, muscled the rule change through during the House’s organizational session Tuesday for its 124 members. He said it creates a record on all votes and keeps politicians from later saying they supported something they were against.

Harrell said House members will be responsible for telling the clerk they voted “no” so that can be recorded in the House’s daily journal and they’ll also have to check out before leaving the chamber – or risk being recorded as voting “yes.”

But the House floor is a chaotic place and voice votes come and go with little attention and not much notice, often with five or six members opening their mouths on voice votes. The new rule lets them roar like 124 in the House’s official records, muting dissenters unless they take the time to make their sentiments known.

That turns the accountability effort into a sham, said Ashley Landess, president of the South Carolina Policy Council, a Columbia think tank. The Policy Council, Gov. Mark Sanford and a handful of legislators have spent months calling for routine recorded roll-call votes were stumped.

The Policy Council says South Carolina, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont are the only states with no recorded vote requirements to pass bills.

“What you’ve done is twisted it to the point of making it even harder to know what’s going on based on this rule change,” Landess said. “Telling lawmakers if you’re not in the chamber you’re going to be recorded as voting “yes” isn’t any more representative democracy than saying ‘Let’s pass this thing without anybody having to vote.’”

“I don’t think the rule really accomplishes anything and it is unfair to the legislators,” said John Crangle, state director of the Common Cause, a government accountability group.

The accountability push began earlier this year when legislators voted by voice to give themselves a retirement pay increase, a move that took days of public pressure to undo. State Rep. Nikki Haley, R-Lexington, pushed a bill requiring roll call votes, but it died. She said she’ll reintroduce that legislation and already has dozens of co-sponsors, including Rep. James Smith, D-Columbia.

Smith railed against Harrell’s rule change in Tuesday’s debate and said the public gains nothing when votes are recorded for legislators who weren’t even in the room. “This rule will give them more and less accurate information.”

Haley expects the voice vote rule will draw Supreme Court challenges. “I can’t imagine that it’s not being challenged constitutionally now,” Haley said.

Harrell was an unexpected source for the rules change. When Sanford, Landess and Haley held news conferences calling for more roll call voting in September, Harrell panned their efforts as pandering to voters.

“He made it clear this summer this issue was never going to see the light of day,” Haley said.

The debate Tuesday opened with members complaining Harrell hadn’t provided copies of his proposal. Harrell refused to allow any changes in a three-hour debate legislators called a meltdown. In a news release afterward, Harrell said it gave the House the “farthest reaching transparency and accountability measure ever proposed by the General Assembly.”

“I offered a rule yesterday that created transparency for everything that we do – everything from minor, run-of-the-mill, non-controversial bills to the most controversial things we face will now be on the record for every member of the House who is present at the time vote is taken,” Harrell said Wednesday.

Landess, however, noted the rule changes doesn’t force votes on policy issues, creation of new programs or regulations affecting business. “This is no more accountability than the system we have now,” Landess said.

By JIM DAVENPORT – Associated Press Writer
The State Newspaper
December 4, 2008