As I occasionally have to clarify here, I’m about commentary, not reporting. You want reporting, go someplace else. I haven’t been a reporter in 30 years. You want an opinion writer who’s primarily a reporter, see Cindi Scoppe. She’s one of the best. (Her column today is a good example of that quality; I may post separately about that later.) Sure, I “cover” events from time to time, just so I can get my own first-hand impressions. But mainly what I do is make observations based upon the existing body of available information.
Now Corey Hutchins with The Free Times is a reporter. You’ll recall that he was the only media type to go out and track down Alvin Greene before the primary. Too bad more people didn’t read his report at the time.
Now, he has a facts-and-figures report comparing the legislative records of Nikki Haley and Vincent Sheheen. One way to characterize what he found is in this observation he posted on Facebook:
If one were to print out the list of legislative bills in the past five years primarily sponsored by the two lawmakers running for governor in S.C., Dem Sen. Sheheen’s would weigh 9.5 ounces and GOP Rep. Haley’s would clock in at 2.4 give or take a botched staple.
Of course, that doesn’t tell you much. Maybe Vincent is just wordy. You’ll get more to chew on reading his full report headlined, “Legislative Records: Sheheen More Active, Successful Than Haley,” with the subhed, “Since 2004, Sheheen Has Sponsored 96 Bills, Haley 13.”
An excerpt:
There are several ways to detail the disparity, but the easiest might be to look at the number of bills for which each candidate was listed as a primary sponsor and how far along each piece of legislation made it through the sausage maker.
Sheheen was elected to the state senate in 2004, the same year Haley was elected to the House. (Sheheen served in the House for four years before being elected to the Senate.) The difference in their legislative accomplishments since then is staggering.
According to state House and Senate records, during the 2005-2006 session, Sheheen sponsored 35 bills and was able to get eight of them passed. That same session, her first in office, Haley went zero for one.
The following session Sheheen went six for 30. Haley scored one out of seven.
During the latest legislative session that took place from 2009 to 2010, Gov. Mark Sanford signed two out of the 31 bills that Sheheen primarily sponsored. That year, the governor didn’t put pen to paper on any of the five bills backed by Haley.
Given these numbers, it would be hard to overstate the extent to which Sheheen — a Democrat in a Republican-dominated chamber —was able to navigate the legislative process in a more effective fashion than Haley. But from a philosophical standpoint — Haley being a candidate who wants government to do less — her rhetoric is at least somewhat consistent with her legislative record…
That’s a bit simplistic, a measure of Corey’s reportorial wish to be as fair to her as he can. What her record really underlines is the problem that I keep pointing to. In terms of accomplishing ANYTHING in dealing with the people who write the laws of the state (and in a Legislative State like ours, that thought could almost be framed as “accomplish anything, period”), Nikki Haley’s record indicates that, if anything, she’s been less successful even than Mark Sanford. Which is a very low standard indeed.
And remember, Sanford started out with a honeymoon, with a legislative leadership eager to work at long last with a governor of their own party. Those same leaders already know they don’t like Nikki.
Doug, of course, will turn that around into an attack on the legislative leaders themselves, which is satisfying to him but gets us nowhere. When you and I walk into the booth on Nov. 2, for the overwhelming majority of us, those leaders won’t be on the ballot (and the few of us who do live in their districts will find they don’t have viable opposition). What we get to pick is the governor. That’s how we get to affect the future course of our state.
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I’m not really sure this tells us much of anything. Sheheen was able to get some of bills passed. What were those bills? Were they bills to get a bridge named after some WW II hero? There are lot of those do-nothing bills. Or worse, were they bills like the 1992 crap that destroyed the state highway department? Not sure this information adds much information for me, as a voter, to make an informative decision.
Robert Ariail exposes Nikki Haley’s record of personal and corporate tax filing problems:
http://robertariail.com/2010/09/14/the-accountant/
Seriously, with stories like this (from Think Progress) does it really matter who’s elected governor? Seriously, does it? I mean it would be nice to have a sensible fellow occupying the Governor’s mansion but I can’t in my wildest dreams imagine how it can make any difference given the complete idiocy and total control of power by the General Assembly. From Think Progress:
One shocking moment at the NFRW meeting involved a special event called “The Southern Experience.” In this event, attendees dressed in clothing reminiscent of the Civil War and the antebellum South. As FITS News reports, South Carolina Senate President Glenn McConnell (R) participated in the event by dressing up as a Confederate General, and at many points posed with African Americans dressed as slaves:
“give or take a botched staple…”
Nice. Corey’s good!
I fear that Nikki’s peeps will be pleased as punch that she is ineffective–if it’s toothless government you want, she’s your candidate.
Unless you show all the bills and what their purpose was, this is pure silliness.
“Sheheen also sponsored measures to rename portions of a highway and two bridges, to honor a high school graduating class and express sorrow for the death of Pope John Paul II.”
We’re going to count those? Forgive me for being crass here, but to wasting even one cent of of tax dollars printing a single sheet of paper to consider these “bills” is asinine. The fact that our legislators have the time to spend on this crap while the schools are failing is an indictment of the system.
From what I read here, the only thing SC voters care about is what candidates say. And, totally disregard what their actions say about how they might perform.
It’s the craziest thing I have ever seen. I bet they don’t do that with people in their private lives.
But, it’s not just SC voters who are besotted. From what I read about Tea Partier Joe Miller in Alaska, he has worked full or part time for government in Alaska since he moved there 16 years ago after graduating from Yale Law School! And, that mean, bad government was stupid enough to provide health insurance for his family of 8 when he was working only 20 hours a week. Bet he wants to put a stop to wasteful things like that?
How about the O’Donnell woman who won the Delaware GOP primary last night? Apparently, she is such a perennial federal candidate, she lives off her campaign contributions – which a reporter on Morning Joe told me this morning is legal; that Alan Keyes legally paid himself a salary out of campaign contributions – If he did it, how about Jesse Jackson, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and scads of others who run over and over? And, O’Donnell has trouble paying her taxes, too. Why anyone would vote for a candidate with any tax problems is beyond me. And, Doug, Tim Geithner should have never been hired.
The people who voted for those two candidates, actually very, very small numbers of people, far fewer than voted for Nikki, simply did not care that their actions vs. their words seemed to indicate they are big time hypocrites.
Our voters don’t care either.
More interesting than the mass or quantity of bills, the article gives some insight as to the way each candidate sees the role of government. Ignoring the proclamations and resolutions, Sheheen’s freshman bills focused on
government restructuring; reforming criteria for issuing handicapped license plates; establishing a college and university board of regents; revising the penalties for shoplifting; revising penalties for selling lottery tickets to minors; aiding victims of identity theft; enacting school equity and property tax relief; making DHEC notify the public before issuing a construction permit for a facility that stores sludge; and adding exceptions to a law about who can lawfully carry a handgun.
Which sounds to me like he thinks government has a role to protect citizens.
Haley’s freshman bill focused on
requiring public and private higher education institutions to provide immunization information to students and make sure that colleges and universities weren’t required to provide vaccinations. It would also have repealed a section of current law relating to requiring them to provide incoming students with information on meningococcal disease and hepatitis B.
which sounds more like she wants to reduce the role of government. I would think public health information and protection is an important role for the government.
In the current climate, (where up is down, 2+2 does not equal 4, and Barack Obama is a one-man sleeper cell in the White House) evidence of having gotten more done or more accomplished in working with the Legislature is in itself an indictment of a candidate, not a net plus. The disparity Hutchins cited could be 10 times that big and would do Sheheen absolutely no good with this particular electorate, I’m afraid.
What’s more, once in office, Governor Haley will hone her “record” with a spotless score of non-achievement, doing nothing that could be possibly construed as facilitating the state government actually working in any way, thereby burnishing her GOP and Tea Party credentials and making her the perfect Vice-Presidential candidate for 2012.
Doug… sigh…
What you just quoted shows that Vincent spent very little time on such things.
And folks, a piece like this is not meant to give you all the information you need to decide whom to elect as governor. All it does, for me, is quantify the issue of effectiveness in working with the Legislature. Period.
I offered it because, while I generally don’t need to have things quantified, I knew that some of my more engineer-type readers appreciate such things. At least, I hoped they would.
How many bills did Barack Obama sponsor as a Senator? Did you use that as a factor when considering your endorsement?
This isn’t reporting. It’s lazy Googling.
Good Lord, Doug, you are the most negative, fault-finding person I believe I have ever run across.
This most certainly IS reporting. It is a factual exploration of something that I understand intuitively from having followed these people over the years. I could not have given you any stats about their legislative activity because I don’t track such things. Numbers don’t interest me; not in that way. I just knew, and have told you, that Vincent is and would be in the future more effective.
And Corey took the trouble to see whether it was true by exploring the record — NOT by “lazy Googling.”
This is what reporting is.
Factual?
Factual would include ALL the bills and all the results. It would include the bills co-sponsored by Haley. It wouldn’t include the purported weight of the bills. It would include all the times Sheheen didn’t vote on a bill even though he was present in order to protect his political capital.
It was a puff piece by a reporter with an agenda for a newspaper with a liberal slant posted on a blog by a guy who (allegedly but never documented — where’s the reporting on that one?) got paid for political ads by the candidate that the piece attempts to present in a positive light.
Hey, I understand your mission: spin the message for Sheheen since he apparently can’t do it for himself.
I’m the most positive person I know. That’s because I deal in reality.
OK, so by Doug’s definition, it’s not “reporting” unless the entire paper on a given day is devoted to one “story.” Only it’s not a story at all. It doesn’t contain a single sentence written by a reporter, because there’s no room. In place of the writing by the reporter, it consists of one bill after another, copied and pasted into the text file and strung all together, without any nasty biased REPORTING to make sense of it.
Would that be perfect? Would that satisfy? Because it wouldn’t satisfy most readers I’m familiar with. Which is why I can’t think of a single newspaper — the NYT, the WSJ, the Washington Times, what have you — that has adopted that model.
News reporting requires a certain level of the kind of trust that society, from our system of representative democracy to capitalism, is based upon — AND CANNOT FUNCTION WITHOUT. Many, many things undermine that trust, from the major political parties and their attendant interest groups to the mass media that have created a legion of cynics by always reporting what’s wrong in society, and never given the larger context that would allow for the kind of trust that is necessary for things to function normally.
If you don’t trust the reporter, don’t read the paper. But don’t say he’s not “reporting” when he is.
“Good Lord, Doug, you are the most negative, fault-finding person I believe I have ever run across.” — Brad
Have you forgotten about Michael P.?
Given the challenge to look at the bills Sheheen created, I went to http://www.scstatehouse.gov/, created an account, and started pulling reports for Sheheen.
Here’s an example of one of Sheheen’s bills from 2005-2006 that was enacted:
“S 0425 Concurrent Resolution, By Sheheen and Malloy
Similar (H 3368)
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION TO REQUEST THAT THE DEPARTMENT
OF TRANSPORTATION NAME THE BRIDGE THAT CROSSES THOMPSON
CREEK ALONG SOUTH CAROLINA HIGHWAY 9 IN THE TOWN OF
CHESTERFIELD THE “HOOVER FAY BELL BRIDGE” AND TO ERECT
APPROPRIATE MARKERS OR SIGNS AT THIS BRIDGE THAT CONTAIN
THE WORDS “HOOVER FAY BELL BRIDGE”.”
Wow. These are the kinds of visionary statesmen South Carolina needs.
Here’s another one the the Free Times reporter counts as a plus for Sheheen enacting:
“S 0596 (Rat # 0084, Act # 0068) General Bill, By Sheheen
AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 56-7-10, AS AMENDED, CODE OF LAWS
OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO THE USE OF THE UNIFORM
TRAFFIC TICKET BY ALL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS, SO AS TO
DELETE THE PROVISION THAT ALLOWS A LAW ENFORCEMENT
AGENCY TO AUTOMATE THE ISSUANCE OF A UNIFORM TICKET IF
APPROVED BY THE DEPARTMENT, AND PROVIDE THAT A LAW
ENFORCEMENT AGENCY MAY UTILIZE COMPUTERS AND OTHER
ELECTRONIC DEVICES TO ISSUE UNIFORM TRAFFIC CITATIONS AND
STORE INFORMATION RESULTING FROM THE ISSUANCE OF A TRAFFIC
CITATION IF THIS METHOD OF ISSUING A CITATION HAS BEEN
APPROVED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY; TO AMEND
SECTION 56-7-20, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE NUMBER OF COPIES
AND COLORS OF THE COPIES CONTAINED IN A TRAFFIC TICKET
AND THE PURPOSE OF THE COPIES, SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT EACH
PRINTED COPY MUST BE LABELED WITH ITS PURPOSE, TO PROVIDE
THAT A HANDWRITTEN TRAFFIC TICKET MUST CONSIST OF FOUR
COPIES, TO REVISE THE PURPOSE OF EACH COPY OF A TRAFFIC
TICKET, TO ELIMINATE THE PINK COPY OF THE TICKET, AND TO PROVIDE
THE NUMBER OF COPIES AND PURPOSE OF EACH COPY OF A
TICKET GENERATED BY ELECTRONIC MEANS;”
It appears this basically describes how many copies and what color a traffic ticket can be. Again, how did the state survive without this?
Here’s another one:
“AN ACT TO AMEND THE CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976,
BY ADDING SECTION 39-41-295 SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT MOTOR
FUEL MAY BE DISPENSED AT UNATTENDED SERVICE STATIONS IF
THE DISPENSING DEVICE HAS AN AUTOMATIC SHUT-OFF VALVE
THAT IS ACTIVATED WHEN THE SALE REACHES THIRTY GALLONS
AND TO REQUIRE THE DISPENSING DEVICE TO BE EQUIPPED WITH
EMERGENCY CONTROLS AND THE SERVICE STATION WITH FIRE
EXTINGUISHERS.”
Astounding. The government (thanks to Sheheen) can now make us feel safe that a gas pump can work unattended as long as it shuts off at 30 gallons.
All this legislative “action” shows is that the government has too many lawyers making too many laws. It also shows how biased the reporter was in coming up with his meaningless statistics.
I’ll take the low-fat Haley version, thank you.
The reporter could have provided a link to the data used in his reporting. And who reads newspapers any more? It doesn’t cost any more to provide data in a web article than to provide a summary that paints a far rosier picture of Sheheen than the details do.
Here’s an example of good reporting:
http://www.thestate.com/2010/09/15/1465895/knots-reprimanded-ordered-to-pay.html
Brad, the story as you posted it was virtually worthless. But thanks to Norm Ivey, who fleshed it out a bit, it had far more impact.
Still, given the utter absurdity of folks like “General” Glenn McConnell we are sadly stuck with a pretty broken government.
Isn’t researching data fun? One item the reporter for the Free Times glossed over was that Sheheen had spent four years in the SC House prior to moving over to the Senate. Let’s take a look at Sheheen’s body of work for his first two years in the House:
# of bills sponsored: 2
# of bills enacted: 0
Yet the reporter compares Haley’s first four years to Sheheen’s years 5-8. Obviously (as Brad frequently points out), it takes years of experience to figure out how to understand the complexities of the legislature.
Here’s Sheheen’s body of work for his first two years in office:
“H 3504 General Bill, By Sheheen, Altman and Rivers
A BILL TO AMEND SECTION 8-13-1354, AS AMENDED, CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO INDENTIFICATION OF A PERSON INDEPENDENTLY PAYING FOR AN ELECTION-RELATED COMMUNICATION AND EXCEPTIONS, SO AS TO REQUIRE THE NAME AND ADDRESS OF THE CANDIDATE, COMMITTEE, OR PERSON MAKING THE EXPENDITURE TO BE PRINTED IN FOURTEEN POINT TYPE.”
This is HILARIOUS! A bill that specifies what size font is used on political communications? HA HA HA HA!
and:
H 4864 General Bill, By Sheheen, Altman and Coleman
A BILL TO AMEND THE CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, BY ADDING SECTION 22-5-115 SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT A MAGISTRATE MAY ISSUE A NOTICE FOR TRIAL BASED UPON THE SWORN STATEMENT OF AN AFFIANT WHO IS NOT A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER BUT MAY NOT ISSUE AN ARREST WARRANT IF THE AFFIANT IS NOT A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER.
Purpose? Legal mumbo jumbo. Groundbreaking stuff here.
Oh, he did also submit three resolutions during that term:
”
H 4321 Concurrent Resolution, By Sheheen, Cotty, Lucas and J.M. Neal
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION TO REQUEST THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION TO ERECT SIGNS AT THE CAMDEN CITY LIMITS ON UNITED STATES HIGHWAY 521 SOUTH AND NORTH, AND UNITED STATES HIGHWAY 1 EAST AND WEST, THAT CONTAIN THE WORDS “CAMDEN-HOME OF BASEBALL HALL-OF-FAMER LARRY DOBY”
H 5056 Resolution, By Sheheen
A HOUSE RESOLUTION EXTENDING THE PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO THE CAMDEN HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM, COACH JIMMY NEAL, AND OTHER SCHOOL OFFICIALS OF KERSHAW COUNTY ON THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2002, AT A TIME TO BE DETERMINED BY THE SPEAKER, FOR THE PURPOSE OF BEING RECOGNIZED FOR WINNING THE 2001 CLASS AAA STATE FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP.
H 5057 Resolution, By Sheheen
A HOUSE RESOLUTION TO WELCOME THE CAMDEN HIGH SCHOOL 2001 AAA STATE CHAMPION BULLDOGS TO THE SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND CONGRATULATE THEM ON THEIR SUPERLATIVE FOOTBALL SEASON AND BREATHTAKING OVERTIME TITLE VICTORY.
One of these days, we’ll find some legislators who are interested in doing real work instead of this b.s.
Finally! I’m getting the point across to Doug that a lawmaker isn’t much use until he or she has been in office several years.
THANK you for acknowledging the point. It’s enough to make me forgive your facetiousness about saying a simple reporting of a news development is “reporting” while deliberately going out to find out something that no one else is reporting is not. Or your cherry-picking of bills that you find to be worthless, but which are actually part of the fabric of being a responsive elected representative. (Do you REALLY think there’s something wrong with taking 5 minutes to draft a resolution to congratulate the state champions from your district? Do you also think Obama shouldn’t have taken a moment to congratulate the national champion Gamecocks? No, it’s not the same as fostering Mideast peace — and it’s definitely not the part of public service I’d like — but it means a lot to the players, and it costs virtually nothing.)
Finally, Susan, I have not forgotten Michael P. He still tries to comment at least 5 times a day. But that’s a case of someone with hostility issues. Doug’s not hostile. He just criticizes everything, and is never satisfied. In other words, he actually IS the way my wife thinks I am…
Doug, the traffic ticket bill does serve a useful purpose. It may seem a bit legaleez but it is essential to make changes like this in order to accomodate improvements that DPS is trying to implement with regard to creating an electronic version of the traffic ticket. (I know this because I was a part of this process). Sorry but this really is important legislation even if it’s not sexy.
As for the 30 gallon cutoff, that seems like a pretty important safety issue.
I’m afraid you’ve only made Brad’s point that Sheheen IS, in fact, moving important legislation through the general assembly.
@brad
There’s nothing wrong with taking five minutes to congratulate a football team. But how do you think that congratulatory message made it into the public record? The resources used to document, store, etc. that one statement probably cost the taxpayers $100 or more when you break it down. Multiply that by every senator and rep who has a group to recognize.
The fact that understanding how to get a bill enacted takes years is not a positive. The complexity of the process combined with having to get through the good old boy network that has been in place for decades is the reason for the length of time required. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we had term limits, we’d see new legislators have more power to do the things they were elected to do.
@bud
Why does it take a legislator to make the decision? Why can’t the DPS make the decision autonomously?
As for the gas pump issue – who came up with 30 gallons as the cutoff? What if 28 is safer? or 24?
Here’s the problem with creating laws: you have to enforce them. What happens if a gas station doesn’t comply with this law? Assume there is a fine. Then someone has to collect the fine. What if they don’t pay the fine? Then someone has to begin a legal process.
There is a system in place already to deal with gas stations that might have a safety issue that causes a customer to be harmed. It’s called insurance.
@ Doug – training wheels for legislators. Gotta start somewhere. Apparently, he and Haley are still using them. After this, either one will be uniquely qualified to run for the presidency.
Think if Haley had been the sponsor of the traffic ticket bill it would be a really important piece of legislation?