Thanks to outgoing president of the SC Association of County Attorneys D’Anne Haydel for the kind invitation to appear at her group’s 2008 CLE. What a turnout! It was fabulous to see all those faces, as anxious as I know they were for the infamous reception to begin! Thanks for having me.
The documents mentioned in the presentation are available, as promised, on this website. Just visit our Resources page and download there.
A bill sponsored by Senator Chip Campsen (Isle of Palms) is making its way to the House, and would have significant implications for the governing bodies of SC political subdivisions who offer (or want to offer) prayers before public meetings, as most do.
The bill is S. 638; I’ve uploaded a PDF of the text to this post (see “Further Reading” below).
The bill’s preamble goes over the constitutional judicial history of what is known as ceremonial deism — invocations and mentions of religion by government entities in a ceremonial (and hence First Amendment-friendly) way. Some of these cases are also set forth below as PDFs in “Further Reading.”
The bill would add section 6-1-160 to the codification of laws as the “South Carolina Public Invocation Act.” Subsection (A) covers certain definitions necessary to an understanding of the Act — public invocation and deliberative public body.
The definition of the latter term — deliberative public body — is rather broad, and includes governing bodies of counties and cities, and any branches thereof (probably to include boards, commissions, and agencies, as it also includes special purpose and public service district bodies as well.
Public entities can comply with the section’s “guidance” by adopting one of three proffered policies. First, the duties of offering invocations can be rotated among all members of the entity. Second, an official chaplain may be elected by entity members.
The third option is the most interesting, as it permits rotating the invocational duties among members of the public who are “religious leaders” (undefined in the Act). The invitation for these leaders to offer their services must be sent annually, must be culled from public resources (telephone books, etc.), and must include the following statement:
A religious leader is free to offer an invocation according to the dictates of his own conscience, but, in order to comply with applicable constitutional law, the [name of deliberative public body issuing the invitation] requests that the public invocation opportunity not be exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief’.
Myrtle Beach Sun News — “Bill suggests to local governments how to hold legal prayers”
Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 786 (1983)
Simpson v. Chesterfield County 404 F.3d 276 (4th Cir. 2004), cert. denied
Wynne v. Town of Great Falls, 376 F.3d 292, 298 (4th Cir. 2004), cert. denied
As part of CLS’s business planning efforts, I’ve created a new survey for county and city attorneys that will help me ascertain which activities are best suited for CLS’s target clients.
As a “thank you” gift for taking the survey, I’m offering each survey respondent a 10% discount on any one project for which CLS’s services are retained. The code will be emailed separately to each respondent who leaves a valid email address in the last item of the survey.
Welcome to what I believe is the first of its kind: a regularly maintained blog dedicated to US county and municipal law.
My name is Sheryl Sisk Schelin. I currently publish several blogs, including The Inspired Solo (for solo lawyers and those who want to be), Blawg In A Box (for lawyers who want to market their practices through blogs), the SC Bankruptcy & Consumer Law Blog (my main practice area as a solo attorney, written with my colleague Dana Wilkinson from Spartanburg, SC), and the About Law School site for About.com. There are also a few others that are non-law-related.
Some of these sites are up for major changes in the near future — some will be put up for sale, some will be continued but in different contexts or by different people, one will be redesigned, and at least one will be maintained “as is.” Given that the blog load will be reduced a bit, it seemed like an opportune time to launch an idea that’s been rolling around inside my brain for quite awhile: County Legal Services, and the County Law Blog.
The idea behind CLS the business is this: I have a unique appreciation for the difficulties faced by county and municipal attorneys from my ten-year career as a staff attorney for Horry County, during which time I worked with departments delivering just about every county/municipal service imaginable (from Airports to Zoning).
Most local governments either have a very small legal department (1 or 2 attorneys is not uncommon) or farm out their legal work to outside counsel. In both circumstances, occasionally projects arise that just can’t be handled in-house, or that require some expertise or experience in the subject matter. CLS is the business entity through which I can provide legal research, drafting, and other services on a contractual per-project basis.
The idea behind CLS the blog is this: During that ten-year period of time, I was struck by one thing in particular: the dearth of resources for local government attorneys. There was one statewide CLE sponsored by the Association of Counties for the state, and the informal association of county lawyers in SC also sponsored an annual seminar in conjunction with the SCAC summer meeting. But for the most part, if we wanted immediate information, we had to turn to Westlaw (expensive) or other sites on individual legal topics and extrapolate the information to the government context.
I thought it was time for a blog dedicated to U.S. county and municipal law. There are some other sites I was able to find that might be of interest. The IMLA blog is perhaps the most active and on-point, although it’s updated infrequently (about 2-3 times a month). Among the Law Professors blog network, there is a State and Local Government Law Professor Blog, but it was last updated in November 2007. Finally, there’s The Public Blawg, which seems restricted to California local government issues.
The CLS Blawg will be updated 3-5 times a week with case law updates, legislative news, articles about different aspects of county/municipal law, and any other relevant information I can find. If you have any tidbits or suggestions for blog posts, please drop me a line through our contact form.
Sheryl | 
08 4th, 2008| 