And it’s one of the least-known jobs in the state. Want to know what it is?

It’s being a member of the state’s Public Service Commission, which sits as judge and jury over everything from how much of a tree a utility company can trim to, more importantly, utility rates.

The PSC’s mission has been described as a “balancing act” as its seven members must weigh the pros and cons between competing interests of rate requests that utility companies need to stay afloat and consumer needs for good, reasonably priced energy and service.

And at $102,000 a year, the job is a bargain for the state, according to state Sen. Brad Hutto (D-Orangeburg). The value of each of the PSC’s commissioners’ full-time job far outstrips their pay, said Hutto, one of six legislators and six laymen who review the PSC while sitting on the Public Utilities Review Commission (PURC).

How commissioners are picked

Every two years, the PSC replenishes roughly half of its commissioners through a rigorous review and examination process. Next Friday, the PSC will stop taking applications from citizens for four spots that will be voted on by the legislature next year.

There are seven commissioners – one from each of the state’s seven congressional districts. The four slots up for grabs now were supposed to already be filled, but because of congressional redistricting, the application process was put off for a year – similar to delays in other state boards.

Once the pool of applicants is completed, PURC staffers will vet and test the potential candidates, administering tough written and oral tests and examinations to make sure the candidates have a solid knowledge of the complicated fields and issues that the board tackles.

Once done with the testing and background checks, the PURC staff will issue a report, winnowing the field to a few candidates from each district for the legislature to vote on, in full, in the coming year. PURC staffers said the report would not be completed until after the coming legislative session begins in January. From there, the commissioners each serve four-year terms.

While the Office of Regulatory Staff does investigations into rate requests and other matters, it is the PSC that sits in judgment.

S.C.’s process is different

South Carolina, as is usually the case, has a different form of public service commission than many other states. In 2004, the state reformed its process so that the entire legislature voted on its members, potentially taking out the ogre of moneyed political support.

Currently, Georgia has elected members for its Public Service Commission, and election-year politics have mired current discussions over a rate-hike request.

Michael Couick, president and CEO of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, praised the current set-up and said that it was designed for mediation to rule the day, not politics-tinged myopia.

Couick argued that the PSC allowed the state to not be shackled to narrowing “case-by-case” decisions, but to establish broader statewide energy policy through both sides – in his case, consumer and generator – coming to the table as equals.

If it weren’t for the support of greenies like Ann Timberlake, executive director of the Conservation Voters of South Carolina, Couick’s comments could seem self-serving.

But Timberlake said she has “no stones” to throw at the PSC, but said she is worried that the public doesn’t know enough about its selection process and hearings. “There’s no conspiracy here; it’s just not very well understood,” said Timberlake.

If it were better known, then, she said there could be a bigger pool of applicants, especially from her green friends, across the state. “Up until now, it’s been a kind of ‘inside baseball’ position,” she said. 

But, she pointed out, because legislators are blocked from applying for a spot on the commission for four years after they leave the General Assembly, it hasn’t become “ golden parachute” post-retirement job.

Currently, there is only one former legislator on the PSC. Also, candidates are required to have earned at least a bachelor’s degree. One of the current commissioners only has a two-year, associate degree, but was grandfathered in under the older strictures from before the PSC was reformed.

That being said, only one of the commissioners has an advance degree, and it is in law.

Hutto, fresh from a 55-mile hike along the Appalachian Trail (with his wife – calm down), said that the vetting process and the four-year delay makes sure the PSC is largely insulated from big-money candidates and political gifting from former colleagues.

“The tests they administer make sure whoever does apply has a very large and deep skill set,” he said.

Crystal ball: Considering how complicated South Carolina’s energy future is likely to be, with fights over and between nuclear and coal and renewable energy, it better be a deep skill set.

Bill Davis is editor of Statehouse Report.  He can be reached at:  bill@statehousereport.com.

• Ethics. Gov. Nikki Haley’s blue-ribbon S.C. Commission on Ethics Reform will meet for the first time Monday at 10 a.m. in room 252 of the Edgar A. Brown Building, located at 1205 Pendleton St. Columbia.
  
  
• Vote. The General Election is Nov. 6. Get out and vote … or else.
  
  
• BEA. The next meeting of the state Board of Economic Advisers will be Nov. 9 at 2 p.m. in the third floor conference room of the Dennis Rembert Building in Columbia.

South Carolina’s reputation as a politically ornery state may be further cemented in the upcoming General Election. With “secret” money being used to assail seated, veteran incumbents senators by tea party-related foes, it shows that no one is safe. Especially not Sen. Jake Knotts, who is being challenged by a write-in candidate, Katrina Shealy.

A national niche business magazine, Area Development, anointed South Carolina as the second-best state in the country for business, tied with North Carolina

The magazine cited several areas of its excitement for the Palmetto State that included expansion investment from major companies like Bridgestone, BMW and Michelin. It also pointed out that the state has a cheap, ready labor force. This is an enormous turnaround from then-Gov. Mark Sanford’s tenure, when he was constantly derided for his lackluster business recruitment and job creation records. The magazine also rated South Carolina near the top in several other rankings, like economic recovery, infrastructure, and business climate. In the past, the magazine has lauded the state for similar efforts and results.

Sanders to narrate film about his baseball short story

Former U.S. Senate candidate Alex Sanders, current chairman of the Charleston School of Law, offers insights into the golden age of baseball at 9 p.m. Thursday during the broadcast of “Cards Against A Wall.”

The 25-minute film, which will be aired on SCETV’s “Southern Lens” series, takes a look at stories of three storied South Carolina baseball players -- Shoeless Joe Jackson, Van Lingle Mungo and Bobo Newsom. Of particular interest -- and where the film got its title from -- was a card trick that Sanders saw as a boy when meeting Jackson in is Greenville liquor store.

• Learn more.

But now, it’s so overused as a part of politicians’ daily vocabularies that it has lost a lot of its zing. It’s unclear what reform often really means.

Take “tax reform.” For Republicans, such reform really means tax cuts with little quarter to anything else. For others, it might mean tax hikes. Or it might mean putting everything on the table and overhauling the way an entity uses taxes to generate revenue.

Or “education reform.” For some, it means changing the education system to provide more choices, such as adding more charter schools, letting home-schooled children take part in sporting activities at public schools or injecting vouchers into the mix. In other words, this kind of education reform fiddles with what exists at the expense of current public schools.

But for others, “education reform” means improving what exists, in part, by strengthening current programs while resisting changes to them at the same time. In other words, some public education proponents don’t want public schools weakened by conservative change because schools are already underfunded. Instead, their “reform” is for more resources dedicated to existing schools to make them better so all children get a better chance.

Or look at “ethics reform,” a new hot topic after a few years of scandals. For some, using the rhetoric of “ethics reform” sounds good on the stump or bully pulpit, but politicians have been talking about changes to ethics laws (particularly around elections) since approving big changes 20 years ago after the Operation Lost Trust scandal that zapped more than two dozen careers.

Others say they’re serious about “ethics reform.” Gov. Nikki Haley, under the microscope twice this year on ethics allegations from her days of being a House member, has proposed a special commission led by two former attorneys general -- Republican Henry McMaster and Democrat Travis Medlock. This commission offers promise, unless it ends up like another recent reform effort -- the work of the Republican-packed Taxation Realignment Commission, which took a serious look at “sales tax reform” in 2010 but whose compelling report collects dust on bookshelves around the Statehouse.

Bottom line: Listen carefully when you hear the word “reform” and make sure you understand whether the speaker is talking fluff or real stuff.

* * *

ALSO ON OUR RADAR this week is a news report that highlights South Carolina as the country’s second best place for business.   Location consultants with Area Development magazine rated the state second for its overall business environment and overall labor climate “because of its competitive labor costs and leading work force development programs,” such as ReadySC, which has trained more than 250,000 workers for almost 2,000 companies.

The magazine noted nearly $5 billion in investment and 13,190 new manufacturing jobs in 2011, including more than 4,700 automotive-related jobs and $2.7 billion in capital investment in that sector. It mentioned Bridgestone America’s $1.2 billion manufacturing investment and expansion, BMW’s $900 million expansion and Michelin’s almost $1 billion expansion in S.C. operations.

For policymakers, all of this success begs the question: If our state is so attractive for business, why do you keep trying to cut taxes on corporations, a move that would continue to cut state coffers strapped for much of the last decade? Businesses obviously find South Carolina attractive now despite its corporate tax code. So why mess with it?

Instead of fixing problems that don’t exist, we encourage state lawmakers to take a serious look at changing the whole tax code -- reforming it, if you would -- so it cuts taxes in some places and, if necessary, raises them in others to even the burden on all people across the state. 

Look at the TRAC report on ways to cut sales taxes and reduce rates. Reconsider income tax brackets to modernize them for today’s knowledge economy. Review property tax laws and how schools are funded. 

Taking a systemic, thoughtful look at taxation will serve the state well in the future to make it more competitive in the long run.

Andy Brack is publisher of Statehouse Report.  You can reach Brack at: brack@statehousereport.com.

• 10/19:  Remembering Peatsy Hollings
  
• 10/12:  People deserve more from leaders
  
• 10/5:  Haley can't ignore her options
  
• MORE BRACK:  See our archives

By Kevin Alexander Gray
Special to Statehouse Report

OCT. 26, 2012 -- No woman has served in Congress from South Carolina since Liz Patterson left office in 1992. Voters will have the opportunity to change that on Nov. 6 should Coastal Carolina University professor and Democrat Gloria Tinubu defeat Republican Horry County Council Chairman Tom Rice.

For years I thought that the only way that South Carolina might have three African American congressional reps was if a cumulative voting system were put in place. Sixth District Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn also once supported such a proportional electoral arrangement. The reason was that the state’s 4.6 million population is one-third black and representation should reflect that fact.

Like many, I also thought that if the Palmetto State ever had three African American representatives they would all be Democrats. Republican tea party darling First District Congressman Tim Scott knocked that theory on its ear.

Even so, Clyburn’s primary support of state Rep. Ted Vick over Tinubu until he was forced out of the race by scandal -- and then Preston Brittain, a Myrtle Beach attorney and desperation candidate who also had the backing of the Democratic Party establishment -- wasn’t so surprising. Both Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian and former gubernatorial nominee Vincent Sheheen were against her.

So, for Clyburn, being an establishment leader trumped racial solidarity. In handily besting Brittain, Tinubu beat the establishment in a primary race and runoff that Marion County Democratic Party Chairman Lee Walter Jenkins said was “elitist and stink[ed] of undercover racism.”

It’s also fair to say that Tinubu, who had moved back to her home state six months prior to running, was an unknown factor. So that some saw her as a “carpetbagger” of sorts was to be expected.

Yet even if she weren’t a Georgetown native, she would not have been the first person to run in a state or district that she had just moved to. Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton moved to New York to run for the U.S. Senate. Both had the backing of the Democratic establishment when they changed their addresses.

Another rap against Tinubu is that she’s too “liberal” if not too “radical” for South Carolina with her Green Party history, progressive leanings, support of “Obamacare” and close relationship with organized labor. The latter scored her an early endorsement from the South Carolina AFL-CIO. Tinubu was the first candidate in at least 16 years to hold a news conference touting a labor endorsement according to former state president Donna DeWitt. Tinubu argues that “S.C. became a right-to-work state decades ago and still ranks worst nationally in many economic measures.”

But that’s how politics works. One first organizes their base. Obviously, Tinubu’s primary opponents didn’t have much of a base to build onto when one gets right down to it. In addition, white Democrats in the South often campaign as conservatives or “Republican-lite” to appeal to white voters.

The racism on the part of the Democratic establishment wasn’t so “undercover.” They operated under the “presumption” that a district with a black voting population somewhere around 32 percent overall or, a Democratic primary where a disproportionally high number of voters are African Americans, would simply dismiss a woman whose political, work and academic credential are top-notch by branding her as a flake or someone unable to compete with any white man – Democrat or Republican.

As Columbia activist Brett Bursey said of the Democratic establishment prior to Tinubu’s runoff victory against Brittain: “I would say that part of their strategy may be based on some presumption that a black woman can’t win in 7th District.”

Presently, Rice and the Republicans seem to have the same unspoken “presumption” to go along with the “too liberal for S.C.” rap that’s tossed at any Democrat.

Can Tinubu win? Well, that remains to be seen. In most polling, she’s a double-digit underdog. Yet in a presidential election year with expected higher than normal black turnout for Barack Obama, she may just benefit from his short coattails.

Tinubu has also performed well in local debates challenging “Project Blue,” an economic development deal championed by Rice and others on Horry County Council. She accused the chairman of “pushing for the project to benefit of his friends, business partners and campaign contributors through the sale of the land and other costs at the expense of taxpayers.” Rice also doesn’t have the energy of the tea party movement behind him, although he has traditional Republican backing in his corner.

The new 7^th District takes in Florence, Darlington, Chesterfield, Horry, Marlboro, Georgetown, Williamsburg, Dillon and Marion counties. In 2008, Obama beat John McCain in the smaller counties of Marion, Dillon and Williamsburg by significant margins. Darlington was a virtual tie at 49.58 percent for McCain to 49.45 percent for Obama. McCain won Florence, Chesterfield and Georgetown by margins that ranged from two to six points. Horry and Marlboro are the most Republican counties in the district. Horry is the most populous and has the most registered voters of any county in the district.

So a few points here or there from an energized black electorate, the women’s vote and an increased white Democratic or crossover vote could yield a November surprise.

And what a good surprise it would be. A Tinubu victory would bring gender and ideological diversity to a South Carolina delegation that has an overabundance of right-wing ideologues and an often overly-cautious Democrat.

Kevin Alexander Gray is a Columbia writer and community organizer.  On Facebook.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:  Let me thank everyone who wrote kind notes and made calls after reading last week's column on the passing of Peatsy Hollings, wife of former U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings.  Most of those notes were private so we decided to keep them all private.  But thanks.  -- ACB

State parks. A banner year leads officials to speculate that state parks may become self-sufficient within two years. More.