Category Archives: South Carolina

The UNembargoed news

Pols to weigh in to help troops

More good news for the troops in Mississippi. I just got this advisory:

Office of the Speaker
SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

EMBARGOED UNTIL: March 8, 2007
Contact: Greg Foster
March 7, 2007
(803) 734-3125
fosterg@scstatehouse.net

Media Advisory
Speaker Harrell, Rep. Mulvaney, S.C. Chamber of Commerce and others pledge to give S.C. Guard transportation home

(Columbia, S.C.) – Recently 1,600 S.C. National Guard troops in Camp Shelby, Mississippi were granted a 10-day leave in early April before their deployment to Afghanistan. They were granted leave to visit their families one last time before being deployed, but were not given access to transportation. Speaker Harrell and others will announce in a press conference their intentions to aid our troops in their efforts to come home.

Who: Speaker Harrell, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, other members of the House Republican Caucus, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and business leaders from across our state

When: March 8, 2007 at 12:40

Where: Veterans Monument on State House Grounds. West side of State House on Assembly Street.

What: Speaker Harrell and the business community pledge to help to bring our troops home to visit their family before being deployed for Afghanistan.

This follows on the good news that Rusty shared with us the other day:

Brad–I checked with the Guard and they have about 800 coming home.
Some opted not to do so having already gone through that wrenching
good-by more than a month ago. According to information I received from
HQ, for those few who might have some difficulty paying for the trip
home, "the National Guard Assn. of SC in conjuction with the 218th
Family Readiness Group has established a program to assist in the
funding of family and soldier relief programs for the 218th. This will
include assisting soldiers who have chosen to return to SC with their
travel. This program and funding will also be used to help soldiers’
families at home as needed during the deployment. The S.C. National
Guard has assisted the National Guard Assn. of S. C. with arranging
round trip charter bus transportation from Camp Shelby to S. C. at a
cost of $110 per soldier. Anyone wishing to donate funds to the
National Guard Association of S. C. Family Readiness program can send
checks payable to the ‘SCNG Family Program’ to: National Guard Assn. of
S. C.
1 National Guard Road
Stop # 36
Columbia, SC 29201
Attn: Cindy Watson (803-254-8456)

Rusty’s going to send them a check for future help. I will, too. Others who had offered earlier might want to consider channeling their generosity to this route.

Energy Video III: Bill Barnet

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Bill Barnet is the former business leader who helped start the education accountability movement before he ran a write-in campaign at the very last minute for mayor of Spartanburg … and won.

He’s one of those guys who doesn’t need his job, and in fact doesn’t need politics at all. He does it to try to make the world a better place. That’s why he came to see us with Joe Riley to talk about global warming.

Energy Video II: Joe Riley

S.C. mayors thinking globally, acting locally

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“The great thing about democracy is, that in time the people get it where they want it to go, you know, and I think this movement is… we’re gonna see that happen…. The movement is HERE.”

— Charleston Mayor Joe Riley,
on rising public demand
to address global warming

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
Everyone from South Carolina’s governor to the U.S. House speaker to the president talks about how important it is to do something about global warming. But will they?
The Economist, the British newsweekly, took note of how both Nancy Pelosi and George W. Bush have been resonating to public concern over the issue:

“But this common interest in environmental issues will not necessarily translate into resolute action.” Why? “Neither the pressure groups nor the Democrats who control Congress have much interest in defusing an issue that might stir up voters and their money before the next election. Instead, they are likely to push for small, symbolic measures that underline their concern for the environment without jeopardising their future plans.”

In other words, in Washington, the politics come before the Earth. Nothing personal about the Earth, of course. This pattern plays out on one critical issue after another. Take health care.
Patients know we’re getting to where we can’t afford our health care, with or without insurance. Business executives certainly know it. And increasingly, physicians are thinking they’d like to get to where they can hire a couple of nurses instead of 10 accountants to run their offices.
But let one presidential candidate say “single-payer,” and within minutes an opponent or an interest group will cry “socialized medicine.” Before the 24-hour news cycle is over, the candidate is spending all his time fielding questions about whether he once said that Marx’s Das Kapital was “a real page-turner.”
Our republic is dysfunctional — and the higher you go, the more fouled up it is. We want to solve our problems in this country, but our politics keep getting in the way.
It’s not just Washington. Consider our own State House, which increasingly yearns to emulate the D.C. model. Gov. Mark Sanford authored a Feb. 23 op-ed piece — which, appropriately enough, appeared in The Washington Post — advocating quick action on global warming. Not to save the Earth, mind you, but to keep the “far left” from using government to do anything about it.

“(I)t’s vital,” he wrote, “that conservatives change the debate before government regulation expands yet again and personal freedom is pushed closer toward extinction.”

Government, he warned, “will gladly spread its regulatory reach,” even unto lightbulbs! And automobiles!
Meanwhile, the rest of us worry about Columbia becoming the next Myrtle Beach. It’s not so much that I would mind surfing in the Vista, but all those souvenir shops are just so tacky.
So who’s listening to us? The mayors — the leaders closest to the people, the ones who know what we want and are determined to provide it. The kind of elected officials who get up in the morning thinking, I’d better get that pothole filled, not What can I do today to stir up my base?
When we got fed up with choking to death in restaurants, who responded? Mayors and city councils, all across South Carolina. Meanwhile, you can’t get the Legislature to lift a finger on that point — even to remove its gratuitous, inexcusable statute forbidding local communities to make such decisions.
So what can mayors do about global warming? Well, when Mayor Riley and Spartanburg Mayor Bill Barnet came to see us about this last week, they spoke of things larger than potholes:
“The U.S. Conference of Mayors has now close to 500 mayors who have signed a commitment to meet or beat the Kyoto accord, which is a 7 percent reduction in 1990 CO2 emission levels by the year 2012 — in our communities,” said Mayor Riley. Charleston is already reaching for that goal — using less wasteful vehicles and more efficient streetlights, designing new buildings to conserve more energy.
For Mayor Barnet, it’s about economic development, about building the kinds of communities that people want to live in. It’s about “the values that will attract human beings to come and live in our environment.”
But the mayors also hope to set an example for the state and federal levels. They are careful not to criticize the holders of larger offices. They praise the governor for appointing an advisory committee on “Climate, Energy and Commerce” to study the issues and make recommendations (preferably ones “consistent with the administration’s conservative philosophy and commitment to market principles,” as he specified in his executive order setting up the panel).
And indeed, there are reasons to hope. It’s not just the Bushes and Pelosis talking climate in Washington; it’s also the less partisan likes of Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman (see last week’s column).
On the state level, Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, is heading up an impressive bipartisan group pushing energy independence. They want to require the state to make its future schools and other buildings more efficient, and to shop for hybrid and biodiesel when it buys vehicles.
So maybe the movement is on, finally. Maybe the time has come when the people get democracy to go where they want it to. If so, it needs to hurry. Like the man says, that window’s closing fast.

Bill_barnet

Send a soldier home

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We’ve got soldiers training in Mississippi who are going on leave before heading to Afghanistan, and The State has reported that some of them can’t afford to get home to South Carolina.

Some suggest that the military should pay their way. I don’t see how (although, as I said before, if that’s more normal than it sounds, I’d like to know about it).

bud says we should help them out. I agree. I’ll kick in if anybody else will. I mean, I’ll kick in anyway, but I think we need a mechanism: I certainly don’t know where to send the money.

So write in with your pledges, and I’ll contact the Guard, and see if they’ll supply us with a conduit. Don’t send money to me; my wife doesn’t even trust me with the family checkbook. We’ll give it to somebody responsible.

But first, I need to be able to say to the officer in charge: "We want to give X amount," so that it will be worth their while to bother with us.

Or maybe there’s a better way to do this. Suggestions? Pledges? Let’s get on the ball with this.

The unkindest of all

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One of my colleagues yesterday remarked that Mitt Romney’s candidacy is doomed to "the death of 1,000 YouTube cuts."

I’m thinking he may have a point. What think you? Will we South Carolinians, who have seen more of all of these candidates than almost anyone, soon be able to paraphrase Caporegime Clemenza:

"Oh, Romney? Won’t see him no more."

I got your “choice” right here

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Somebody came up to me after last night’s "school choice" forum saying he’d like to get together and discuss the subject, perhaps over a lunch, from the Club for Growth perspective.

I did NOT hit him, and I’m very proud of that. In fact, he and I conducted a very civil chat, from the auditorium aisle out into the Richland Northeast High School parking lot, for almost another hour. We were joined by a nice lady from SCRG who had always wanted to meet me and ask a few questions.

So, that brings my tally to this in the last couple of weeks: Two-and-a-half hours with my bishop over dinner, with me talking almost the whole time (and aware each moment how rude that was on my part, as his guest); three hours and 20 minutes with three representatives from SCRG on Wednesday, and three hours last night.

All on the same subject: Vouchers and tax credits for private education. And how many hours have I spent in intense debate over substantive education reform ideas, such as funding parity, consolidating districts, greater leeway for principals and superintendents in hiring and firing teachers, merit pay for teachers, and the like?

None.

I am a microcosm. My wasted time represents the time and political energy that South Carolina has wasted on this useless debate over a very bad idea. There is so much we need to do about improving educational opportunity in South Carolina. But we’re not even talking about the real issues.

As for what was said (in vain) at the forum last night — well, it’s hard for me to take a lot of notes when I’m participating like that. Suffice to say that you’ve pretty much heard it all before. What I can do is share with you the notes from which I spoke. I learned at the last minute that I had to have a five-minute opening statement, so I wrote the following, pretty much stream-of-consciousness:

choice talk notes
2/22/07

What are we talking about here? Choice? I’m always suspicious of that word. In politics, it ends to be used to dress up the otherwise indefensible. I could elaborate on that, but that would probably make for more controversy than those who invited me were counting on.

What do you mean, school choice? Want to talk the merits and demerits of open enrollment? Fine. But it’s certainly not the most important thing to be talking about – much less sucking up all the political oxygen available for the discussion of education reform. I’d put something like revamping our whole system of taxing and spending in order to provide some parity of education opportunity between rural and suburban kids an awful lot higher on the list.

But we’re talking school “choice.”

Well, we’ve got choice, as proponents of vouchers and tax credits keep saying – for the affluent. Their point is that the same choices available to the wealthy should be made available to everyone else – with the government paying for it.

They don’t call it that. They say, “We’re just giving people back their own money.” They’re talking about the tax credits, which would only be fully available to the middle class, because they’re the only ones who pay enough in taxes to get it. But even if that didn’t leave out the poor, it is indefensible.

It’s not their money. It comes from the taxes they paid – mandated by a duly elected representative government – for the funding of the essential infrastructure of a civilized, secure society (the sort of society without which wealth and personal security are impossible to maintain). Like roads and public safety, public schools are an essential part of that infrastructure – in South Carolina, education is actually a mandated part of that infrastructure.

Now, to vouchers – that would clearly be an expenditure from the public purse, and a singularly irresponsible one. Critics of the public system often complain about throwing money at schools. Taking the money out of our accountability system and handing it to folks and saying spend this wherever it strikes you to spend it, without any controls to protect the taxpayers’ interest in this vital function for which the taxes were raised in the first place – now that’s throwing money.

Back to infrastructure: Say that we committed ourselves to providing a fully effective, comprehensive system of public transportation. We’ve done nothing of the kind, of course, but say we did. There would still be well-off people who would prefer to drive a Lexus or a Mercedes or a Hummer (assuming that government actually kept the roads up), and would have the means to do so. Should we then provide tax credits to folks who could only afford a Chevy to buy something pricier? Of course not. That would be crazy. So is this.

Unlike with public transit, we HAVE supposedly committed ourselves to providing education. We’ve just never followed through to the point that fulfills the promise – particularly in rural areas. To divert a single dime from the legitimate governmental purpose of funding public education – the only kind of education that can possibly be held accountable to taxpayers – is unconscionable, as long as we have such severely underfunded schools in our rural areas.

You’re not satisfied with the quality of public education we’re providing in those rural schools, or in some of our inner-city schools? Neither am I. So let’s fix them. We CAN fix them, because they belong to us. We can do whatever we have the political will to do with them.

Taking finite resources out of that system and throwing it at anybody who comes in and says they’ll start a private school in order to take that money makes no sense at all. And there’s no reason for us to do it.

Who you gonna believe? This …

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More confusion on the rally.

First, The Associated Press said:

Hundreds of people, including many school children who arrived by the
busload, gathered at the Statehouse on Tuesday, rallying for
legislation that would help parents send their young ones to private
schools.

Later in the day, The Associated Press said:

Thousands of people, including many private school children who arrived
by the busload, gathered at the Statehouse on Tuesday, rallying for
legislation that would help parents send their young ones to private
schools.

Maybe the busloads of "private school children" arrived after the first version was filed. I don’t know. Note the AP picture above, which was taken from a rather different angle from mine. And possibly at a different time; I don’t know.

Anyway, remember — for the truth, in all its infinite variety, come to Brad Warthen’s Blog, which is always first with the burst.

… or your own lyin’ eyes?

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OK, so maybe there weren’t any official estimates. But if you want to estimate how many people were at Rally4
the "gimme some money for sending my kid to private school" rally today at the State House, you can look at the image at right.

I know; it’s pretty low-res. I didn’t have my camera, and shot this with my phone. But I think you can tell, at the very least, that the "organizers" who estimated the crowd at 4,000 were evidently a little, shall we say, overly enthused. I’ve seen a lot of crowds at the capitol, and this looks a good bit short of that figure to me.

You’d think they could have pulled more together, especially in light of reports that (to my sorrow as a Catholic), St. Joseph’s school gave kids the day off to attend. That’s what I by a parent and a grandparent associated with the school. If that’s correct, this is pretty anemic turnout.

I shot this from across the street, where I was having lunch with the governor’s chief of staff. Maybe I saw it before the crowd had fully assembled or after it had dissipated. But the governor’s man saw what I saw, and did not suggest anything of the kind.

What do you mean by ‘choice?’

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So you’re for ‘school choice.’
What do you mean by that?

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
EVERYBODY likes “school choice,” it seems. S.C. Superintendent of Education Jim Rex is for it. Gov. Mark Sanford is for it.
Even my bishop, Robert Baker of the Diocese of Charleston, favors it, as he said in a letter
that Bishop
appeared in our bulletin at St. Peter’s Catholic Church 14 days ago.
But look just a bit closer at what “school choice” means to each of them, and you find profound differences.
Personally, I’m suspicious when any policy issue is summed up as a matter of “choice.” It often means that the people advocating the given position can’t sell it on its merits. They may be avoiding less palatable, but more descriptive, terms such as “abortion,” or “public subsidies for private schools.”
But not always.
Of course, the governor is pushing public subsidies for private schools.
Mr. Rex seems to be clothing his proposed liberalization of school attendance rules in the “choice” mantle, at least in part, in order to head off the folks on the governor’s side.
In last year’s election, he essentially said to the school privatization crowd: You want choice? I got your choice right here, in the public schools.
Then, he trotted out his proposals in a press conference the day before the usual crowd unveiled its usual private-school-subsidy plan last week.
Not that I don’t think Mr. Rex is sincere. He really does want to make it possible for parents to send their kids to the public schools of their choice. It’s an attractive idea.
But the idea has its limitations. Richland District 2 — which already has a generous intradistrict “choice” policy — can’t make enough room when every child in Fairfield County wants to come on down. How will the state pay to transport those children, when — as is too often the case — their families can’t afford a car?
The other side has the same problems. Even if we fantasize that an excellent, welcoming private school even exists in a poor, rural child’s county, and has space for him and his voucher — how’s he going to travel the 10 miles each day?
I know Mr. Rex has thought about those things, by contrast with the private-school choice advocates. We’ll see how well he addresses them.
The governor is sincere, too. He really does want to use tax money to pay people to desert public schools.
I know my bishop is sincere. He believes parents should determine what sort of education their children receive, and that it’s important to provide an option for them that teaches Christian values. I agree completely.
Where we differ is on whether it’s right to ask state taxpayers to subsidize Catholic education. I say no. We shouldn’t do that any more than we should ask the state to fund a new steeple for us.
The bishop’s letter pretty much freaked me out, because it used rhetoric of the more extreme advocates of privatization. Worse, it urged Catholics to attend a rally those folks are holding at the State House on Tuesday.
Since then, the bishop has assured me that he did not mean to back any movement that criticized or attacked public schools. And while he’s not withdrawing his support for the Catholic “choice,” you won’t see him at that rally.
“I apologize for the tone of my letter,” he said, referring to portions that repeated the “South Carolinians for Responsible Government” mantra that “most of our children are not receiving a sound education” from public schools. “I would reword it” if he had it to do over, he told me Friday. He “would like to be seen as a respectful partner in dialogue” with public educators.
He just wants people to be able to afford the Catholic option. The diocese closed a number of schools that served poor and minority communities back before he became bishop, and he’d like to reverse that trend.
He would only seek state subsidies “for the working poor and people who are economically at the poverty level.” That’s just what Mark Sanford said he wanted when he ran for governor in 2002. But when out-of-state libertarian extremists started funneling vast sums of money into the state, he embraced their far more radical agenda, which has its roots in the notion that “government schools” are essentially a bad idea.
My bishop doesn’t embrace that. Of course, I oppose even the more limited funding of Catholic schools with public money. If we Catholics want to provide education to the less fortunate — which we should do — we need to dig into our pockets and pay for that ministry ourselves.
Jesus didn’t fund his ministry with the money St. Matthew had squeezed from the public as a tax collector. He didn’t take from the world; he gave. He told us to do likewise. We Catholics are far too stingy when the collection basket comes around, and that should change. We shouldn’t force Baptists, Jews, agnostics or anyone else to make up for our failing.
Uh-oh; I’m preaching again.
Another eminent Charlestonian told me he was concerned about the bishop’s letter, and kept meaning to say something to him, but hesitated because of his reluctance as a lifelong Catholic to tell his bishop what he ought to do.
As a convert baptized at Thomas Memorial Baptist Church in Bennettsville, I was not so inhibited. I sort of went all Martin Luther on the bishop. That’s OK, he said: “You’re free to say you disagree.” Which I do. But not entirely. I’m glad we spoke.
Bottom line: When somebody says they’re for “school choice,” ask for details. The differences are huge, and of critical importance to what kind of state we’re all going to live in.

For the bishop’s letter, my letter to him, and more, go to http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

Down home

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Edwardssc

John Edwards was in Charleston today, doing his usual "I’m just a plain li’l ol’ boy from South Carolina" thing (at least, that’s what he had intended to do before this question
overtook him — ironically, in light of our last post). Hey, it worked for him in 2004, when ours was the only state primary he won. Might as well schtick with it.

Meanwhile, within the very same news cycle, the Associated Press was so obliging as to move an aerial photograph of Mr. Edwards’ actual home in North Carolina, the state he briefly represented in the U.S. Senate.

The cutline makes sure we don’t miss the fact that the Edwards spread "includes a gymnasium, a pool, a raquetball court, and a 10,778 square foot main home."

Edwardshouse

S.C. portrayed as hurdle to Mormon Romney

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NPR this morning portrayed Mitt Romney’s Mormonism as an obstacle to his candidacy, and presented South Carolina as just the sort of place where it would pose a problem.

The setup included the words, "Romney’s traveling to places where people aren’t entirely receptive to a Mormon president." We then find ourselves "at a Rotary Club luncheon in Aiken, South Carolina." In case you are not familiar with the Palmetto State, you are informed that "its voters include lots of fundamentalist Christians."

The segment describes the candidate’s speech, then acknowledges that "There wasn’t a single mention of religion until Romney faced reporters outside." You hear him being questioned on the subject by a reporter with an accent that definitely did not come out of South Carolina. The reporter, to his credit, asks whether this is only an obsession of the press. Romney responds that he does hear about it from regular folks — apparently, just not at the Rotary in Aiken.

Not to say the producers couldn’t persuade a South Carolinian to support their thesis. Rep. Gloria Haskins of Greenville obliged them by saying:

I think as an evangelical Christian, it is a big thing for me, yes, because again, his faith is
inconsistent with my faith. His faith is consistent with the Book of
Mormon. My faith is consistent with God’s Word, the Bible, and they’re
not compatible.

So did NPR set up South Carolina unfairly as a symbol of narrow-minded prejudice threatening an otherwise-viable candidacy? I don’t know.

Personally, I don’t think it’s narrow-minded or stupid or intolerant to consider whether a candidate shares your most fundamental beliefs regarding the way this whole thing called existence is set up. It’s infinitely more important than party label, much less whether Mr. Romney is a sufficiently pure "conservative" for the party’s right wing to stomach — the point that actually seems to be giving him more trouble than how he prays.

Where prejudice is a problem is when false and even absurd assumptions come into play — such as the widespread suspicion that JFK would be taking his marching orders as commander in chief from the Pope. (Something about the Pope just seems to freak out a lot of protestants. I used to be a protestant myself, but don’t ask me to explain it.)

I suspect that among most who vote in the GOP primary here, a more likely question will be: Why should I vote for this guy rather than John McCain? That’s who has gone the farthest in sewing up S.C. support at this point.

For some on the party’s ideological extreme, of course, almost anyone is preferable to the man from Arizona. He’s just too reasonable for them. But those hunting for their pure knight of conservatism seem unlikely to dub Mitt "I was for gay marriage before I was against it" Romney. (Fair or not, that’s the rep he’s having to live down.)

McCain’s still the man to beat, and that’s not a theological issue.

Romneyaiken2

You know what I know

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This blog, like its author/host, has no sense of time. Sometimes I’ll blog on something I’ve been meaning to get to for a week or so; other times we go real-time.

This is sort of one of the latter cases. As I type, Jim Rex is about to announce his first major initiative as S.C. superintendent of education. Here’s the release:

TO: Editorial page editors
FROM: Jim Foster
RE: Rex conference call this afternoon for editorial page editors

Dr. Rex will hold a news conference at 10:30 this morning in the lower
lobby of the Statehouse. He will be joined by a large bipartisan group
of legislators and K-12 education leaders from across South Carolina to
announce a three-year public school choice initiative. An embargoed
news release is attached.

Superintendent Rex’s proposal is the result of many conversations in
recent months, particularly in recent weeks, with K-12 administrators,
local school board members and a number of state lawmakers. The pilot
projects he proposes will be designed to answer many of the questions
and concerns he has heard during those conversations.

This afternoon at 2:30, Dr. Rex will hold a special telephone
conference call for editorial page editors to discuss his proposal.

Cindi, who’s gone over there to check it out, says she’s heard from at least one source (a certain GOP senator), that this proposal is fairly extensive, and has strong backing, although she’ll be interested to see just how broad it is.

For my part, I’ve set the bar high. Based on what Cindi said she’d been told, I sent the following to Jim Foster, head flack at the department of ed.:

At our meeting this morning, Cindi said Rex had assembled an "amazing" coalition. I’m going to be really disappointed if they’re not wearing superhero tights. I’m planning art on this.

We’ll see.

I experience a miracle

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I‘m having lunch at a LongHorn Steakhouse in Savannah. It smells better than our LongHorn in the Vista.
Here’s why:

When I walked in, I asked for a table in nonsmoking. The hostess dismissed my request with the finest words I’ve ever heard in a restaurant:
"There’s no smoking in Georgia."

AND SHE WASN’T KIDDING!
I am stunned. This is so fantastic. I’m just sitting here, breathing freely and deeply, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Which, if you actually THINK about it for a change, it actually IS, even though it is a departure from what I’ve experienced my whole life up to now.

Why, in the name of God and all that makes any kind of sense, did I have to wait 53 years for this? Why will I NOT be able to experience it when I go home?
I can think of no reason.

Reform gets fragged

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Reform gets fragged
in the S.C. Senate

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
“Here we are clinging to this antiquated system just like we clung to segregation, just like we clung to Jim Crow. I don’t mean to equate them, but in South Carolina it takes a long time to get over bad ideas.”
— Sen. Greg Gregory

ONCE AGAIN, the Senate has rejected the idea of letting voters decide whether they want to have a governor they can hold accountable for what state agencies do, or nine separate little governors pulling the state apart.
Not all of the Senate, mind you. Just enough of them to ensure failure, to keep government fragmented so that it can’t ever get its act together.
Whom can we hold accountable? Well, I can’t tell you. It was done in such a classic, befuddled manner that it is virtually impossible to fix blame. That, of course, is the hallmark of the Legislative State.
We must applaud in spite of ourselves. It was a thing of great subtlety, even beauty, if you’re the
sort who is turned on by stagnation: “The Senate, Now More Than Ever,” as the old bumper sticker said the last time senators deflected and diluted reform.
It’s poetic. The problem with having the adjutant general, superintendent of education, agriculture commissioner, etc., all elected separately from the governor is that there is no coordination between their agencies and the rest of the state government. So when roads are falling apart, rural schools aren’t educating kids, prisons are about to burst, we have more state colleges than neighboring states but none as good as they do, and so forth, we can’t hold anybody responsible. (Is it any wonder so few South Carolinians bother to vote?)
Some senators like fragmentation, so they “fragged” the plan to do away with it. And no one can tell who threw the grenade.
A majority of senators voted to put the elected schools chief, the ag commissioner, the adjutant general and secretary of state on the chopping block — but they needed a two-thirds majority. Having the governor and lieutenant governor run on the same ticket didn’t even get 50 percent. The only office a sufficient number of senators were willing to risk a public vote on was comptroller general, and that’s just because he “asked for it.” Afterwards, even some of the reform-minded were saying, ah, what’s the use of changing just one of them. So we might not even get that. A true muddle.
Just for fun, just so we can fully appreciate this ancient art, let’s try to fix blame (this will at least amuse the senators):

Start with the easy part: the 10 who didn’t support reform on any of the votes — Robert Ford, Darrell Jackson, John Land, Phil Leventis, Gerald Malloy, John Matthews, Yancey McGill, Kay Patterson, Clementa Pinckney and Glenn Reese. But others had to join with them, in shifting coalitions, to deny the supermajority in the half-dozen votes.
Was it Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, who had promised the governor a quick vote on the matter — and delivered just that, a vote without debate, held before the votes were lined up? He would be a prime suspect, given his history as a defender of legislative prerogative. Do we really believe that he of all people would have so mishandled the matter accidentally? But we can’t prove that, and must therefore give him credit for being sincere. People do change, you know.
Was it Senate Democrats, who have become convinced that the only statewide office a member of their party can aspire to is superintendent of education, and they don’t want to give that up? Or were the Dems just trying to stick it to a Republican governor? Well, all 10 above were Democrats, but the Senate just isn’t partisan enough to make it that simple. There were Republican “nays” on some votes. Besides, Vincent Sheheen voted for all the changes, and surely, he is a Democrat.
Maybe it was just the small-“d” democrats who believe that the people shouldn’t have the right to vote on every minor official taken away from them? Certain senators did wrap themselves in that. But it’s just not credible that they really believe it. Try this: Ask the next 10 voters you meet to name the nine statewide officers, and then ask yourself: If they don’t know who they are, how are they supposed to hold them accountable? The long ballot dilutes the will of the voters, and that’s the only thing it does efficiently. Besides, if you care so much about the people’s will, why won’t you at least let them vote on whether they want to change?
The Senate is more about personal relationships than about party. So-o-o … was it yet another case of friends of one constitutional officer making deals with the friends of other constitutional officers, plus senators who might themselves want to be constitutional officers someday, in order to get just barely a large-enough minority to kill the thing? That’s always worked in the past. But where do you grab ahold of that kind of multidirectional backscratching so you can stop it?

Well, you don’t. You can’t. Truth is, you can’t blame any of the above causes, because it was most likely several of them, working together. You can’t blame any one phenomenon, party, faction or ego. If you try to fight it, you’ll be overwhelmed by Lilliputians before you decide which way to swing your sword.
Now mind you, I’m not saying there should be any one person running the Senate (sorry, Sen. McConnell). A legislative body should represent and balance diverse views on the way to making laws.
But an executive branch should not be that way. Once everybody’s had their say, and the law is a fact, somebody needs to be charged with carrying it out. At the point of execution, diverse interests are a distraction, an obstacle, a waste of money. We have all that and more in South Carolina.
And there’s nobody to blame — except maybe you, if you continue to sit still for this.

For how they all voted, click on this.

Out with the UnParty, in with ENERGY!

57 Replies

Nobody’s proposing a comprehensive energy plan, so I guess we’ll have to do it ourselves.

I’ve had this idea percolating lately that I wanted to develop fully before tossing it out. Maybe do a column on it first, roll it out on a Sunday with lots of fanfare. But hey, the situation calls for action, not hoopla.

So here’s the idea (we’ll refine is as we go along):

Reinvent the Unparty as the Energy Party. Not the Green Party — it’s not just about the environment — but a serious energy party. Go all the way, get real, make like we actually know there’s a war going on. Do the stuff that neither the GOP nor the Dems would ever do:

Jack up CAFE standards.
Put about a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline.
Spend the tax proceeds on a Manhattan project on clean, alternative energy (hydrogen, bio, wind, whatever), and on public transportation (especially light rail).
Reduce speed limits everywhere to no more than 55 mph. (This must be credited to Samuel Tenenbaum, who bent my ear about it yet again this morning, and apparently does the same to every presidential wannabe who calls his house looking for him or Inez).
ENFORCE the damn’ speed limits. If states say they can’t, give them the resources out of the gas tax money.
Build nuclear power plants as fast as we can (safely, of course).
Either ban SUVs for everyone who can’t demonstrate a life-or-death need to drive one, or tax them at 100 percent of the sales price and throw THAT into the win-the-war kitty.
If we go the tax route on SUVs (rather than banning), launch a huge propaganda campaign along the lines of "Loose Lips Sink Ships" (for instance, "Hummers are Osama’s Panzer Corps"). Make wasting fuel the next smoking or DUI — absolutely socially unacceptable.
Because it will be a few years before we can be completely free of petrol, drill the ever-lovin’ slush out of the ANWR, explore for oil off Myrtle Beach, and build refinery capacity — all for a limited time of 20 years. Put the limit in the Constitution.

You get the idea. Respect no one’s sacred cows, left or right; go all-out to win the war and, in the long run, save the Earth. Pretty soon, tyrants from Tehran to Moscow to Caracas will be tumbling down without our saying so much as "boo" to them, and global warming will slow within our lifetimes.

THEN, once we’ve done all that, we can start insisting upon some common sense on entitlements, and health care. Change the name to the Pragmatic Party then. Whatever works, whatever is practical, whatever solves our problems — no matter whose ox gets gored. Leave the ideologues in the dust, while we solve the problems.

How’s that sound? Can any of y’all get behind that?

Diocese settles sex abuse claims

10 Replies

This afternoon was so busy, I was letting the machine get the phone, and I missed a call from the Bishop giving me a heads-up on the following news, which I will now share with you:

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston
announced Friday it will settle child sex abuse claims in South
Carolina, designating as much as $12 million for damages.

"It
is my fervent hope that this settlement will allow us, as the Catholic
community of faith in South Carolina, to bring closure to an ugly
period in our history," Bishop Robert Baker said.

The
class-action settlement has been given initial approval by a state
judge, said Larry Richter, an attorney for four victims whose claims
were settled last summer.

Peter Shahid Jr., an attorney
representing the diocese, said the church knows of at least eight other
victims although others may come forward.

Under the settlement, abuse victims could get anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000 while spouses and parents would receive $20,000.

Since
1950, there have been 50 abuse claims involving 28 clergy or others
diocesan employees settled for almost $3 million, Shahid said. Those
claims were not apart of the new settlement.

Richter, himself a Roman Catholic, said it is unclear how many other victims may come forward.

"What
you find in this area is people can’t just be molested and the next day
step up to the plate and say ‘I’m a victim,’" he said. "It’s often
after a very painful time in life."

Baker said in a letter
published in the diocesan newspaper on Friday that he deeply regrets
"the anguish of any individual who has suffered the scourge of
childhood abuse and I am firmly committed to a just resolution of any
instance in which a person who holds the responsibility of a protector
has become a predator."

The settlement allows compensation for sexual abuse victims born before August 30, 1980, and their spouses and parents.

The
attorneys said the 1980 date was negotiated generally to assure the
settlement would cover victims who otherwise could not sue because the
statute of limitations would have expired.

The agreement sets up an initial pool of $5 million. If $4 million of that is paid, a second pool of $7 million will be added.

Richter
said they arrived at the $12 million figure by reviewing settlements
throughout the country. An arbitrator will validate claims and
determine the amount of compensation, according to the statement.

The diocese said it was encouraging anyone who was a victim to contact Richter.

John
Barker, chief financial officer for the diocese, said the money would
come from insurance, interest on investments and, if needed, selling
church property.

"There have been dioceses that have declared
bankruptcy," Shahid said. "The faithful should understand … we have
capped our liability at $12 million. Those (other) dioceses were faced
with huge debts as a result of claims and were forced into bankruptcy."

Diocese
officials in South Carolina have said the incidence of child abuse has
been lower here than the national average during the past half century.

Statistics
released by the church three years ago show that between 1950 and 2002
about 4 percent of all American Catholic clerics were accused of abuse
compared with 2.7 percent of the clergy in South Carolina.

A
former South Carolina priest who pleaded guilty last year to assault
and battery of a high and aggravated nature in the sexual abuse of two
boys 30 years ago was the seventh former priest, coach or teacher in
the diocese to plead guilty to abuse charges.

There are about
158,000 Catholics in South Carolina, almost four percent of the state
population, according to the diocesan Web site.

A final hearing on the settlement will be held in early March.

Outrage

6 Replies

Sorry. I buried the lead on that one. A colleague had earlier brought the Andre nonsense to my attention, and I had made a mental note to post something on it.

When the Senate actually REJECTED this critical legislation — in a classic, befuddled manner that renders it virtually impossible to fix blame, which is of course the hallmark of the Legislative State — I failed to pause to pass on the enormity of it to you. I figured we’d save the important stuff for the paper.

Scratch that plan.

The Senate’s action today is nothing short of a big, fat middle finger flipped at the people of South Carolina, as senators once again say "Hell, no!" to a commonsense effort to construct a rational form of government.

They insist upon sticking to the Ben Tillman formula. Well, this newspaper was founded in 1891 to fight Ben Tillman, and we’re not done, not by a long sight. You will hear more, much more, from us on this.

Meanwhile, to save you the trouble of following links, here is the AP’s story:

m1088 scsc-nbx
AP-SC XGR SANFORD AGENDA, 1ST LD-WRITETHRU
Sanford’s constitutional officer agenda dies in Senate
Eds: AMs. UPDATES throughout.
By JIM DAVENPORT
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – State senators scuttled Gov. Mark Sanford’s plan to have voters decide whether several statewide offices should be appointed by the governor.
Sanford lost mostly party-line votes Wednesday, with senators only giving the necessary two-thirds approval to eliminating elections for comptroller general.
The Republican-controlled Senate gave majority approval to whether the state’s education superintendent, agriculture commissioner, National Guard chief or secretary of state are elected or appointed, but all fell short of the two-thirds needed. And a bill requiring governors and lieutenant governors to run on a joint ticket couldn’t muster a majority.
The bills that didn’t pass were sent back to the Senate Judiciary Committee to die. "I’m not putting them back on the agenda," committee chairman Glenn McConnell said.
It was a disappointment for the Republican governor, whose re-election campaign was filled with calls to modernize and streamline state government and give governors more control of day-to-day state operations.
Sanford said senators show a lack of faith in letting the people of South Carolina decide if their government was inefficient.
Power "is hard to give up and there is a minority in the Senate who are working to protect an antiquated, inefficient and unaccountable government structure," the governor said in a prepared statement.
Wednesday’s votes means South Carolina’s "governor will continue to be one of the weakest in the nation," said Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms.
Sen. Chauncey "Greg" Gregory noted that probably 90 percent of the voters couldn’t even name the state’s agriculture commissioner and many of the rest wouldn’t know his name unless they’d seen it on a gas pump’s certification sticker or a campaign sign.
The Senate is clinging to the idea of having all those elected offices "just like we clung to segregation, just like we clung to Jim Crow" and the Confederate flag flying at the Statehouse, said Gregory, R-Lancaster.
South Carolina "takes a long time to get over bad ideas," Gregory said.
And even the bill getting rid of elections for comptroller general may not survive. It now just needs a majority vote to get to the House, but if an amendment is attached to the bill, it would trigger another two-thirds vote, said McConnell, R-Charleston.
If a second two-thirds vote is taken, some senators may change their minds. "Are we really accomplishing anything with one office?" asked Sen. Vincent Sheheen, D-Camden, who voted for all the bills except the one involving the lieutenant governor.
Sanford isn’t giving up. He said he plans to take his case to voters and talk to them "about the unwillingness of many in office to make those changes."
The governor will also push the House to pass similar bills, even though McConnell said the Senate won’t reconsider them.
Sanford also will continue to push his plan to restructure some state agencies, spokesman Joel Sawyer said.
The decision to pass the bill allowing the governor to appoint a comptroller general was easy because Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom told voters the office should be appointed as he campaigned for re-election and asked legislators Tuesday to make his office an example for government restructuring, said Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia.
"Be careful what you ask for, you might get it," Knotts said.

Andre’s still got it, whatever it is

28 Replies

The S.C. Senate proved yet again it can still make mincemeat of the most common-sense reforms as it basically rejected a fundamental element of government modernization — putting the elected chief executive in charge of the executive branch.

Here’s the AP story
on today’s foolishness, in case you possess the requisite energy to click on it.

I’ll go ahead and quote my favorite part (be sure to brace yourself so you don’t get whiplash between the second and third paragraphs):

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer showed up at Sanford’s news conference at the Statehouse, but wouldn’t publicly say whether he supported the changes. Bauer didn’t want his personal feelings to influence the debate he will preside over.
"I think that could drastically influence" the vote, Bauer said.
Bauer, who controls the debate in the Senate by recognizing speakers, said he wouldn’t hand the gavel to someone else during the discussions about his office.

Yes, that’s right. He won’t express his opinion, because it allegedly would have such weight in influencing the debate. But he won’t step aside from actually presiding over the debate.

Sure, he had that crash last year and all, but ol’ Andre hasn’t lost a bit of the hop on his patented screwball, which thus far has never failed to strike out any rational, ethical batter who dares to stand at the plate against him.

But the fans love it.

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: South Carolina

The UNembargoed news

Pols to weigh in to help troops

Energy Video III: Bill Barnet

Energy Video II: Joe Riley

S.C. mayors thinking globally, acting locally

Send a soldier home

The unkindest of all

I got your “choice” right here

Who you gonna believe? This …

… or your own lyin’ eyes?

What do you mean by ‘choice?’

Down home

S.C. portrayed as hurdle to Mormon Romney

You know what I know

I experience a miracle

Reform gets fragged

Out with the UnParty, in with ENERGY!

Diocese settles sex abuse claims

Outrage

Andre’s still got it, whatever it is