The Bigger Picture: Restore Trust in Government

As state lawmakers talk about ways next year to fix failing roads, under-performing schools, rising poverty and more, they need to keep their eyes on something less concrete, but nonetheless important: how to restore the public’s confidence in government.
The “easy” answer may be just to stop all of the bickering and focus on things that have real and major impact, such as increased transparency and substantive ethics reform to clean up a culture of corruption or dedicating more funding to pave pothole-plagued roads.
At a national level, the public’s trust in government is near an all-time low. Just 24 percent of Americans have confidence in the federal government most of the time, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. That’s a remarkable decline from 60 percent in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on the U.S.
In South Carolina in 2012, about a third of state residents said they trusted state government to do what was right most of the time, according to a Winthrop Poll. More than 45 percent said they trusted local government. Interestingly, approval ratings about how the legislature is handling its job actually have been on the increase — from 33 percent in 2012 to 45 percent last month, polls show.
But you wouldn’t know if from listening to people in restaurants, on television or around the water cooler, particularly following the quick downfall of ex-House Speaker Bobby Harrell of Charleston.
So job number one for the General Assembly is to pass comprehensive ethics reform to help reinstill public confidence in government.
“It would be a big step forward, a positive signal for the public, for those legislators who have been stonewalling independent investigation of complaints involving legislators to welcome an effective and fair independent system of oversight,” said Lynn Teague of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina.
But all of the ethics reform in the world may not be enough to repair the damage done by years of glad-handing, back-slapping and knee-jerking around issues that don’t really make much of a difference.
“A less partisan, less polarized environment would also be helpful,” said College of Charleston political science professor Gibbs Knotts. “When the Republicans took control of the S.C. Senate, there was considerable collaboration between Democrats and Republicans. This has not occurred in recent legislative sessions.”
Common Cause of South Carolina’s John Crangle suggests the state needs a major whistleblower law to allow public employees to report corruption without retaliation. Passing ethics reform without a whistleblower law would be like having a “boat with a big hole in the bottom,” he said. This week, state Sen. Vincent Sheheen introduced a tough whistleblower measure.
Greer Mayor Rick Danner says local governments can play a big role in restoring confidence in government by creating efficiencies that lead to better performance, generating more transparency, collaborating with citizens, providing better communication and creating an atmosphere of proactive change.
“We must challenge the conventional role of public service and reawaken public understanding of the critical role thousands of public servants, like ourselves across the state, play in helping us achieve the high standard of living we all expect and deserve,” he told a group of local finance officials earlier this year.
Longtime activist Brett Bursey of Columbia urges major fixes to the state’s election system, particularly the vast number of non-competitive legislative districts due to gerrymandered redistricting.
“Our bleached, packed and segregated political districts that are the nation’s least competitive yield no statesmen or even productive politicians, but rather a kabuki dance with trite lines and predictable outcomes,” he said, adding that the best way to fight the complacent system was through building “a progressive coalition of the majority of South Carolinians who are being played for fools and ripped off.”
A key solution to better governing, Teague says, is for public officials to just tell the truth — that there is no free lunch and that we can’t keep on scrimping along.
“We need more political courage to discuss difficult issues,” she said. “We have gone about as far as we can by moving money from one place to another within the existing budget and shifting responsibility from one place to another.”
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. He can be reached at: brack@statehousereport.com.