Category Archives: Government restructuring

The salaries Nikki Haley wants to pay seem about right

Did y’all see this in The State today:

Gov. Nikki Haley’s top staffers will be paid more than their Sanford-era predecessors, according to salary data released by Haley’s office Thursday.

But Haley’s staff will cost taxpayers less than former Gov. Mark Sanford’s staff because it will have fewer staffers, spokesman Rob Godfrey said….

Haley’s 16-person staff will be paid a total of $1.07 million, $71,000 under its state-set budget. According to the current state budget, Sanford’s office was authorized to have 36 employees, paid a total of $1.2 million.

Haley’s chief of staff, Tim Pearson, is the largest beneficiary, according to the records. He will be paid a salary of $125,000 a year. Sanford’s chief of staff, Scott English, now chief of staff at the state Education Department, earned $98,000….

Hey, I’m all for it, generally speaking. I get sick and tired of governors and others in important positions pandering to voters by being cheapskates in hiring staff. They get what they pay for, and the quality of governance suffers as a result.

When you don’t pay enough, you get green political hacks who bring very little to government service. To me, the 125k Nikki plans to pay Tim Pearson seems about right — respectable, but not too exorbitant for SC. Whether Pearson himself is actually worth it, or a, well, political hack who’s being rewarded for his service, remains to be seen. I don’t know him well enough at this point to say. (And what few thoughts I have about him I’ve already shared.) But Trey Walker I know, and I’m pretty confident he will earn his $122,775.

As for chief of staff, the salary itself seems about right, whether Pearson is the right guy or not. The goal should be to hire somebody who really knows how to get things done, someone of experience and talent. Someone like, for instance, Fred Carter — the Francis Marion University president, and Mark Sanford’s first chief of staff. In my 24 years of covering SC government and politics, I don’t think I’ve run into anyone who understands it all better than Fred. And while the kind of people you would want could command more in the private sector, the salary levels Nikki is offering would at least allow them to serve for a time without having to sell their homes.

Now, am I happy about everything in this announcement? No. Having fewer employees than the famously parsimonious Mark Sanford, essentially a do-nothing governor, hardly seems like a laudable goal. But at the same time, with the current budget crisis, it’s hardly a great time to be increasing the governor’s budget for staff. This governor will be presiding over more deep budget cuts throughout government. She has to share that austerity.

Here’s the fulcrum for me as to whether this is a good move overall or not: If the new gov is doing this (lowering the overall staff budget) as a pragmatic reaction to the current situation, fine. If she’s doing it to please her Tea Party crowd, or to pursue some abstract, arbitrary, ideological notion such as “shrinking government” just for the sake of doing so, then it’s destructive. In the long run, South Carolina should spend more on gubernatorial staff, not less. The governor’s office has always been too weak and ineffective; it needs to be beefed up, eventually, to better serve South Carolina. When we get around to giving our governor the same sort of authority other governors have, he or she will need adequate staff to wield that power effectively. OTHER parts of government need to be reduced or eliminated (such as the Budget and Control Board), and a lot of those functions should move into an expanded governor’s office.

But that’s the long run. For now, it’s laudable both to pay people enough to get good people — as long as it’s not just to reward one’s campaign staff (and her senior staff is NOT just campaign cronies) — and to keep the overall budget now, as long as it’s a pragmatic response to hard times and now a blindly ideological move.

Sheheen gives restructuring another try

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As you’ll recall, I made the point back during the election that the truly credible advocate for government reform who was running for governor — and the one with the best chance of cracking the Legislature’s resistance — was Vincent Sheheen?

Well, I did.

Undaunted by his loss, Vincent is still trying to change the system from within. I just got this release:

Sheheen Unveils Agenda For Change

Camden, SC – South Carolina state Senator Vincent Sheheen today released the legislation he pre-filed for the 2011 Legislative Session.

Sheheen issued the following statement:

“Today, I am pre-filing a legislative agenda that if enacted would fundamentally and dramatically reform the way South Carolina’s Government operates. If adopted, this Agenda for Change would bring responsibility to spending, restructure the governor’s responsibilities and powers, modernize the legislature’s operations, and crack down on waste, fraud and abuse within our government.”

“As a member of the minority party, my obligation and goal is to put forward and challenge the powers that be with ideas that would fundamentally reform what has become a broken government. My hope is that this year, the leaders of our state will embrace the true change that is so desperately needed in our long suffering state.”

Sheheen’s Agenda For Change:

1. Establishes a Department of Administration:

TO AMEND SECTION 1‑30‑10 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO THE AGENCIES OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF STATE GOVERNMENT, BY ADDING THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION; AND BY ADDING SECTION 1‑30‑125 TO ESTABLISH THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION AS AN AGENCY OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF STATE GOVERNMENT TO BE HEADED BY A DIRECTOR APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR UPON THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE, AND TO TRANSFER TO THIS NEWLY CREATED DEPARTMENT CERTAIN OFFICES AND DIVISIONS OF THE STATE BUDGET AND CONTROL BOARD, THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, AND OTHER AGENCIES, AND TO PROVIDE FOR TRANSITIONAL AND OTHER PROVISIONS NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DEPARTMENT.

2. Programmatic Budgeting

TO AMEND THE 1976 CODE BY ADDING SECTION 11‑11‑87 TO REQUIRE THE GOVERNOR’S ANNUAL STATE BUDGET RECOMMENDATION AND THE REPORTS OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS AND THE SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE ON THE ANNUAL GENERAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT TO BE IN A PROGRAMMATIC FORMAT BY PROVIDING A NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION OF EACH SEPARATE PROGRAM ADMINISTERED BY A STATE AGENCY AND PROVIDING THE ELEMENTS THAT MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE NARRATIVE; AND TO REQUIRE THE BUDGET RECOMMENDATION FOR AN AGENCY TO INCLUDE AN OVERALL BUDGET RECOMMENDATION BY BUDGET CATEGORY AND A SIMILAR RECOMMENDATION FOR EACH SEPARATE PROGRAM ADMINISTERED BY THE AGENCY AND THE SPECIFIC SOURCE OF FUNDS APPROPRIATED FOR THE AGENCY.

3. Legislative Oversight / Accountability

TO AMEND SECTION 1‑30‑10 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE GOVERNMENT, TO MAKE TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS AND TO REQUIRE CERTAIN REPORTS FROM THE VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS; TO AMEND SECTION 8‑27‑10, RELATING TO THE DEFINITION OF REPORT FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION FOR REPORTS OF VIOLATIONS OF STATE OR FEDERAL LAW OR REGULATION, BY PROVIDING THAT A REPORT MAY BE A WRITTEN OR ORAL ALLEGATION OR TESTIMONY TO A LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE; TO AMEND CHAPTER 27 OF TITLE 8, RELATING TO EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION FOR REPORTS OF VIOLATIONS OF STATE OR FEDERAL LAW OR REGULATION, BY ADDING SECTION 8‑27‑60 TO PROVIDE THAT A SUMMARY OF THE PROVISIONS CONTAINED IN CHAPTER 27 ARE POSTED ON THE INTERNET WEBSITE OF EACH PUBLIC BODY SUBJECT TO THE PROVISIONS OF THAT CHAPTER; AND BY ADDING CHAPTER 2 TO TITLE 2, RELATING TO LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS, TO PROVIDE THAT THE STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY HAVE A DUTY TO REVIEW AND STUDY THE OPERATIONS OF THE STATE AGENCIES WITHIN THE COMMITTEE’S JURISDICTION, TO ESTABLISH COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT JURISDICTION, TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROCESS BY WHICH A COMMITTEE MAY INITIATE AN OVERSIGHT STUDY OR INVESTIGATION, TO PROVIDE FOR THE MANNER IN WHICH AN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE MAY ACQUIRE EVIDENCE OR INFORMATION RELATED TO THE STUDY OR INVESTIGATION, TO PROVIDE FOR PROGRAM EVALUATION REPORTS, THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY ARE REQUESTED, AND THE CONTENTS OF THE REPORTS, TO PROVIDE THAT ALL TESTIMONY GIVEN TO AN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE MUST BE GIVEN UNDER OATH, TO PROVIDE THAT WITNESSES TESTIFYING IN FRONT OF AN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE MAY BE REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL, AND TO PROVIDE THAT WITNESSES ARE GIVEN THE BENEFIT OF ANY PRIVILEGE WHICH HE COULD HAVE CLAIMED IN COURT AS A PARTY TO A CIVIL ACTION.

4. Establishes Inspector General

TO AMEND SECTION 1‑3‑240 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO REMOVAL OF OFFICERS BY THE GOVERNOR, TO PROVIDE THAT THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL MAY BE REMOVED BY THE GOVERNOR FOR MALFEASANCE, MISFEASANCE, INCOMPETENCY, ABSENTEEISM, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, MISCONDUCT, PERSISTENT NEGLECT OF DUTY IN OFFICE, OR INCAPACITY; AND TO AMEND TITLE 1 BY ADDING CHAPTER 6 TO CREATE THE OFFICE OF THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL, TO PROVIDE THAT THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL IS APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR WITH THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE, TO AUTHORIZE THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL TO ADDRESS FAUD, WASTE ABUSE, AND WRONGDOING WITHIN THE SOUTH CAROLINA EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE POWERS, DUTIES, AND FUNCTIONS OF THE OFFICE.

5. Prohibits state funded lobbyists

TO AMEND THE 1976 CODE BY ADDING SECTION 2‑17‑55 TO PROHIBIT THE USE OF PUBLIC FUNDS TO EMPLOY OR CONTRACT WITH A PERSON WHOSE ACTIVITIES INCLUDE THOSE RELATED TO LOBBYING AND TO PROVIDE EXCEPTIONS.

6. Requires Legislative Budgets to get cut like other agencies

TO AMEND CHAPTER 7, TITLE 2 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS, BY ADDING SECTION 2‑7‑67 TO PROVIDE THAT THE ANNUAL APPROPRIATIONS BILL MUST REDUCE APPROPRIATIONS TO THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO THE AVERAGE REDUCTION IN APPROPRIATIONS MADE FOR THE DEPARTMENTS, INSTITUTIONS, BOARDS, OR COMMISSIONS INCLUDED IN THE ACT.

You know what would be cool — I mean, really cool? If Nikki Haley would grab hold of this and swear to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Vincent on it. And do it NOW while legislators are still hoping to have a better relationship with her than they did with Sanford. (This would not sway Glenn McConnell, but who knows? If Nikki and Vincent were both pushing it, they might line up enough support to embolden senators to … dare I say it… defy Glenn’s will…)

I’d praise her and everything.

So why NOT repeal the 17th Amendment?

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So this morning Stan Dubinsky brought my attention to this piece by Christopher Hitchens, which in turn led me to this piece by Ross Douthat, in which he is defending the Tea Party from the charge of being a reincarnation of the John Birch Society thusly:

These parallels are real. But there’s a crucial difference. The Birchers only had a crackpot message; they never found a mainstream one. The Tea Party marries fringe concerns (repeal the 17th Amendment!) to a timely, responsible-seeming message about spending and deficits. Which is why, for now at least, it’s winning over independents in a way that movements like the Birchers rarely did…

I’m with Hitchens in that I grow weary of normal conservatives making excuses for the Tea Party. But that’s not why I bring this up. I bring it up to ask, why would repealing the 17th Amendment be considered a “fringe concern”? I actually consider it one of the more defensible TP positions. (I suspect that the TPers hold this position for reasons different from my own, but why be overcritical of a gift horse?)

The Framers created the House and Senate to be very different institutions, on a fundamental level. Actually, on a number of fundamental levels.

First, they wanted the constituencies to be different. That’s an essential element in making checks and balances work. The president is elected by the electoral college, which in turn is more or less selected by popular vote (although not originally, but hey, one fight at a time), and can only serve four years at a time (let’s also set aside the newfangled term limit). Judges are chosen by the president, with advice and consent of the Senate. The House of Representatives is the People’s House, and consists of directly, popularly elected delegates who have to run for election every five minutes (or two years, which amounts to the same thing), and are therefore particularly attuned to popular whims, ripples and twitches, in real time. Senators, by contrast, are supposed to be somewhat above that fray, and are supposed to represent STATES, not groups of individual voters.

Also, in connection with the idea that senators represent states rather than aggregations of individuals, each state has two, and only two. The idea being that we have the House for the sake of more populous states, and the senate to even things out a bit for the smallest states. At least, thank goodness, in all the “reforms” since the late 18th century, we haven’t done to the U.S. Senate what we’ve done here in South Carolina — utterly destroying the very notion of the senate as a thing apart by imposing single-member districts on it, just as we did to the House.

Nevertheless, what we have done is turn the U.S. Senate into another House, only with longer terms. Which sort of defeats the purpose of a bicameral legislature.

Yeah, I know the reasons why we made the change, and they will be shouted at me in response to this — but they are all arguments more suitable to a democracy than a republic. And the latter is what our founders rightly intended.

And… I also understand by “serious” conservatives would regard this as a “fringe concern,” so perhaps I was being a bit disingenuous above. It’s … esoteric. And for people who have lived their whole lives with the present state of affairs, there seems to be something actually unAmerican about letting legislatures choose senators. And I’m sure that I’ll hear emotional arguments that unfairly conflate the original arrangement with slavery. But what it actually was was an elegant part of a delicate balance, and that balance has been lost, as every member of both of the political branches runs about with his wet finger in the air.

Anyway, I raise the question in case someone has an argument, pro or con, that I haven’t heard yet. And also because, you know, I can’t leave well enough alone…

Sheheen’s restructuring plan

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Speaking of Doug Ross — back on a previous post, Doug complains again, and with considerable justice, that Vincent Sheheen is light on details about his advocacy for government reform. Well, he isn’t if you ASK him, but he doesn’t OFFER such explication — probably because he thinks everybody but Brad Warthen is bored by such stuff.

Well, here’s a little something to fill in the gaps (in addition to what I got him to say on “The Brad Show” last week). First, here’s a blog post I wrote at the time he came to pitch his plan to us at The State — long before he started to run for governor.

And here’s his bill on the subject.

In case you have trouble with the link (from my blog post) to his op-ed on the subject (it’s a Word file), here’s what he wrote at the time:

REVAMPING TWO BRANCHES OF OUR GOVERNMENT
Vincent Sheheen
Guest Columnist

For more than a decade, our great state has engaged in a repetitive argument over which branch of government should have more power, the legislative branch or the executive branch. This contentious argument about the balance of power misses the point and too often degenerates into fruitless bickering. The real point is that neither branch effectively fulfills its role in controlling and overseeing government operations and programs. We are trying to run a modern, sovereign government with essentially the same antiquated tools used for more than 100 years.

Our state’s government operation is like a multi-headed hydra, each head having a mind of its own, with little cooperation and no central guiding spirit. Our agencies often pursue their own agendas, operating in separate chimneys with little independent, organized oversight and no outside, regular evaluation of operations, programs or policies.

It is time to fundamentally change and modernize our government’s form, structure and mode of operation to create accountability within both the executive and legislative branches. During the next session of the General Assembly, I will propose the Government Accountability Act of 2008. If enacted, this legislation will transform the General Assembly’s operations, by requiring real oversight of government agencies. It will streamline our executive branch and increase accountability in government operations.

First, the bill requires the Legislature to fulfill its duties as an independent and effective branch of government with an obligation to continually evaluate and examine the operations of state programs and agencies. As currently structured, our Legislature simply passes laws and fails to perform almost any regular oversight of the effectiveness of state government or programs. My proposal provides a framework for the Legislature to fulfill these responsibilities.

The bill will force our General Assembly to move into the modern age by conducting regular oversight hearings on the operations of state government through adaptation of its current committee structure. Each committee will be required to systematically examine the operations of state government that fall within its jurisdictional boundaries, evaluating the real need for existing programs and determining what the future requires. Only then will the General Assembly truly be able to make informed decisions about the needs of our state.

Additionally, the Government Accountability Act will require the General Assembly to change our current budget practices. Right now, our annual appropriations bill is little more than an accounting document, listing out agencies and amounts of money allocated to them. Under my proposal, the Legislature will have to utilize a programmatic budget, requiring that each program have objective performance criteria for legislators to consider as we decide how much money is deserved for a specific program.

The bill will create a more efficient and functional executive branch by reducing the number of statewide elected officials, consolidating offices and devolving more power to the governor’s office. Importantly, the proposal will shift all truly administrative functions away from the Budget and Control Board and vest them in the governor. By making more agencies directly answerable to the governor and consolidating administrative functions, we provide the governor with more authority to fulfill his role as chief executive of the state. With increased authority will come increased responsibility and accountability for our governor to produce results.

To bring even further accountability to government operations, the bill will create an office of inspector general and strengthen protections for civic-minded state employees who report waste and misconduct. The office of inspector general will be charged with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the operations of state government. It is time that South Carolina has an officer whose single-minded purpose is investigating and evaluating such problems.

My bill will also strengthen our currently weak whistleblower law to encourage state employees to blow the whistle on misconduct, inappropriate practices or waste that hinders the proper functioning of our state government.

Empowering our government is not a zero-sum game. No one has to lose. In fact, the proposed Government Accountability Act makes all of South Carolina the winner. We must increase the efficacy of our government by changing the traditional role of the General Assembly to require continuous evaluation of government operations and programs. We must reform our budget process, restructure the executive branch to place more responsibility on the governor and create an inspector general to investigate and prosecute government misconduct.

Increasing power and accountability in one branch without addressing the deficiencies in the other will result in disappointment. The time for change is now; we cannot afford to wait.

Mr. Sheheen is a Camden attorney who represents Chesterfield, Kershaw and Lancaster counties in the state Senate.

If Vincent can get elected governor, he will have enormous leverage to get this passed. Which is one reason that a wonk like me is excited about his candidacy.

Haley wants to drop one thing Sanford did right

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I’m with Mark Sanford on this one:

Last week, Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley said she would do away with detailed executive budgets, which were typically ignored due to the acrimony between Sanford and lawmakers. Instead, Haley said, she would set a small list of priorities and work with lawmakers during the process.

In a message sent to Sanford’s campaign e-mail list, the outgoing governor argued his successor should also draft a detailed budget.

“These Executive Budgets have been vital in creating a budget blue print that showed how we could fund core services of government without raising taxes,” Sanford wrote, encouraging recipients to read a Post and Courier editorial on the subject. “They were important in showing the savings that might come from restructuring and consolidating government.”

Sanford does not mention Haley, a political ally who shares many of Sanford’s positions, by name in the e-mail.

Even with our weak-governor system, the governor is the one elected official with the closest thing to a governmentwide perspective — and has the broadest responsibility to voters. He (or she) should at the very least propose a budget setting priorities for spending, which lawmakers are then free to ignore the way they have since Carroll Campbell started the practice a couple of decades back. Campbell was right to go ahead and ACT like a governor, at least in advocacy terms, by submitting a budget, rather than waiting around to actually be put in charge of the executive branch.

Nikki Haley is on the right track looking for ways to antagonize lawmakers less. (Although it’s a bit late for that. Unlike Sanford, who started with a honeymoon, she’s already alienated legislative leaders to such an extent that if elected she would start out in a hole with them, and she knows it, and knows we know it, which is why she’s talking about this.) But this is the wrong item to start with. An executive budget, theoretical as it is, is a useful tool.

And while Mark Sanford went out of his way to alienate lawmakers so that they would ignore his budget proposals, along with the rest of his agenda, he put a lot of work into his budgets. And while they had their flaws, they were worth considering.

So would be Nikki Haley’s, were she elected. And so would Vincent Sheheen’s, which is why I hope he would continue to submit them. We need governors to actually take an interest in governing.

It’s great that Nikki wants to signal that she’d be different from Sanford. But this is the wrong way to start.

Cindi’s column on Lost Trust, 20 years on

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I missed Cindi Scoppe’s column over the weekend reminiscing about Lost Trust (which broke 20 years ago Sunday) until a reader mentioned Cindi’s “shout-out” to me:

If anything happened in the next year that wasn’t related to the sting, I can’t remember it. While I dissected the ethics proposals, my editor Brad Warthen led the newsroom on a yearlong examination of how the Legislative State produced not only corruption but a hapless government that answered to no one — laying the groundwork for one of the primary focuses of our later work on this editorial board.

Pushed along by Lost Trust, Gov. Carroll Campbell and Brad’s “Power Failure” series, the Legislature voted two years later to hand a third of the government over to the governor. Lawmakers unleashed the powerful State Grand Jury to investigate political corruption cases. They passed a reporter shield law after a judge ordered me and three other reporters held in federal custody for two days for refusing to testify in a corruption trial.

It was interesting to read Cindi’s memory of that from her perspective. I had forgotten a lot of the intrigue that my reporters — particularly Cindi — had to go through to find out what was going on. But then, I was mostly experiencing it second-hand, being the desk man that I was. Cindi and the others would come in with this stuff they had garnered in encounters reminiscent of Bob Woodward’s meetings with Deep Throat in the parking garage, and we’d figure out which outrageous items were worth pursuing to try to confirm immediately and which ones to set aside. And then, how in the world to nail down the relevant ones.

For me, at the epicenter of The State‘s coverage, it was a time for keeping a couple of dozen plates spinning, and was a daily challenge to an editor managing finite resources in the midst of stories that seemed to have an infinite number of branches, each one of which was a hot story in itself.

Mind you, Lost Trust wasn’t the only government scandal breaking that summer. We had the final act of the Jim Holderman collapse, a purchasing scandal involving a major agency (I don’t even remember which one now), the head of the Highway Patrol directly personally interfering with the DUI of the head of the local FBI office, and those are just the things that I remember sitting here. There was more. Fortunately, the governmental affairs staff in those days amounted to something (I may have been slightly down from my 1988 high of 10 reporters, but not by much), but there’s only so much that even that many people can do when so much is popping at the same time — and during the time of year when things are usually quiet.

And Lost Trust itself, alone, without those other scandals, would have totally consumed us days, nights and weekends. A full 10 percent of the Legislature indicted? Heady stuff.

We were well out ahead of the competition most days, and I felt proud of my team — Cindi and the others. Then the executive editor, who was new in the job (Gil Thelen), one busy day stopped by my desk to say it was all very well and good that we were staying ahead of the story and beating everybody on it, but what about the future? What, out of all this mess, might we be able to offer readers to give them the sense that something could be done about the dysfunction of SC government? I probably stared at him like he was a lunatic for wanting me to think about anything ELSE on top of the mad juggling I was doing at the moment, but I did think about it. And the result was the Power Failure series. I spent a year on it, supervising reporters from across the newsroom in producing a 17-installment opus that explained just how SC government was designed to fail.

And as Cindi notes, the themes developed at that time resonated through my work, and hers, for my entire 15 years on the editorial board.

Anton Gunn on why B&C Board didn’t need the money

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What do Doug Ross and Anton Gunn have in common? They were both thrilled to see the headline in The State this morning, “Budget Board finds millions to offset cuts” — Doug because he’d predicted all along the money would materialize, and Anton because he had predicted it in detail.

(And what do Anton, Mark Sanford and I all have in common? None of us believe the Budget and Control Board should exist. More on that later…)

Anton and I met Wednesday morning and he went over the spreadsheet below with me, which seems to show the agency had like $60 million lying around that it could plug the $25 million hole in operating funds vetoed by Gov. Sanford. I’ve been looking ever since for a couple of hours to write what he told me, and to try to confirm that the numbers meant what he thought they meant, but haven’t been able to. Every day has been like today … today, I just got out of the Converge SE conference, where I had been since 9:30 this morning. (The conference, by the way, was awesome.)

And as I was typing that paragraph above, my wife called me (I’m at the ADCO office) to say one of the twins split her lip and had to go to the hospital today, so I’m about to run over there right away. So I can’t go into Anton’s explanation.

But here’s his spreadsheet anyway. Some of it will at least seem self-explanatory. There’s an interesting narrative to go with it (if I were still at The State, it would have been my Sunday column), but it will probably be Monday before I can write that. (It’s all about his frustrations with the Board, combined with his frustrations with ever getting useful information about the budget before having to vote on it). And at least Monday before I can get any kind of response regarding what just happened from the B&C Board. (As well as their version of what these numbers mean.)

But here’s the raw material. I’ll be back to this early in the week. Gotta go check on my babies now…

If I were endorsing, I’d endorse Vincent Sheheen

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Ignore what I wrote in that last post. It does Vincent Sheheen a great disservice, by suggesting the reason to pick a Democratic ballot and vote for him tomorrow is simply because of the mere absence of negativity in his campaign.

He deserves a much more positive endorsement than that, for the simple reason that he is far and away the best candidate running for governor in 2010, a year in which we badly need new and visionary leadership in the governor’s office.

Of course, I put myself in a bind a couple of months back, when I sorta kinda decided not to endorse candidates as a blogger. I had all sorts of good reasons not to: No one was paying me to take all that aggravation. No longer representing the voice of the state’s largest newspaper (at least, that’s what it was when I was there), I had no institutional obligation to do it. And while doing it for the newspaper was business, if I did it on my own blog it would be personal, with all the many levels of messiness that entails. Then there was the unstated reason: For the first time ever, I found myself in a situation in which there would be a personal cost of sticking my neck out. A year’s unemployment had shown me how reluctant employers can be to take on someone with as much well-documented baggage as I have (much of it from having taking a stand FOR this powerful person, and AGAINST that one). And I was about to start trying to sell advertising, with the only thing I had to sell being my own brand and how it was perceived — and there is no surer, more infallible way to infuriate close to 50 percent of the public than to choose one candidate over another. Did I not owe it to my family to try to launch this enterprise on a sound footing, and not undermine it by making arrogant (at least, that’s how a lot of people perceive endorsements) pronouncements that would inevitably alienate? After all, I could be honest about what I think about candidates without taking that formal, irrevocable step.

Lots of good, solid, self-interested reasons not to endorse, right?

Well… sometimes one must stand up and be counted, even when one is not being paid to do so. Remember how, when Grace Kelly demanded to know why Gary Cooper had to make a suicidal stand against Frank Miller and his thugs when he wasn’t the marshal any more, he explained “I’ve got to, that’s the whole thing.“? Full of nuance, that Gary Cooper. Anyway, this is an “I just gotta” moment for me, minus the gunplay (we hope). There are things more important than my own self-interest, or the good of the blog. One of them is South Carolina’s crying need for new leadership at this point in its history.

Ours is still a poor state. On all sorts of measurements of economic and social and physical well-being, from income to health, we continue to be last where we want to be first, and first where we want to be last. We continue to have a political culture, and institutional structure, that reinforces that dynamic, and resists change more steadfastly than the government of any other state. Our government was designed by landed slaveholders to preserve the status quo, because that’s what benefited them. Those men are all gone, but the system of government designed to serve them still exists, and holds us back.

We are also held back by a lack of trust of each other, and a lack of faith in the idea that together, we can overcome the challenges that face us. This manifests itself in the phenomenon we see being played out so dramatically in the Republican primary this year, as the candidates — even candidates I would think would know better — compete to see who can be the most negative, the most rabidly anti-government. What does it mean to be anti-government, in this context? It means to deny faith in our ability to get together, people of different attitudes and philosophies, and work through our differences to build a better future to share.

The radical individualism that all of the Republican candidates embody this year — especially Nikki Haley, the front-runner — has been tried in South Carolina, over and over. Our current governor, Mark Sanford, is easily the most ideologically pure manifestation of that philosophy ever to hold that office.

It is painfully clear after eight years of Mark Sanford — whom I enthusiastically endorsed in 2002 — that such an “I, me, mine” approach to governance does not work. One cannot govern effectively when one holds governing in contempt. That should have been obvious then. It’s certainly obvious now.

Vincent Sheheen offers the positive alternative. Not the “big-government, liberal” alternative that the propagandists of the GOP will accuse him of offering (not because of anything he advocates, but because that is their reflexive, automatic reaction to everything), but a sensible, moderate South Carolina-friendly approach unencumbered by radical ideology of any kind. Before he began this campaign, he was pushing his own proposal for restructuring our government to make it effective and accountable for a change. It is a pragmatic approach that would actually have a chance of becoming law if a governor were behind it. Rather than throwing unacceptable ultimatums at the Legislature and reveling in lawmakers’ rejection, Vincent Sheheen would actually work with lawmakers of both parties (he has a proven ability to do so) to make his proposal a reality. Instead of a governor who can’t even work with his own party and doesn’t want to, imagine how wonderful it would be to have one who works amicably with both?

Now, many of these same things can also be said of Jim Rex. He, too, has a positive, teamwork approach. He’s worked across party lines in advancing his public school choice initiatives, and has formed alliances with some of the most conservative Republicans in trying to improve the way schools are funded in South Carolina. But, because it’s been his job, his policy experience in office has been limited to education. And while better education may be the thing South Carolina needs most, it’s not the only thing; Vincent Sheheen’s experience with public policy is broader, despite his youth.

And in this election, when we have such a need for new beginnings, his youth is an advantage.

That I would say that would surprise some people who have worked most closely with me. I was the grumpy eminence grise on the editorial board who would ask a young candidate, “How old ARE you, anyway?” with a tone that suggested they hadn’t lived enough to be ready for the office they were seeking.

But it’s time now for a generational change. And among the 39-year-old Sheheen’s strengths is the fact that he offers us that.

An old friend, sensing I was leaning that way — because I’ve been honest about what I think of candidates, however much I’ve resisted a formal endorsement — asked me several weeks ago why I would choose Vincent over Jim. I answered as follows, after protesting that I was not, repeat, NOT going to endorse:

Now between you and me, I’d go with Vincent. So you inferred correctly.

Several reasons:
1. You know that with me, it’s seldom about the sum of policy positions. I would be hard-pressed to tell you [off the top of my head] what their policy positions are, beyond the fact that nothing has jumped out at me as bad. Rex has a plan for spending cigarette tax money that I’m not sure about, and I know Vincent’s all about restructuring, to cite a couple of differences that jump to mind. And the restructuring is a biggie.
2. So that leaves us with character, and I think the character of both is fine. But I’ve seen Vincent grow during this campaign in terms of his ability to connect with voters, while Rex is still that trustworty elder statesman who I’d be OK with as governor, but who isn’t likely to inspire. Vincent generates a newness, a sense of a new generation taking over from all the nonsense of the past, that is appealing. And he wears it well; he has his head on straight.
3. Vincent could work with the Legislature. He’s one of them, and that helps make up for being a Democrat. He would come in with lawmakers knowing that about him. He could make a difference. Rex is the guy that they’re accustomed to thinking of as “that ONE statewide Democrat,” and they just won’t be as likely to want to engage with him.
4. Vincent could win in November. Normally I wouldn’t mention that, but this year it’s important. The Republicans are all running so hard to the right, trying so hard to convince us that, in varying ways, they will be Mark Sanfords — even Henry, who should know better — that this year I just don’t see anything good coming out of any of them becoming governor. We so desperately need a break from what we have. And that makes it vitally important that the Democratic nominee not only be someone who’d be an improvement over what we have, but who could WIN in the face of the odds, which are always against the Democrat.

Let me stress again the generational factor. South Carolina needs a fresh start, a real break with its recent past. Vincent embodies that the best. This is a decision I’ve come to gradually, in my own holistic, intuitive way, but I’ve tried to spell it out as systematically as I can for you.

To elaborate on that: Rex radiates the aura of a civic-minded retired guy who’s willing to “give back” if there’s no one else to do the job. Vincent wants to build a better South Carolina, the one that he and his young children will live in. Makes a difference.

It occurs to me that I do my readers a disservice by sharing those thoughts privately with one friend, but not openly with them. So there it is. It may seem to be high on intangibles and low on specifics, but that’s because I had already reached the conclusions that on the specifics, I’ve concluded that Vincent is sound. That makes the intangibles — the ability to inspire, the ability to be positive rather than negative — of great importance. We didn’t worry about the intangibles (such as his aloof manner, his sleep-on-the-futon quirkiness, his hermitlike aversion to the company of other Republicans) with Mark Sanford, and look where it got us.

As I’ve explained before, none of the Republicans is offering us anything positive for our future. That puts me in the unaccustomed position of not having a preferred candidate on that side. But there is no doubt that there is a Democrat who stands well above them all, as well as being a stronger candidate than any in his own party.

That candidate is Vincent Sheheen.

At least, that would be what I’d say if I were endorsing.

Tea Partiers onto something: Repeal the 17th!

They’re coming back…

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As the day has worn on, I haven’t thought of anything particularly clever to say about the news that the Legislature is coming back to town. I’ll just make these three quick points, and turn it over to y’all:

I don’t know that lawmakers should try to rush into impeachment proceedings — although if they’re going to do it, I’d rather they get it out of the way so it doesn’t waste another legislative session, the way Sanford’s foolishness over the stimulus wasted the last one.
Sanford’s right that the department of Employment Security should report to the governor. Of course, he’s done all he could over the past year to undermine the case. It didn’t help with the commissioners disclosed that this governor had never been interested enough in what they do to have a real meeting with them in his six years in office.
In case you wondered, I don’t have a dog in this fight, in the sense that I don’t think I, as an unemployed person, derive any benefit from what lawmakers are coming back to do. Long story, which I’m not going to get into right now, but suffice to say that as of this moment, I am not claiming unemployment compensation.

That’s all for now. What do y’all think?

A point about our history

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Santee offered a nice, quick review of S.C. history back on this post:

Santee says:

October 1, 2009 at 9:00 am (Edit)

South Carolina always has been an interesting place. The Lords Proprietors decided we were too much of a pain in the neck to keep, for good reasons; they dumped us back on the English government. The colonial government was run by a handful of families for their own benefit. They were charming people — large planters and slave traders, pretenders to English aristocracy, living up to and beyond their considerable means by taking advantage of everyone else in sight regardless of race, creed or color. The back country didn’t get into the Revolution until late because they knew the government in Charleston was worse for them than the one in London. Eventually a similar handful of families pushed secession, to hang on to their slaves. After Reconstruction we were unique among southern states in not electing new younger politicians with a vision for the future. SC brought back those old men longing for their lost rice and cotton plantations. The state’s leaders (especially Pitchfork Ben) thought it wise to create a state government that could not fully function other than through a good old boy network, just in case an African-American might be elected Governor. They might not be sure to control who was elected, but they were sure to control the old boy network. The consequences of this history are still with us in mistrust of government, in mistrust of others, in lack of shared purpose, and in general government malfunction. Personally, I’m tired of it, but I see no end in sight.

But I had to quibble on one point, and since I went to the trouble of typing it, I thought I’d offer it here in a separate post:

Brad Warthen says:

October 1, 2009 at 3:07 pm (Edit)

Nice review of our history, Santee, but I will offer one amendment. We tend to blame our current form of government on Pitchfork Ben, on account of the constitution of 1895 coming along during his watch. He was a terror, and makes a convenient villain. My journalistic forebears started The State to fight his machine, and one of the newspaper’s founders was shot down by a Tillman (who got away with it).

My own ancestors despised what he represented, even though he lived next door to my great-grandparents in Kensington, Md., when he was in the Senate. (My great-grandfather was an attorney from SC who had gone to Washington to represent the Treasury and later was one of the men who started the General Accounting Office.) I wrote a column once referring to my grandmother’s memory of having sat on Tillman’s lap as a little girl, which appalled her parents, although she didn’t understand why at the time.Anyway, as neat as it is to blame it all on him, the form of government enshrined in the 1895 constitution merely reproduced what we had had since the time of the Lords Proprietors. John Locke devised a system for Lord Anthony Ashley-Cooper that placed diffused power in the hands of the landed, slaveholding gentry. This was maintained through colonial times to make sure the King’s governor had no real power, and the system continued up through 1865.
Keeping power scattered through the Legislature and away from the governor elected by all the people has always been the South Carolina way. This once served our oligarchy fairly well; it doesn’t serve any of us well any more.

Notes from the Benjamin campaign

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Quite literally…

This morning when I met with Steve Benjamin and Jack Van Loan at The Gourmet Shop, Steve started doodling on his legal pad to illustrate benjamin-notes2 the problem with Columbia’s current system of government. As you may be able to better see at right in the low-res action photo from my Blackberry, he drew two boxes. The one on top showed how in the current system, forces push from every direction, and the result is you go nowhere. He was suggesting that with a strong mayor system (the box below), you can focus political energy to move forward.

Then later, he stared illustrating all sorts of other concepts. The list to the right center shows what he thinks a leader needs to do in Columbia. At the bottom is a series of questions elaborating on the building and articulating a vision things.

Anyway, always come to bradwarthen.com for the best stolen documents from political campaigns…

OK, the truth: I asked Steve for the page, and he gave it to me. I like to try all sorts of content on the blog…

Tom Davis appointment a case of qualification trumping connection

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Here’s something you don’t see every day in South Carolina:

Columbia, SC – July 6, 2009 – South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler announced today that he has recommended State Senator Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) for appointment to the State Ports Authority Legislative Oversight Committee. The 10-member legislative committee was recently created with the passage of the port-restructuring bill to help ensure stability and efficiency in state ports operations.

Tom Davis is one of Gov. Mark Sanford’s closest friends and advisers, and has said the gov should stay in office. Harvey Peeler was one of the first GOP senators to call on the governor to step down. Tom served previously on the Ports Authority, as a gubernatorial appointee. And he holds up the Jasper port deal with Georgia as a key achievement of the Sanford administration (when I suspect it is actually a key achievement of Tom Davis).

But Sen. Peeler appointed Sen. Davis anyway. We need to see more of that in South Carolina, a lot more: People being chosen for office because of their qualifications, rather than who their friends are.

Anyway, good choice there, Sen. Peeler.

Don’t EVER hire city manager

Adam Beam, Twittering on Columbia budget, reports, “Mayor Bob Coble: We will not hire a city manager in next year’s budget.”

Here’s an idea: Don’t ever hire one. Let Charles Austin be the last. Use this opportunity to switch NOW to a strong-mayor form of government. Go from things being run by an unelected official with seven bosses to having one, ELECTED official running the city, and accountable to all of its voters.

There’ll never be a better time than now.

Adam also reports, “No picnic for Columbia employees next year to save taxpayers $10k.”

I say, let ’em have their picnic. But give ’em a boss who answers directly to the voters.

Sanford, McConnell agree on one thing: It’s about power

When I read the lead story in today’s paper, I was struck by the headline, “Sanford: Stimulus suit about power, not money.”

What struck me was that that was exactly what Glenn McConnell said about the dispute, that it was all about power.

Usually, when McConnell and Sanford square off on gubernatorial power, I’m on the governor’s side. I’m speaking of his efforts to gain for the chief executive the actual executive powers that the other 49 governors in the nation wield, so that the governor’s office has a chance to be both effective and accountable. McConnell has been a champion of those resisting that since at least the Campbell administration. And of all those who resist it, he probably has the clearest notion why: He is jealous of senatorial power.

But the governor’s arguments in this case are patently ridiculous. Even if we got everything that he and I want in the way of restructuring, the legislature would still be (and should be) the entity that appropriates money, and it would still have the power to override gubernatorial vetoes with a two-thirds majority.

The line-item veto is one area where the governor has all the power he needs (more than the president of the U.S., for instance). And to have his way, all he has to do is make a sufficiently reasonable argument that a third of lawmakers go along with him. That’s really not an onerous provision for the governor — unless he’s Mark Sanford, and he has thrown away every opportunity he might have had to get as many as a third of lawmakers to listen to him.

McConnell gets way harsh on the gov

Thought you might be interested in this release from Glenn McConnell. Several points I’ll make about it:

First, I don’t often see dramatic political statements from McConnell. He’s generally not one for public posturing in this particular way.
What you see here is a particularly articulate expression of the extreme frustration that lawmakers have experienced with this governor. Sen. McConnell is fully fed up, and expresses why in no uncertain terms.
McConnell is one of the most ardent libertarians in the General Assembly. It’s one thing for Bobby Harrell or Hugh Leatherman to be fed up with our anti-government governor, but a libertarian really has to try to turn the Senate President Pro Tempore against him to this extent.
That said, Sen. McConnell is a passionate defender of legislative prerogatives and state’s rights, which makes the statement a little less remarkable. But only a little.

Anyway, here’s the statement:

SC Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell Responds to Governor’s Lawsuit

McConnell: “Governor asks federal judge to usurp states’ rights in quest for more power”

Columbia, SC – May 21, 2009 – South Carolina Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell today issued the following statement in response to Governor Mark Sanford’s lawsuit:

“Governor Sanford says this court case is about the “balance of power.” The truth is that this case is about his power. The Governor wants more of it, and he’s willing to trample over states’ rights to get it. He has run to the federal courts asking them to reinterpret our state Constitution so as to give him powers not granted to him by the people of South Carolina. While we have debated the 10^th Amendment, little did we know the Governor was conspiring to ride over it in the federal courts.

For seven years Governor Mark Sanford has worked tirelessly to increase his power and the scope of South Carolina’s executive branch of government. While working to centralize power under one individual, the Governor has continuously attacked the General Assembly for what he describes as liberal tendencies. Never before have I witnessed such hypocrisy as I did today when Governor Sanford asked a federal judge to usurp South Carolina’s rights.

Whether the stimulus money should have been appropriated by the United State Congress was a federal matter. But the question of separation of powers involves the duties of the executive and legislative branches of government as prescribed by the South Carolina Constitution. As such, the rightful arbiter is the South Carolina Supreme Court. Either he is fearful of a South Carolina court ruling or he is playing to a national audience.

I disagree with Congress’ stimulus plan, but I know that it’s fiscally irresponsible to let South Carolina tax dollars go to other states while we struggle to fund education and public safety at appropriate levels. We have received clarification from the United States Department of Education that if we do not formally apply for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Program by July 1st, our stimulus funds will be allocated to other states. Governor Sanford’s move may ensure that our tax dollars will be caught up in legal proceedings for what could be up to two years. He may have finally found a way to send our tax dollars to New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Michigan. Governor Sanford’s lawsuit is an irresponsible move that tramples on the South Carolina Constitution and the future prosperity of our taxpayers.

South Carolinians need to know that Governor Sanford has already politically left this state, sometimes physically, but always mentally. This is just another press stunt to put him on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and in front of Fox News cameras. Governor Sanford’s presidential aspirations and hunger for power are so strong that he is willing to put South Carolina’s future at risk. This lawsuit is a gift that keeps on giving – giving the Governor out-of-state headlines and giving South Carolinians uncertainty and discord.

As the elected voice of South Carolina’s taxpayers, the General Assembly has stated that Governor Sanford should now take all stimulus funds available for appropriation. Sadly, I believe that the end result of this lawsuit may be that on July 1, the people of South Carolina will be left with nothing but the bill. “

###

** This press release is sent on behalf of South Carolina Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell

See what I mean?

Does Sanford really want us to be counted?

Had a number of thoughts when I read this story this morning, which among other things said:

Gov. Mark Sanford urged state residents opposed to using federal aid in the state budget to call lawmakers as they work out a final budget compromise this week.

The $5.7 billion draft budget, Sanford said, puts off needed cuts and reforms by tapping $350 million in federal stimulus money. Sanford has said he will not accept the stimulus money unless lawmakers pay off an equal amount of state debt.

“This is the time to stand and be counted with regard to the stimulus money,” Sanford said. “We’re going to paper over all of those changes that might be made and simply spend the money.”

Here are my questions:

Does the governor actually think that if the people of South Carolina stood up and were counted on this issue, more of them would agree with him on the stimulus? (From everything I’ve heard, that seems extremely doubtful.)
Is he making a cynical calculation that — in keeping with the human-nature phenomenon that only people who are against something bother to call (something I have experienced in the news biz, my favorite extreme example being all those letters we got against the U.S. taking military action in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, a view which you knew wasn’t representative of South Carolina, yet which dominated among the letters we received for a time)?
Does he or his allies at SCRG or ReformSC have an organized calling campaign ready, designed to look like a “spontaneous” response to his call to the public?
Will the far greater number of South Carolinians who oppose the governor on the stimulus make an effort to be heard by lawmakers, or since they’re satisfied the General Assembly is on their side, will they decide not to bother them?
Whether they hear more from the governor’s side or the other, would lawmakers be swayed by lots of calls and e-mails?
Should they be swayed by such input, given that they’ve had months to think about this and should have made up their minds by now?
What do you think about “call your legislator” campaigns in general?
Which is tackier? The governor asking citizens to drive lawmakers nuts at the State House while they’re trying to finish the budget, or pro-stimulus lawmakers urging folks last month to call the governor at the mansion?
And finally, are these examples of excessive spending he cites the best he can do? $500,000 for State House security (which is really a spitting match over who will control security, Sanford or McConnell)? $750,000 for hydrogen research (note that S.C. investment in such research resulted in a $12.5 million grant just two weeks ago)? A million for football traffic control? Where’s the $350 million he says we don’t need?

Here are my answers, to which I invite you to add your own:

Possibly. One gets the impression that his personal feedback loop is fairly limited. He’s not the most social guy, and he seems to have a selective memory for those who tell him “attaboy.”
I don’t think so. I think he actually believes there’s a “silent majority” that agrees with him. At least, he seems to believe, most of the people who matter agree with him. (If a “silent majority” does call lawmakers, does that mean it should be called something else? Of course, the convenient thing for Sanford is that when it doesn’t call, he can explain it away by saying, “That’s because it’s silent.”)
Maybe, but frankly (and yeah I know that this is inconsistent with my answer on “2,” but who cares?), I don’t think he’s thought that far. The more I think about it, the more I suspect he’s thinking that he’s won the day merely by asserting that if the people of S.C. “stand up to be counted,” they will agree with him. He’s struck this pose so many times that he mistakes the rhetoric for reality. Let me explain: By saying the people of SC agree with him, he believes that makes it so, and is satisfied. (And who’s to say him nay, in the absence of evidence to the contrary? Even if nobody calls legislators, nothing is proved either way.) And then, when lawmakers ignore him, he claims they were ignoring the people of SC, when in reality they were only ignoring him. You know, because those lawmakers are so wicked and all. And thus the world according to Mark Sanford stays intact, with none of his assumptions challenged. Actually, the more I think about this theory, the more I think it is, in the immortal words of Marisa Tomei, “dead-on balls accurate.” And if I’m wrong, nobody can prove I’m wrong — hey! So this is what it’s like to be Mark Sanford! Yeah — I’m right because I’m right, and no actual facts in the world can persuade me otherwise. This could get to be a habit.
Almost certainly not. Why call and bug your lawmaker if he’s doing what you want?
Yes. Particularly if they’re hearing from people they know, back in their districts. Otherwise, probably not.
No, and you can tell which way I was leaning by the way I worded that one. This will offend “small-d” democrats, but I’m a “small-r” republican. I believe in representative democracy. We elect people to go study issues and take time arriving at conclusions through a deliberative process. And however messy or slapdash that process is in reality, a representative should NOT throw away his conclusions based on a few phone calls (which are, 99 percent of the time, orchestrated), either way.
On this point, I’m ambivalent. Yeah, when I was with the newspaper we used to do empowering things like tell people how to contact their lawmakers and even, occasionally, urging them to do so. And I think getting public input should be part of the decision-making process. But only part. Once again, it is the duty of an elected representative to study and issue and become more knowledgeable about it than he would be if he were back in his district busy earning a living doing something else. Elected representatives, in a republic, are delegated to spend more time on an issue than the average voter can devote to it, and thereby make a better decision than they would have from the gut. Yep, the system’s far, extremely far, from perfect. But I believe more bad decisions result from lawmakers voting from the gut than from deliberation.
Asking people to call the gov at the mansion is tackier, no question — even though the house does belong to us.
Apparently, that is the best he can do, which is pathetic. But then, he never really has had a case on this.

On that last point — the governor does this all the time. The thing is, he is very often right about the things he criticizes the General Assembly for. The “Competitive Grants” program is a wasteful boondoggle. The thing is, it’s such a tiny fraction of the state budget. And he uses such minor figures as his entire argument that government spending is billions out of control, which is ridiculous. Of course, you know that what he really wants is to stop the state from spending on public education and other substantial things. But that doesn’t sound so good, unless your audience is Howard Rich. So he cites a penny’s worth of pork and extrapolates a fortune wasted, which fools some of the people, but my no means all.

But you know what I’m noticing now? Government has been cut SO much that the governor even has trouble coming up with convincing anecdotal evidence. Instead of something clearly wasteful (or at least, that sounds clearly wasteful) for the state to be spending on, like a Green Bean Museum, he’s reduced to citing things that can easily be characterized as petty and self-concerned. Rather than arguing that the state shouldn’t have airplanes, he complains about control of those planes shifting from his Commerce Department to Budget and Control. Or McConnell taking State House security from the agency that Sanford semi-controls.

You know me — I think the governor should control all of the executive branch. But I also know that this would not in and of itself save large amounts of money. I favor it because I want government to be more effective and accountable. To argue that, because a minor function is being taken away from him, it proves that SC doesn’t need the $700 million in stimulus, just doesn’t follow any kind of logic.

Making change happen in Columbia

If you’ve tried to make change happen in Columbia, or anywhere else in our beloved state, you’ve likely been frustrated. And by “change” I mean any kind of change. Whether you’re Gov. Mark Sanford pushing restructuring of state government (the cause he and I share) or Michael Rodgers trying to get the Confederate flag down (ditto), you can feel like you’re butting your head against a wall.

Blame a system that was set up to resist change. The landed gentry who ran this state from the start set up institutions and fostered a political culture that was probably more resistant to change than any in the U.S. You can blame John Locke, in part. He helped Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper draft the original rules under which the colony would be run, and we have vestiges of that hyper-conservative (in the original sense of resisting change) system he helped devise to this day.

But that’s probably deeper than you want to get into it. The point is, change comes hard in these parts.

So I read with interest Adam Beam’s story today about how one group has managed to get a number of things done recently in the city of Columbia. You’ll note that our own Kathryn Fenner — regular contributor to this blog — and the Rev. Wiley Cooper were mentioned prominently.

Kathryn tells me that there’s one person who was NOT mentioned, though, and should have been. She said she credits “top city staffer Marc Mylott’s excellent quarterbacking for much of our success, as well as the support he received from his boss, Steve Gantt.” She described Mr. Mylott as “the Zoning Administrator, and the head of the development services department. He’s the city staff person designated to lead the task force –Wiley was the civilian head, and Marc did and does all the admin work and heavy lifting–coordinated with all the city departments — pulled together all their issues with the Code, etc.”

So, credit where it’s due. I thought that, as long as I was giving out plaudits for good work in Cayce, some folks who’ve been doing a good job at Columbia City Hall should get get some praise, too. People who deserve an attaboy don’t get one often enough.

Sorensen on my last column

Former USC President Andrew Sorensen had the following to say about my last column in The State:

Dear Brad:

As one who has just embarked on a marked change in professional responsibilities, I wish you well in the next stage of your career, whatever that may be.

Thanks very much for your stimulating op-ed piece of March 22^nd. Although I was tempted to respond to each paragraph as well as the concluding suggestions, in the interest of brevity I’ll comment only on (1) “Improve our schools” and (2) “Let our colleges and universities drive our economy.”

(1)I couldn’t agree more with your recommendation that we “stop talking about nonsensical distraction, and fix the schools.” We South Carolinians ought to be profoundly embarrassed by the quality of schools in our economically depressed communities. It is imperative that all South Carolinians have an opportunity for the quality of education afforded at the many first-rate schools throughout our state. Your suggestions for restructuring, if implemented, would do much to correct our current imbalance in facilities and human resources.

(2)During the past several years, the presidents of USC, MUSC and Clemson have made extraordinary progress in collaborating on the “cutting edge of wealth-creating innovation.” During this period of profound fiscal crisis the temptation is great to hunker down and look upon investment in this area as one of high risk that will yield principally future benefit, and is unlikely to be manifest in the next few weeks or months. That admission will cause detractors to argue that investing in these programs in the midst of economic stringency is counterintuitive. But the economic future of our state is heavily dependent on the highly skilled and scientifically sophisticated youth of today who will become the leaders of our state’s economy tomorrow.

All the best to you.

Sincerely,

Andrew A. Sorensen