This just in from Wesley Donehue over at the SC Senate:
Columbia, SC – May 4, 2012 – Senate Judiciary Chairman Larry Martin today announced that he will call an emergency meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, May 8, and 10:00 a.m. for the purpose of discussing and passing legislation aimed at allowing candidates affected by the recent Supreme Court decision back onto primary ballots.
A joint resolution introduced by Senator Kevin Bryant and others would give candidates who filed the rest of their paperwork on time to have an additional 12-hour period to provide their Statements of Economic Interest to political party officials in order to complete their filing requirements and preserve a spot on the ballot.
Martin, who supports the Bryant measure, said he will call the meeting in order to get the resolution to the Senate floor as quickly as possible.
“I don’t fault the Supreme Court for their decision, but clearly there is a deficiency in the law if so many people were adversely affected by these requirements,” Senator Martin said. “Our democratic process should not be derailed by what amounts to a technicality. People across South Carolina deserve a chance to vote for those who made a good faith effort to comply with the law, particularly when they had every reason to believe they would appear on the ballot. The General Assembly needs to step in quickly and rectify what I believe would be a real disservice to voters if allowed to stand.”
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Don’t know what I think of that. I was just starting to warm up to the idea of a bunch of people running general election campaigns outside of the party system…
What do y’all think?
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By the way, there’s a list of GOP candidates barred from the primary ballot over at thestate.com. No sign of a similar list of Democrats yet…
I think they’ll screw up the system even more if they try to do that, because won’t it require pre-clearance from Department of Justice? I’m with you, let’s have a bunch of petition candidates with legitimate shots at winning in November.
Not sure if I have enough knowledge to really comment intelligently. But I will anyway. Seems like it should be a simple matter to have a straighforward list of requirements in a checklist form so that a candidate can conform. If not then there needs to be a change. If such a checklist DOES exist and these candidates simply failed to follow it then it seems to me they are very qualified to start with. Heck, Alvin Greene managed to get on the ballot. How hard can it be.
… not very qualified to start with.
A handy list of Horry races and candidates affected. Mostly GOP losing out over here.
Funny how they can jump on an issue like this immediately but have trouble getting anywhere with any issue that involves actually doing something productive for the state.
What a bunch of self-interested hacks.
I think it would be great if we had people running outside the main parties. Maybe then we could have elections that allowed for a variety of choices instead of just 2, both of whom kowtow to their respective parties crazies.
There is no “deficiency in the law”. The deficiency is in the candidates who either can’t follow instructions or did not want to have their financial interests known.
Next time I get a parking ticket, I’m going to claim there is a deficiency in the law that requires me to pay attention to how much time I have on the meter.
Here’s a simple economic interests form:
1) List the names of all entities from which you derived any monetary compensation in any form in the past two years which totaled more than $1000.
2) What do you or your spouse own? List homes, rental property, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, business interests.
3) What is your net worth rounded to the nearest $250K? If over $500K, provide a notarized letter from a CPA or financial planner certifying the estimate.
How ever opaque the Ethics form may be, I have a hard time feeling sorry for people who want to, essentially, sit on the board of a multi billion dollar operation, and can’t fill out a form in time.
How is this not ex post facto legislation? Is that legal in SC?
Doug, Doug, Doug, in South Carolina? Surely you jest. Checklists and real financial forms? The SEI stuff started after Operation Lost Trust, did it not? Remember that? A bunch of legislators were arrested for being crooks. Then the people that were left in the legislature passed a bunch of ethics rules for state employees. Let’s summarize: Legislators get caught being crooks. State employees get new ethics rules. Doesn’t that make sense to everyone?
And just this week, our stupendous governor threatens to expose other legislators’ shenanigans if they come after her for some of her shenanigans. Ooh! It’s a great WEEK in South Carolina!
Look at the economic interest forms. Almost NOTHING is required to be disclosed.
“There is no “deficiency in the law”. The deficiency is in the candidates who either can’t follow instructions or did not want to have their financial interests known.
”
Well the electronic filing screwed a bunch of people. Try messing around the election commisions website. Its terrible.
Its horrible to search and even MORE horrible to enter stuff in.
From my interviews from the city of cola elections ALL the candidates have problems with it. It will randomly erase stuff. Doesnt show you when you save. Its just not clear.
The website adds to the confusion rather than clarifying the process.
As far as amedning the law as long as its bipartisan and EVERYONE gets the even treatment im for it.
It’s done. They’re toast. That’s how incumbents remain incumbents; by making it more difficult for challengers to challenge them.
The State ‘splained it today. Thank you, Adam Beam! Apparently the report is supposed to be filed online and with the same person the candidacy filing is made–which is generally done in person. Seems kind of hard to figure out, to me. What the people who got into trouble did was file online. They were supposed to file with their candidacy filing. I guess then it goes online….
We could consider this situation a good test for the candidates. If they can figure this mess out then maybe they’re smart enough to figure out how to run the government. Maybe we should keep it as is. Or even make it more complicated. That would weed out many folks who may lack the proper analytical skills to be effective as a public servant.
I agree with bud. If you can’t follow directions – no candidacy for you!
Something I meant to respond to earlier, when Doug said, “What a bunch of self-interested hacks.”
How do you figure? A powerful incumbent tries to do something about a problem than eliminated CHALLENGERS to incumbents from the ballot? How is that in any way self-interested? How does it make someone a “hack”?
The fact that they can spend time on stupid issues like this and not spend time on actual work is what makes them self-interested hacks.
Which is more of a crisis – this issue of candidates not filing forms correctly or, I don’t know know, tax reform, education reform, job creation??
They love playing internal process games while ignoring real issues. No different than the time wasted on naming highways, recognizing little league team, etc. It’s all fun and games with no real productivity. Those career politicians love to congregate in the State House, slap each other on the back, wink and nod, go get some barbecue for lunch, then write up an expense report for all the work they’ve done.
It’s a system full of people who do very little and when they do actually do something, it’s wrong.
Hacks.
Whether the ballot is accessible to the very people you’re always saying we need — nonincumbents — is a pretty crucial issue in our representative democracy. It’s not an “internal process game.” It’s hard to imagine anything more fundamental. How can you get anything else right if you can’t get that right?
Now that the issue is out it’s unlikely any future candidates will fail to get the proper paper work done. All of a sudden it really isn’t an issue at all.
If the candidates who were kicked off the ballot have some record of submitting their information to the online system then they should be allowed on the ballot. If the system was designed without some form of confirmation email, then the person or persons who designed the system should be fired.
Excellent discussion on Fits News about the fairness of the economic disclosure reporting.
http://www.fitsnews.com/2012/05/07/about-those-statements-of-economic-interest/