The second edition of “Happy Hour” occurred this week, sponsored by Ragley Public Affairs (thanks for the drinks, J-Dub). The guest for the evening was former The State vice president and editorial page editor Brad Warthen. Then we decided to show up, doing our best to string along a rum and Diet Coke for about 15 minutes.

Some people in the South Carolina political discussion are so ignorant as to come up with polemics whenever government spends one dollar of taxpayer money. However, we believe that certain things that don’t immediately deliver a return on investment are worth investing in. Consider among those the Palmetto State’s historic sites.

In the South, the past is never really past. We love our history. We love our ancestors. We don’t necessarily like the government putting its hand in what’s happening, but corporations aren’t exactly lining up to thoroughly bankroll historic sites. That’s where the government comes in.

Right now, money for work at the Fort Moultrie visitors’ center on Sullivan’s Island is being held up by U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky. The former pitcher for the Detroit Tigers has hurled a wild pitch. The whole idea is under some misbegotten concept of fiscal responsibility.

The action comes as a result of Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning’s decision to block key legislation that would have extended several critical priorities for middle class families. That legislation covered tax credits for COBRA health coverage, unemployment insurance for 400,000 people, as well as the short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund. The Fund supports all surface transportation programs for the nation -– highways, bridges, transit and safety inspections, as well as efforts to encourage seat belt use and to fight distracted and impaired driving.

“As American families are struggling in tough economic times, I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “This means that construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed.”

Let’s put this out there, though. Would the Sons of the American Revolution endorse this action? Would the Sons of Confederate Veterans? It’s a fairly good assumption that most members of both fraternal organizations. despite their conservative ideological beliefs, would be against it. That’s because preserving our nation’s history, and making it available to the American public, is one of the things that the Federal government should be doing.

It’s just a shame that it took a post by the S.C. New Democrats on Indigo Journal to bring this to our attention. This is not an ideological or a partisan issue. We’re desperately seeking S.C. Republicans that will take up the banner for our state’s historical sites.

The S.C. Policy Council’s half-assed attempt at a blog came at a bad time. Granted, back in 2007 when it and the other members of the State Policy Network were brainstorming about hiring “investigative reporters,” it couldn’t be suspected that the SCPC’s political capital would be reduced to a governor who’s been stepping out, some no-count back-benchers in the General Assembly and an overgrown child. Three years sure changes things, doesn’t it?

So, now they’re reporting on people go dumpster-diving at DHEC and God knows where else for news, but that isn’t even the best part. The SCPC has been tubthumping for transparency since forever, acting like it’s the high-and-mighty outpost a block from the State House complex.

Hence, from The Nerve:

Um, then what’s this below that image?

They also don’t want you to know who is funding them, because they’re a non-profit and political speech and blah blah blah. Whatever. Really — if you take the SCPC seriously anymore, you should examine your trustworthy sources.

The recent fetish with the Founders by tea partiers has us thinking about this post we put up in May of 2009. The “Mount Vernon Statement,” yet another part of this, goes into a blind contemplation of what went down between 1776 and 1788.

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

[...]

The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

In filing his lawsuit against the State of South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford name-dropped the Founding Fathers, something every politician, and those in the periphery, have a duty to do at least several dozen times a year. Here’s the problem: the Founders weren’t deities, they were men.

If the Governor wants to play up the separation of powers argument to prevent needed money to get to schools and to keep South Carolinians safe, then that’s his prerogative. But including the Founders as a buttress to what he is saying is one of the most ridiculous rhetorical maneuvers in American politics. The intention of the name-drop is, “If the Founders wrote it, it must be great.”

Sure, about 75-to-80 percent of what ended up in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was brilliant, on a level never seen before and rarely again. But, one has to realize some facts.

The Founders were all privileged white men. They owned a good bit of land. A solid number of them owned slaves. Hence, who could vote for George Washington? White men who owned 20 acres of land. Women, free blacks, lower-class whites? Yeah, not so much. But, hey, it’s not all bad. If you were a slave, you counted as three-fifths of a person, though under law you were still as much of a piece of property as the overseer’s whip.

Hence, it took until the 1820s for all white men to be able to vote, a Civil War and Constitutional amendments to abolish slavery and give black men the right to vote (though, in practice, that took another 100 years) and about 144 years after independence for women to gain the franchise.

If you wanted to vote for your U.S. senator, good luck being elected to the state legislature. It wasn’t until the 20th Century that senators were elected by popular vote. Also, if it weren’t for a bunch of crazy people worried about civil liberties, we wouldn’t have gotten the Bill of Rights.

And, sweet heavens, this is just the beginning. So, next time you hear something about “original intents” or what the Founders wanted, keep in mind what was the original intent. Political history, like current events, is never in the bichromatic, simplistic way some would like it.

The Judicial Merit Selection Commission has been a part of the screening and election of judges in this state for some time, but the brouhaha surrounding the case of Family Court Judge Charlie Segars-Andrews is threatening to blow up the works, just weeks out from the new judicial elections. She is suing to declare the process unconstitutional, and has been joined by the S.C. Bar Association and other like-minded parties are expected to sign on.

Thursday, Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell filed a bill, S. 1083, to strike the current schedule for electing judges until the situation can be resolved. “I put in the resolution to send it to the Judiciary Committee, after conferring with counsel to take a look at it, and see if we need to carve some of them out or all of them out, or what,” he said. “But in order to prevent any of this from happening, we’re going to be filing a motion for an expedited hearing so that we can get it behind us before the elections. That’s what we’re trying to do at this point, And, preserve our rights.”

The Senate and the House are working together on this one, to get it done as soon as possible. There’s a lot of questions in the air, including what may happen to judicial seats that aren’t subject to carry over and may end up empty if the problem isn’t resolved quickly. McConnell contends that the Constitution gives the legislature the power to screen and elect judges, so the General Assembly has that on its side. But, the involvement of the S.C. Bar is creating its own issues.

McConnell:

Look at the natural consequences. If the commission in ruled unconstitutional, we’ve got to go back and reconstitute that commission. And I suspect it’s going to be very controversial, because I can tell you, I’m going to be very much opposed to the South Carolina Bar controlling that screening committee. There’s some others that would like to see the public input.

Senate Minority Leader John Land:

The South Carolina Bar would only control it if we had something, if we allowed them.

McConnell:

That’s correct. You are absolutely correct, senator from Clarendon.

Land:

Of course, I’m a member of the bar, but I would not be supporting this endeavor, just as I did not support them in their last endeavor when they did not understand what they were doing.

We have no reason to believe this case won’t be fast-tracked, so there should be a resolution soon.

Maybe it’s the fact that Gov. Mark Sanford is in his last full year in office, but legislators — ones with some power, no less — are coming up with good ideas, one after the other. The latest comes from Sen. Larry Martin, who is suggesting eliminating the lieutenant governor’s office altogether.

As he points out, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason for the state to spend money on what is a largely ceremonial position. All that would need to happen is to have the Office on Aging moved under the aegis of the governor, and have the Senate president pro tempore as second in line to the governor, in the event of death or incapacitation.

Some, who obviously haven’t looked at the situation closely, are calling it a power play by the Senate. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no power to play for. Unfortunately, the fact that this proposal makes so much sense is that it could be DOA this year.

Through the 2009 session and the extended session in the fall, the General Assembly attempted to fix problems with the Employment Security Commission. Among other problems was how the commission ran out of money, and the state had to ask for more cash from the Federal government. The House set up a group of legislators to get the ball rolling, and have a plan ready to go when the legislature returns next week. They’ve now returned with a set of recommendations.

The changes would eliminate benefits to those fired for drug abuse, fighting or other cause, restrict businesses from filing jobless claims for employees and require more review of who receives benefits and how agency commissioners award those benefits.

The agency can make all the changes requested by lawmakers Tuesday. Others, such as changing the commission structure or unemployment tax rates, will require changes to state law.

The changes are among a number of government restructuring initiatives that seemed like a no-go the last time the General Assembly met, yet are on track for passage this year.

The Death Penalty Information Center released a report on executions across the country last year, and South Carolina isn’t exactly going through death row at a fast clip. The Palmetto State put two prisoners to death last year, as did Florida, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Missouri and Indiana both had one on the record, while Texas topped out everybody with 16. That total likely would have been higher if sentencing rules hadn’t been changed in 2005 to allow life without parole.

Overall, fewer people are getting the ultimate penalty and facing the lethal injection table — electric chairs and gas chambers have been largely filtered out.

“There’s a sense that, yes, we support [capital punishment] philosophically,” Richard Dieter, executive director of the DPIC, said to NPR. “But practically, this is a government program that isn’t working.”

The issue seems to be exonerations of prisoners in recent years. Because of that, juries are less likely to pass a death sentence. There’s also the issue of the cost of keeping someone on death row, which has been an issue in the controversy for decades.

Overall, since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in the ’70s, South Carolina ranks ninth among all states in executions. The state’s first execution of the New Year will be on Jan. 8. The man, Quincy Allen, stands convicted of killing two men and the attempted murder of another. He also assisted in the stabbing of a prison guard in December.

UPDATE: Right on time, the S.C. Supreme Court announced a stay of Allen’s sentence.

It’s a shame that the two big schools here in South Carolina can’t get it done on the gridiron — then we could see Gov. Mark Sanford legitimately trying to recruit business to the state in a sunny locale, unlike the well-known junkets to Argentina. Alabama is in a similar position to South Carolina, in terms of economy and the rest of it. It also has a state leadership that hasn’t been beset by scandal.

As such, Ala. Gov. Bob Riley and other representatives of the Yellowhammer State have set off for California to use the Crimson Tide’s appearance in the national championship game to bring businesses to Alabama. It doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

Wade got the idea for the trip almost immediately after Alabama won the Southeastern Conference championship game in Atlanta on Dec. 5. Economic developers from the state had a suite in the Georgia Dome to woo about a dozen site consultants, and an RV for tailgating outside the stadium from Bob Tiffin’s Motor Homes of Red Bay.

Wade spent the morning after that win on the phone getting state companies and economic development groups on board to pull off the California trip. He said the Birmingham Business Alliance is one of those funding sponsors and its head of economic development, Patrick Murphy, will take part in the recruiting trip.

“This is an outstanding opportunity in a compressed time and space to communicate what the state has to offer in general and Birmingham has to offer in particular,” said Dave Rickey, spokesman for the BBA.

Wade said the participation of the BBA and others is important. “We’re trying to involve as many as we can, but we’re very limited in the number of tickets and the number of tent passes we are able to get,” Wade said.

Despite the existing and potential Alabama ties with California companies, Wade said the state has done little to promote itself there.

“The beauty of it is we don’t typically get to do a lot on the West Coast because we center most of our site consultant activity around Chicago, New York, Dallas and Atlanta,” he said.

[The Alabama Development Office] and the sponsors will pay for the rooms, meals and tickets. Those on the trip have to pay their own travel costs. Information packets about the state will be waiting for guests in their hotel rooms.

Considering how people are taxed all to hell in California, and how poorly that state is doing, moving to the South will probably sound pretty good.

Unlike the Lee Street Jackass, we don’t consider everything that has connections to the government to be bad. After all, if it wasn’t for the Family and Medical Leave Act, our mom would have been broke and not guaranteed to have her job after a major operation several years ago. The private sector fought that bill the whole way. We’re big fans of corporate America — without the private sector, there aren’t jobs for the rest of us schlubs — but to see the world in simplistic back-and-white is moronic.

So, when Jimbo over there slammed South Carolina traffic and mentioned, “a boatload of government-funded TV commercials,” we rolled our eyes and went on to the next thing. No point in paying attention to a drooling fool. But wait, what was that we saw recently?

South Carolina authorities say 2009 has been the safest year on the state’s roads in 14 years.

Preliminary reports say 881 people died on the state’s roads last year, compared to 921 deaths in 2008. The State of Columbia reports the last year to have fewer than 900 deaths on South Carolina roads was 1995.

Public Safety Department Director Mark Keel credits both the slow economy for reducing the amount people drive as well as heightened enforcement for the lower death toll.

Keel says seat belt use is at 81 percent in South Carolina — an all-time high. He says citations for not wearing a seat belt and for driving under the influence also increased significantly this year.

Yeah, turns out that state highways are the safest they’ve been in years.