West Committee
Created in 1966 at the urging of young reformers in the General Assembly, the Committee to Make a Study of the South Carolina Constitution of 1895 was known as the “West Committee,” after its chairman, state senator (later governor) John C. West. It performed a major overhaul on the state’s fundamental political document and gradually weakened legislative dominance of state government.
Despite some sentiment that South Carolina should call a constitutional convention, the West Committee embarked upon three years of intense study and revision. The final report, issued in 1969, proposed seventeen new articles. But this was just the beginning of a laborious process. Each amendment required a two-thirds vote by the legislature to be placed on the statewide ballot, then legislative ratification and the passage of legislation to implement the new constitutional provisions.
Though their power was waning, the old barons of the General Assembly were able to slow many of the changes via a legislative steering committee that guided the amendments through the legislature. One key amendment passed in 1973 prohibited bills involving just one county, a direct effort to end legislative delegation rule of local government. Not until 1975 was home rule legislation approved, freeing county governments from daily micromanagement by legislators in Columbia.
The committee also called for abolishing the system of county courts, through which old-time lawyers and state senators had exerted extreme influence over court operations. However, only in 1984 would the chief justice gain full power to set rules and procedures for the state’s courts. A recommendation to allow governors to run for reelection was not enacted until 1981.
While reform prevailed, the committee stopped short of other symbolic changes. It recommended keeping language permitting a literacy test for voters, even though the practice had been outlawed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Nor did it strike defunct language banning interracial marriages, which remained until 1998.
Graham, Cole Blease, Jr., and William V. Moore. South Carolina Politics and Government. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994.
South Carolina. Committee to Make a Study of the South Carolina Constitution of 1895. Final Report of the Committee to Make a Study of the South Carolina Constitution of 1895. Columbia, S.C., 1969.
Underwood, James L. The Constitution of South Carolina. Vol. 1, The Relationship of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1986.
