And when I say “Robert Ford,” I’m not talking about the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard. Speaking of which, did you see that excellent movie with Brad Pitt as Jesse James and Casey Affleck as Bob Ford? If you haven’t, you should. Watch the trailer. And when I say Jesse James, I don’t mean the celebrity-by-marriage with a thing for tattoos, but the REAL Jesse James.

Where was I?

Oh, yes — I’m going to stop being so dismissive of Sen. Robert Ford.

This is going to require an adjustment on my part, because it’s hard to adopt any other pose toward a candidate whose answer to everything is to reinstate the sleazy industry that we all worked so hard to be rid of — video poker.

But adjust I must, after Sen. Ford introduced a bill that would do the following:

AMEND THE CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, BY ADDING SECTION 59-101-45 SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT ALL MEMBERS OF THE BOARDS OF TRUSTEES OF ALL PUBLIC COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES OF THIS STATE MUST BE APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR UPON THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE, TO PROVIDE FOR THE EXPIRATION OF THE TERMS OF OFFICE OF CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS, TO PROVIDE FOR THE TERM LENGTH AND COMMENCEMENT OF TERMS OF NEWLY APPOINTED BOARD MEMBERS, AND TO PROVIDE THAT THE SENATE SHALL CONVENE A COMMITTEE TO SCREEN POTENTIAL CANDIDATES FOR THE RESPECTIVE BOARDS.

The shocking thing is that this would actually represent reform. It’s not quite the reform we need — what we need is a board of regents to govern the entire public higher education system. But this would actually be a step in the right direction.

Apparently, Sen. Ford has figured out that a governor could actually be held accountable for the makeup of the boards. With the current setup, that’s impossible. You can’t hold 170 people accountable for anything, and you certainly can’t do so with the overall makeup of the boards, when all lawmakers get to do is make isolated decisions, position by position, according to who runs for each seat when it comes available.

Now, making sure there are minorities on the USC board of trustees is not THE reason to put this huge portion of the executive branch under the elected chief executive, but it’s a side benefit.

For years, one of the biggest obstacles to restructuring to make state government more accountable has been the Legislative Black Caucus. But I’ve noticed that some members of that caucus have started realizing that a governor could be held accountable for demographics, whereas a legislature can’t be. And not only within the executive branch — a governor could be held accountable for the overall demographics of his judicial nominees, were he allowed to nominate judges.

Just another illustration of the main thing about a Legislative State — it is the kind of government that is MOST resistant to change, whether you’re talking policy change or making your government look more like your state.

By the way, if you want restructuring, don’t vote for Sen. Ford, despite this promising proposal. In the Democratic primary, the guy you’d want to go with is Vincent Sheheen, who has been pushing for restructuring for years. He gets it. And he has a chance to win. If I were to base my vote on restructuring (which I may, even though I got burned with Mark Sanford doing that), I’d definitely go with Vincent.