COLUMBIA, S.C. - The state's high court tossed out a law Monday giving tax breaks to people buying guns or energy-efficient appliances, declaring the legislation unconstitutional because a separate energy measure had been tacked on during final Senate consideration.
The legislation would have forced petroleum producers to sell gasoline without ethanol to distributors in South Carolina.
But the unanimous five-member court said the act didn't meet a requirement that all bills address only one topic as reflected in the legislation's title - a requirement intended to keep public and lawmakers alike informed about the issues being debated.
The bill began in the Senate by setting October as a tax-free month for people buying energy-efficient appliances. The House added a tax-free weekend after Thanksgiving for gun sales.
But as the bill was being handled in the Senate for the last time, South Carolina petroleum operators persuaded senators to change the bill again to allow them to buy gasoline without ethanol so they could add it on their own to save and make money.
There was no public hearing on the measure. "They just amended it on the floor," said Dwight Drake, a Columbia lawyer who represented American Petroleum Institute and BP Products North America Inc.
They sued to protect their authority to mix ethanol into gasoline and sell it in South Carolina. Drake said the state law would have interfered with their contracts and with federal law.
The court last summer barred the ethanol portion of the law from taking effect while the case was being argued.
Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed the bill, in part, because it rolled too many issues into one bill. But the Legislature overrode the veto amid talk that state businesses stood to lose money to out-of-state ethanol and petroleum interests.
"How many times does the Legislature have to be slapped down by the Supreme Court on this bobtailing issues before they learn," Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said. He added that he hoped lawmakers would learn from this "kick of the mule."
Monday's ruling also turns the court away from past practices that put it in the position of deciding which portions of bills should stand. The court said that would reach into doing the Legislature's job, saying a "brite-line rule" on the subject would avoid the court having to act as a super Legislature.
"I think we are asking the court to do more than they should," Senate Minority Leader John Land, D-Manning, said. "They're just about into legislating when they start carving out the bad parts and letting the good parts stand."
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