I see that even after the last time I weighed in on this string, Chris W was still exercised about Cindi Scoppe saying in a column that Rich Eckstrom’s foolishness with the state van was actually illegal.
A sample of Chris W’s commentary:
You say something is illegal. The officials say it is not. You stand
behind your statements as if there were no burden of proof. You offer
no proof, just a claim.
Well, I made the mistake of asking Cindi if she’d mind sending me a note walking me through the basis of her opinion that Mr. Eckstrom appeared to have committed a misdemeanor, so I could post it for Chris W and anybody else who was curious. She said OK. I expected a paragraph. Cindi being Cindi, this is what I got:
Here’s the statute Mr. Eckstrom points to to argue that his use of the state van was legal:
SECTION 1-11-270. Division of Motor Vehicle Management; establishment of criteria for individual assignment of motor vehicles.
(A) The board shall establish criteria for individual assignment of motor vehicles based on the functional requirements of the job, which shall reduce the assignment to situations clearly beneficial to the State. Only the Governor, statewide elected officials, and agency heads are provided a state-owned vehicle based on their position.
(B) Law enforcement officers, as defined by the agency head, may be permanently assigned state-owned vehicles by their respective agency head. Agency heads may assign a state-owned vehicle to an employee when the vehicle carries or is equipped with special equipment needed to perform duties directly related to the employee’s job, and the employee is either in an emergency response capacity after normal working hours or for logistical reasons it is determined to be in the agency’s interest for the vehicle to remain with the employee. No other employee may be permanently assigned to a state-owned vehicle, unless the assignment is cost advantageous to the State under guidelines developed by the State Fleet Manager. Statewide elected officials, law enforcement officers, and those employees who have been assigned vehicles because they are in an emergency response capacity after normal working hours are exempt from reimbursing the State for commuting miles. Other employees operating a permanently assigned vehicle must reimburse the State for commuting between home and work.
(C) All persons, except the Governor and statewide elected officials, permanently assigned with automobiles shall log all trips on a log form approved by the board, specifying beginning and ending mileage and job function performed. However, trip logs must not be maintained for vehicles whose gross vehicle weight is greater than ten thousand pounds nor for vehicles assigned to full-time line law enforcement officers. Agency directors and commissioners permanently assigned state vehicles may utilize exceptions on a report denoting only official and commuting mileage in lieu of the aforementioned trip logs.
Note that this law does NOT say vehicle use is unlimited. It merely says that 1) constitutional officers can have a vehicle permanently assigned to them without first meeting the test of demonstrating that the state saves money by assigning them a vehicle and 2) constitutional officers are allowed to COMMUTE to and from work without reimbursing the state for that expense.
Additionally, as one prosecutor put it, the language allowing constitutional officers to use the vehicle for commuting IMPLIES that any other personal use is outlawed.
Beyond that, though, two other laws, below, make it even clearer that personal use of state vehicles that is not specifically authorized is prohibited.Here’s the provision contained in this year’s budget (and in every year’s budget going back at least to 1993) that says state employees don’t get extra perks except for those specifically spelled out in the proviso; note that the proviso does NOT include unlimited use of a state vehicle as an excepted perk. (A budget proviso has the force of law.) A 1993 attorney general’s ruling on the question of constitutional officers’ use of state vehicles cited this provision as an additional basis for saying that the use of the vehicles was restricted:
72.19. (GP: Allowance for Residences & Compensation Restrictions) That salaries paid to officers and employees of the State, including its several boards, commissions, and institutions shall be in full for all services rendered, and no perquisites of office or of employment shall be allowed in addition thereto, but such perquisites, commodities, services or other benefits shall be charged for at the prevailing local value and without the purpose or effect of increasing the compensation of said officer or employee. The charge for these items may be payroll deducted at the discretion of the Comptroller General or the chief financial officer at each agency maintaining its own payroll system. This shall not apply to the Governor’s Mansion, nor for department-owned housing used for recruitment and training of Mental Health Professionals, nor to guards at any of the state’s penal institutions and nurses and attendants at the Department of Mental Health, and the Department of Disabilities & Special Needs, and registered nurses providing clinical care at the MUSC Medical Center, nor to the Superintendent and staff of John de la Howe School, nor to the cottage parents and staff of Wil Lou Gray Opportunity School, nor to full-time or part-time staff who work after regular working hours in the SLED Communications Center or Maintenance Area, nor to adult staff at the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics who are required to stay on campus by the institution because of job requirements or program participation. The presidents of those state institutions of higher learning authorized to provide on-campus residential facilities for students may be permitted to occupy residences on the grounds of such institutions without charge
Here’s the provision in the Ethics Act that applies here, followed by the definition in that same act of the operative term, "economic interest":
SECTION 8-13-700. Use of official position or office for financial gain; disclosure of potential conflict of interest.
(A) No public official, public member, or public employee may knowingly use his official office, membership, or employment to obtain an economic interest for himself, a member of his immediate family, an individual with whom he is associated, or a business with which he is associated. This prohibition does not extend to the incidental use of public materials, personnel, or equipment, subject to or available for a public official’s, public member’s, or public employee’s use which does not result in additional public expense.
SECTION 8-13-100. Definitions.
(11)(a) "Economic interest" means an interest distinct from that of the general public in a purchase, sale, lease, contract, option, or other transaction or arrangement involving property or services in which a public official, public member, or public employee may gain an economic benefit of fifty dollars or more.Additionally, the state constitution has this provision on the private use of public funds, which the courts have held to be a prohibition on the private use of public funds or resources:
ARTICLE VI., SECTION 8. Suspension and prosecution of officers accused of crime.
Whenever it appears to the satisfaction of the Governor that probable cause exists to charge any officer of the State or its political subdivisions who has the custody of public or trust funds with embezzlement or the appropriation of public or trust funds to private use, then the Governor shall direct his immediate prosecution by the proper officer, and upon indictment by a grand jury or, upon the waiver of such indictment if permitted by law, the Governor shall suspend such officer and appoint one in his stead, until he shall have been acquitted. In case of conviction, the position shall be declared vacant and the vacancy filled as may be provided by law.
Finally, I don’t have the cite for this, but I know that … either state law or the constitution or both says that all public employees have a fiduciary duty to avoid even the appearance of improper conduct, and to use public resources for private or personal purposes would certainly apply. As one prosecutor put it, "That’d be like using the wildlife boats to go out and take your family on a fishing expedition."
Cindi Ross Scoppe
Associate Editor
The State newspaper
(803) 771 8571
Anyway, that either satisfies you or not. She has her opinion; you have yours. Hers is based upon the above.
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I’m pretty surprised by the judicial interpretation employed by Ms. Scoppe. I would never have taken her for one who’d parse a statute in a Justice Scalia/textualist fashion.
Ms. Scoppe wrote the following:
What she’s getting at in the first sentence above is a matter of competing legal philosophies. Are the words of the law restrictive or permissive? As Ms. Scoppe has done here, Justice Scalia would argue that they’re restrictive. Take the words for what they are and nothing more. A more liberal justice, like, say, Justice Breyer, would argue that the words are merely a framework.
Granted, one may apply slightly different mechanisms for interpreting constitutional language as opposed to statutes, but still…
These questions of statutory interpretation were central to the decision by Gov. Sanford not to lower the flags over the statehouse to half-mast because the statute didn’t explicitly provide for such. (Did y’all write an opinion piece on that, Brad?) Sanford’s counsel (presumably Henry White) employed a conservative, textualist interpretation of the law.
My Constitutional Law professor at the time disagreed with the Governor’s office and argued that the statute was “permissive” and not “restrictive.”
I’d be interested to learn if Ms. Scoppe’s restrictive interpretation in this case is in line with her judicial interpretation on, say, a right to privacy in the Constitution — which isn’t a right that’s enumerated in the Constitution. A true textualist argues there is no such right.
Also, I didn’t see anything in the statute that supported her assertion that “(the laws says that) …constitutional officers are allowed to COMMUTE to and from work.”
It’s pretty clear that at least in that particular statute, constitutional officers and the Governor are granted a broad exclusion with respect to complying with the hoop-jumping that other state employees must do in order to take state cars out for a spin.
—
It’s hard to say much without looking at caselaw on these particular statutes. Based on my reading, constitutional officers are afforded a great deal of leniency with respect to the usage of the state vehicle. From reading the provisions on “economic interest,” I’d say that paying for the gas on the state’s tab with the gas card is the more problematic of the two actions, but I don’t know what the standard procedures are for fueling the state cars.
Whether Mr. Eckstrom’s actions amounted to breaking the law is obviously a question that involves a lot of consideration based on different statutes. It’s hard to form a solid legal argument just by stringing together statutes and not looking to see if there is any applicable caselaw.
Laurin, excellent analysis. What one must understand is that Cindy WANTS it to be a crime, so bad, that she pulls the word misdemeanor out of the air to give it that criminality. Her editor should have stopped the nonsense right there but he WANTED this so bad also. Now, if Inez Tanenbaum, for example, had ever used a state car to go to the grocery store or a personal doctor’s appointment, that would be a big so what. As anyone in this state knows, official cars are seen traveling to and from church services, grocery stores, and you name it. But this exposure could impact an election.
It is so typical of newpaper editors to obsess over “misuse” of a van for a few miles while ignoring billions of dollars being wasted on Medicare, education, the bankrupt state retirement system, corrupt procurement practices, and unfair tax systems.
Perhaps they just find issues that they can manage. They are helpless with big issues, so they focus on personalities and manufacturing smoke over nothing.
Brad,
I am not a lawyer but this reasoning seems tenuous at best. You really have to “go looking” to make this work as Ms Scoppe thinks it does. I regret the fact
that this issue, on such a shaky foundation, has been given so much press. In this information age, I think substantial issues should be more easily defined and then discussed.
I wonder if the voters would feel more illuminated about this race had Ms.
Scoppe chosen to highlight 6 important votes from the last 4 years, and then
compare and contrast the positions of the two men? I suspect voters would then
feel as they were making a positive and informed choice that was forward
thinking…not choices based on some esoteric and perhaps illegitimate point
about a episode from the past involving a minivan.
I suppose my broader point is this election cycle seems to be the Sienfield
election…it all seems to be about nothing. And the candidates paint the
landscape red with attack ads because the media has left the “field of issues”
blank. Today’s issue seems to be that the woman Karen Floyd’s dad married has
given her old friend Mr. Rex $100.00. I can’t imagine that any thinking person
finds this important. I can’t see how this says anything about Karen…but it
does speak volumes about this woman. But frankly, I don’t care bout this woman…
and see no reason why I should
There is a great vacuum in our culture for honest and forthright news
reporting. But this “gotcha” stuff dominates the news, and it means so little.
The time devoted to mini vans and miscellaneous small donations serves to
alienate voters, not involve them…and that is a pity. When the facts are few
and far between, the public resorts to partisan voting and that is something
you say you abhor.
Thanks for the good faith effort of looking into this for me. It means more
than you know…and your stock has just risen with me.
Chris
PS…Don’t take any of these comments personally. Remember…you have only been in the newspaper business for a portion of your adult life. We, on the other hand, have been “know-it- alls” since birth!
Glad to be of service, Chris.
It’s interesting the way people react to this. Dave thinks I "wanted so bad" for this to be against the law. Well, despite all my efforts to use my columns and my blogs to help people see who I am so they can better judge my opinions, it looks like I have failed on this point. But I guess it’s because it interests me so little that I spend my words on other things.
I believe in the rule of law — it separates us from the savages, etc. You will probably see me be somewhat stricter about following the law than the average person. But compared to the overall population of journalists — who are a very legalistic bunch — I’m a slacker. A misdemeanor or not a misdemeanor, it’s not a huge point to me (felonies would be a bit different). Right and wrong are what matter to me.
I think I touched on this a little bit back when Beasley was governor (when I’m done writing this, I’ll go back and see if I can find something to link you to). As I recall, Dick Harpootlian and others were all worked up because Beasley had taken campaign money from Chem-Nuclear, and (gasp!) had taken a ride in the company’s airplane. That didn’t bother me a bit. What bothered me was what he DID for them with regard to the nuclear waste dump. THAT was unconscionable, and would have been whether he had taken money from them or not.
It’s BAD POLICY that bothers me. It’s public officials doing the WRONG THING, whether it violates some written rule or not. Getting S.C. out of the nuclear waste compact was bad — majorly bad. Using a state van and state gas card for a family vacation to the ends of the Earth is bad. It’s not majorly bad, but it shows a startling disregard for the public trust, particularly in someone who styles himself as a fiscal watchdog. I don’t care if the statutes, constitution and case law all support Mr. Eckstrom’s contention that it was within the law. It showed him as unfit to keep his office either way.
Other people care more about the letter. And if such people believe it was illegal, and have REASON to believe so, they should say so. (And back to Laurin’s point, by my standards, if Justice Scalia would agree with us, I call that a pretty good standard. Because it doesn’t much matter which position we take on that, if you have the money, you can find a lawyer who will argue the opposite just as fervently.
I’ll let Cindi address her beliefs regarding "restrictive interpretation" of the law, if she chooses. For my part, Laurin, I would apply that standard to privacy. "Penumbras" aren’t good enough for me. The constitution either says it or it doesn’t. And it doesn’t. If you want a right to privacy in the constitution, try to get an amendment passed. The Founders wisely made that rather difficult to do. That process (or those processes) should not be circumvented by any court. Amendments should not come into theoretical being upon the whim of justices.
Interestingly, I think Cindi might defend the "right to privacy," and she’ll probably have a good argument as to why. But I’ll let her tell you that if she chooses; it’s not my business. (And if she yells at me for that tiny bit of speculation regarding her views, I’ll come back in and amend this comment. Fortunately, that amendment process is not laborious.)
Legal or illegal? Criminal or “just” greedy and sleazy? That’s one of the best red herrings that I’ve seen lately.
Do you really want to elect to high office a man who sees ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with the taxpayers footing the bill for his personal vacation transportation? At the least, it raises serious questions about his judgement and ethics.
Mark Foley and Richard Eckstrom– just two sides of the Republican hypocrisy coin.
Lee, of course, recognizes the real danger to the Republic: public “safety net” programs. Corrupt, elected constitutional officers stealing from the government are small potatoes when we’re throwing a pittance to old people, the disabled and the destitute poor.
The point Brad seems to miss is that most of us who really want to improve South Carolina are tired of these nit-picking Gotcha Games.
We want big reforms of the big problems, without stalling and excuses about having to have some perfect, “comprehensive master plan”.
We are tired of newspapers, TV, and radio that is stuck in tired formulas and templates of creating stories of confict, and too lazy to report the facts about how broken the various agencies and programs really are.
I asked Cindi to read what I had posted, and she e-mailed this response (turns out I WAS wrong about her position on privacy):
By the way, I think I disagreed, at least somewhat, with Cindi on No. 4 — although since it was just a boardroom discussion quite a while back, and I never wrote about it, I can’t swear to that. But I seem to recall that to ME, lowering the flag seemed like something a strong, principled leader would do as long as he was not prohibited from doing so. Not that the governor’s position couldn’t be defended; I just thought that ultimately, it was wrong.
It’s like a current situation we have in Columbia. Cindi strongly believes that the Legislature has forbidden local governments to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, and as stupid and wrong as such law is, it is the law. I tend to agree with Mayor Bob, who believe the law is vague enough to be challenged by passing an ordinance, and then letting a court decide whether it stands up before it is enforced. In terms of our editorial position, Cindi’s position holds sway — thereby proving that when my colleagues claim that my "consensus" process tends to end up with us taking MY position, they are WRONG.
“Most of us who really want to improve South Carolina” ??
I am not at all sure you speak for the majority. At least I hope not.
I never claimed that the majority want reform. Most of them are lemmings, and living on some portion of government handouts or ersatz jobs, content to keep their mouths shut and grab all they can.
Now, Herb, do you disagree with my assessment of the dereliction of duty among our so-called journalists?
Bob Coble is the perfect person to waste some more taxpayer money on a legal fight with the state over his desire to have the power to force people to obey his notions of healthy behavior.
There will be no shortage of editors at The State who will cheer on such an arrogant trampling of individual liberty and choice in a trivial matter of manners which normal adults have been resolving among themselves for 400 years.
I am amazed that Mayor Bob and other do-gooders continue to wonder why no one wants to go downtown. These are supposed to be the smartest people in the room; why can’t they see that many if not most regular folk pretty much hate what the city has become under liberal planners and politicians? Ed
Lee, given your know-it-all attitude, and your penchant for sounding off as an expert on any topic, I must confess I find it very difficult to sort out what is right in your deliberations, and what isn’t. Especially given the fact that you fllter everything through your libertarian ideology, rather than allowing the facts to critique your ideology.
Given that situation, you don’t seem to want to learn from anybody who doesn’t share your ideology by at least 90%. That limits your resources pretty drastically.
Every journalist has a bias, and so do I as an ignorant peasant, of course. But at least there is a pool of biases to learn from, and not just one particular one. I’ll go with the journalists, I think. What I’m saying is that I like to learn from a variety of perspectives, and not just one.
Brad, here is what the rub is to me. Cindy picks up this one charge coming directly from the Theodore campaign and takes the ball and runs with it. Maybe the State cannot afford it, but does the State still do investigations based on fact and then publish the results, no matter who it incriminates? So, instead of just singling out one instance, provided by the opposition party, how about an investigation into misuse of state assets in general, and then lets see the results. Playing up a single incident that is legally vague in nature 2 weeks before an election puts you in the drive by media class. That is not professional journalism, rather it is partisan cheerleading.
Herb,
In your tirade, you forgot to mention what it was you were trying to teach me. As a scientist and engineer, I have a very open mind, and seek out new knowledge and ideas all day long.
Try approaching me with facts and genuine ideas.
I sent all of this info to my lawyer, a republican and the smartest guy I know. We discussed it at length, and I asked him for his “money quote”…the quote I could use on this blog. He said…
“Cindy Ross Scoppe is mistaken.”
Slightly anti-climatic, but professional. So…there we have it. Mrs. Scoppe has a conversation with one unnamed attorney, and the result is the largest issue in the campaign. Ms. Scoppe should have at least asked for a written opinion before making such an issue of this minivan “joyride”. But I suppose none of that matters now, as what is done, is done.
In any event, the opportunity to discuss this is appreciated.
Lee, your right. I’ve gotten a bit cantankerous (sp?) in my comments. I apologize for my meanness (again!, drat!). Time to quit blogging for awhile. See you guys on the other side of the election. In the meantime, I’ll keep reading, and try to vote intelligently.
Well, “Cindy” Ross Scoppe may be mistaken, but I’m inclined to believe CindI. I’ll stack her unnamed attorney up against your unnamed attorney any old day.
Thanks, though, for appreciating the effort. We work pretty hard at this, and it’s good sometimes to air some of the mountains of stuff that stands behind our opinions, but would never fit into the paper…
It’s clear, of course, that Cindy Ross Scoppe IS mistaken.
Obviously, what Eckstrom did isn’t illegal. Except for Warthen, Cindy Ross Scoppe is perhaps the stupidest person in the world, and she doesn’t understand what she’s reading, but she is so dishonest that she doesn’t even try to understand it before falsely accusing people of crime. I don’t know who Eckstrom is, but it’s clear that
(A) if you have to drag together three separate legal provisions and pick out individual words, now from this statute, now from that, and
(B) in addition, depend on what the statute DOESN’T say,
YOU HAVE NOT DEFINED A CRIME.
The fact that you and she are rounding up all these off-the-record legal opinions also proves your dishonesty. If you are getting a legal opinion, there is NO REASON not to say WHO the legal opinion comes from. This is relevant and important information, and helps the public judge the credibility of the information, by evaluating the source’s expertise, general reputation for honesty, and bias. By denying the public access to this important piece of information, you are (once again) failing in your duty to give the putlic ALL relevant information.
“Additionally, as one prosecutor put it, the language allowing constitutional officers to use the vehicle for commuting IMPLIES that any other personal use is outlawed.”
Right, right, sure. And the fact that the language doesn’t say you can pick your dry cleaning on the way home implies that such use is outlawed. Cindy Ross Scoppe is accusing someone of a CRIME based on her (incompetent) opinion of what an OMISSION in the law supposedly IMPLIES(!).
Basically, what Cindy Ross Scoppe is doing is to pick through out statutes that seem to her to be vaguely relevant, force her tendentious interpretations on them, and then drench the public with her ignorance. She has not told us what the law is, she has only given us HER OPINION – namely, that in her view of what the law SHOULD be, what Eckstrom did was a crime.
What characterizes the failed journalists at the sewer that is the State newspaper is not just their dishonesty, not just their stupidity, not just their laziness, and not just their racism. It is their belief, as unshakeable as it is unjustified, that they are the arbiters of truth, and that their opinions on public issues are somehow superior to those of the public. They seem to have this idea that because they sit around all day, pontificating on public matters, in what they see as the crucible that is the State editorial board, their opinions are somehow refined into gold.
But in order to refine gold, you have to have GOLD ORE. If all you have are buckets of sewage, dumping them together into a common container doesn’t give you anything except more sewage.
Until Cindi Ross Scoppe names the lawyer who allegedly supplied her legal opinions, it is safe to assume it is another fabrication so commonly used by the media today in smear campaigns.
With all the major issues in this state, what a shame that the newspaper editors have to fixate themselves on trumping up personal morality campaigns as a diversion from the work they can’t handle.
I don’t think voters care whether what Mr. Esckstrom did was legal or not. What matters to us is whether it was right or wrong of him to do it.
I have not heard one person say they thought it was right.
I haven’t heard anyone say it was significant.
Let’s focus on real issues, like the millions of out-of-state lobbyists controlling SC elected officials like John Spratt, or the bankrupt state retirement system.
This is off the subject, but did Eckstrom run for house district 88 in 2000? I have heard that he did, and this is before I paid much attention to local political elections. I can find no evidence that he was even on the ballot during that election. If he did run that year, what happened?