Home rule splits Senate candidates
jhsieh@beaufortgazette.com
843-986-5548
In a campaign kickoff speech Monday, state Senate District 46 candidate Tom Davis cast himself as a champion of home rule and his opponent, incumbent Sen. Catherine Ceips, as an accessory to its undoing.
Home rule is the idea that local policy-making power should rest with locally elected governments rather than with state officials, a concept codified in state law through the Home Rule Act of 1975.
"This concept of home rule may seem abstract. It is not," Davis said from his campaign headquarters on Boundary Street. Davis mentioned several bills from recent years that curbed powers reserved for school boards, county councils and municipal councils on matters dealing with zoning and tax collection.
Ceips and Davis are both Republicans from Beaufort. Kit Fletcher, a Democrat from Bluffton, is also running. The primaries are June 24.
Davis said three themes would guide his campaign and time in the Senate:
* Shaping a smaller, more efficient government
* Protecting and promoting home rule
* Addressing inequities in the distribution of state resources that perennially leaves Beaufort County with "the short end of the stick"
The themes are consistent with Ceips' stated principles, though providing constituent service continues to be her campaign cornerstone and primary goal.
In an e-mail Monday, she said her legislative goals include "a government reform package to make our government more effective, more efficient, and more accountable to save money for the taxpayers,"
In the e-mail, Ceips also qualified her support of home rule.
"I also understand that there are times when state government should step in to help solve local problems, similar to the immigration reform package that we are currently working on to help solve a federal problem," she wrote.
She did not address specific questions about a billboard bill passed in February 2006 that detractors, including Davis, often cite as an attack on home rule. The law makes it harder for local governments to force the removal of billboards by requiring the government to compensate billboard owners for lost future revenue as well as the signs' value.
Davis said the billboard bill's passage and others like it are indicative of powerful special interests in Columbia that he will not cave to. Likewise, Ceips said she looks out for the best interests of Beaufort County rather than special interests.
Davis' speech on policy goals led Skeet Von Harten, vice chairman of the Beaufort County Council, to exclaim, "Hallelujah!"
Von Harten said Davis addressed state issues that local officials have struggled with for years, from the erosion of home rule to, as Davis described, the "Byzantine" school funding formula that yields more than $100 million for Greenville County's affluent school district but shows the Beaufort County School District owing the state about $3 million this year.
Ceips and other local legislators have fought for a more equitable funding formula and stop-gap measures to preserve school funding, though in a few years' time Beaufort County's share of the education pot has fallen by tens of millions of dollars. Ceips said she will continue to work for a permanent solution.
Davis resigned from his post as Gov. Mark Sanford's chief of staff in March to run for office. He made campaign stops Monday in Beaufort — his home for 23 years — and in Bluffton, Sun City Hilton Head and on Hilton Head Island.
As his first run for office, Davis said he expected "Lincoln-Douglas" style debates would be the field of engagement.
"I found out last week it's not going to be like that," Davis said, alluding to an unsubstantiated accusation from Ceips' camp claiming he had hired an illegal immigrant to paint his Scott Street home. The crowd of supporters chuckled.
Davis said he would not respond in kind, and only speak about Ceips in terms of her voting record.
Ceips has been the District 46 senator since June, following a special election win. Before that, she served as the representative for House District 124 beginning in 2003.