Wonder What Your Lawmakers Were Up To In 2013? It’s All Here

Posted by South Carolina Policy Council on Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Our annual guide to the year’s legislative session, The Best & Worst of the General Assembly, has been published. To download your electronic copy, click here. 

As in years past, we covered a large number of bills. Although it’s not feasible to analyze every bill introduced in the legislature, we hope we’ve covered every major bill and most legislation that has the potential to affect your life – for better or worse.

The grading system remains the same: Every bill is among the “best” or the “worst.” Although some in the “worst” category are certainly improvable and some classified as “best” aren’t as strong as they ought to be, we’re sticking with the simpler categorization: If legislation makes citizens more free and burdens taxpayers less, it’s among the best. If it limits individual choice and expands government’s role at the experience of taxpayers, it’s among the worst. When you set aside all the politics and wonkish policy arguments, it’s really that simple. The goal, remember, isn’t to make government more efficient or to make South Carolina more attractive to investors; those are happy consequences, not the goal itself. The goal, rather, is to make South Carolina the freest state in the nation. Every bill in these pages is judged according to that criterion.

Our hope is that the 2013 Best and Worst of the General Assembly will aid citizens in the privilege and duty they bear to understand their government – and, of equal importance, to hold their elected leaders accountable.

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