Category Archives: South Carolina

House overrides ETV and tech school vetoes

Went over to the State House after lunch, but when you’re trying to follow something like this all-day march through the governor’s vetoes, you can’t just drop in in the middle and know what’s going on.

Modern irony: As I sat there, listening first to Jerry Govan orate about S.C. State, and then to Glenn McConnell showing off his parliamentary razzle-dazzle, I found that I learned more about what was happening from Twitter than I did from being there, such as this Tweet from James Smith:

Vetoes of ETV, DHEC, tech schools archives have thankfully been overridden – rural health, technology incubator EEDA – sadly sustained.

And this one from Nathan Ballentine:

voted to override 1, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 31,33 (Tech Board, ETV, Library, Museum)

… both of which I reTweeted while I was there.

And then when I got back to my laptop, I saw that my buddy Mike Fitts had put out a comprehensive report of what had happened thus far. From that, and other sources, I learned that the House overrode the governor on:

the technical college system
S.C. ETV
public libraries
the Arts Commission

Mind you, the Senate must ALSO garner two-thirds for the governor to be overridden. I’m not sure where the Senate is on things at the moment. I do know that the House plans to work into the night and not be in session tomorrow, while the Senate will have a Thursday session.

Meanwhile the House has UPHELD the governor’s vetoes of the following, which means the Senate doesn’t have to act, because the governor wins (and, in most cases, South Carolina loses):

The Small Business Center at the University of South Carolina
Innovista research funding
Education programs known as High Schools That Work and Making Middle Grades Work.
the Education and Economic Development Act, which ecodevo types have relied on as a critical tool in readying youth for the working world

Truer words than Jake’s never spoken in SC

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Well, I’ve gotta hand it to Jake Knotts — he stood up as what he is and spared no words about it: He is a redneck. And he was right to be proud of the supposed ephithet. A farmer suntan is a mark of hard work, something of which a simple kind of man should be quietly proud. Or blusteringly proud, depending on his inclinations.

In saying that, he touched on something — a minor, side issue, really — I tried to explain in my column about why we VERY RELUCTANTLY endorsed him against Mark Sanford’s candidate in 2008. The decision nearly killed Cindi Scoppe from sheer mortification, but there was one silver lining in it for me: I had always felt a tiny bit of middle-class guilt over always being against the rednecks (on video poker, on the lottery, on the Flag, and so on), and sometimes doing it in a way that betrayed class snobbery on my part. I figured, endorse this rough, brutish son of the soil against the Club for Growth snobs just once, and for the next 20 years I wouldn’t have to feel that guilt again. Yes, I’m being a little facetious, but also a little bit serious.

Anyway, you can’t deny (unless you are a Republican Party functionary, in which case you will deny it most vehemently) the truth of what Jake said about the hypocrites of his party, who defend Nikki from his brutishness because she’s their gal, and their likely standard-bearer in the fall. Unlike Henry McMaster, Jake will not humbly join that train; he remains what he is, with all the good and bad that entails.

What is Jake right about?

He’s right when he says that if he’d only called Barack Obama a “raghead,” the Lexington County Republican Party would not have indignantly censured him and sought his resignation. Calling the president a “raghead” would be merely a comical slip, compared to the deliberate demonization of the president through such devices as Henry’s “Vultures” ad. If Jake had only been talking about Obama, it would merely have put him on the ragged edge of what is increasingly his party’s mainstream (as the mainstream is more and more infiltrated by Tea Party extremism). Oh, Carol Fowler would have fired off an indignant statement. The Black Caucus may have drafted a fiery resolution that would have died a lonely death on the House floor. But within the Republican Party, only a deafening silence. The righteous fury we’re hearing is coming from advocates for Katrina Shealy and Nikki Haley. It’s coming from the Sanford wing of the party, which is seeing the chance to achieve what it could not in eight years of holding the governor’s office — seize control of the party.

He’s ABSOLUTELY right when he alludes to the uncomfortable truth about the newly politically correct GOP. It deserves to be carved into granite somewhere over at the State House:

“If all of us rednecks leave the Republican Party, the party is going to have one hell of a void.”

Indeed. Where would the S.C. GOP be without rednecks? In the minority, that’s where. That’s assuming they went back to the Democratic Party where they came from.

I was just over at the State House myself, and fell into conversation with Dwight Drake, and I happened to ask him — now that he’s out of it — how he thinks Vincent-vs.-Nikki contest will shake out.

He said that of course one must start with the obvious — that this is a majority Republican state (actually, a plurality-Republican state, but why quibble?) … which caused me to interrupt him to say, “Which it wouldn’t be if all the rednecks left, as Jake said.” And he readily agreed.

Of course, he would agree, being a Democrat. But if Republicans were totally honest, they would agree, too. There is no question that the balance of power in the South shifted from the Democrats to the Republicans as Strom Thurmond and George Wallace led legions of rednecks to abandon the Democratic Party. No, not everyone who switched parties was a redneck; some were mere pragmatists who saw there was a heap of white people in their districts and if they wanted to be elected, they needed to go with the GOP. But that would not be the case if not for the rednecks. However much of the GOP vote may be thus described — 15 percent, 30 percent, whatever — it’s enough to mean there are more Republicans than Democrats.

And while your more high-minded sort of Republican — the kind who like to imagine themselves as the sort who 50 years ago would have been Republican, when in the South it was not much more than a debating society making up a demographic roughly the same size as the Unitarians (the kind who are feeling SO broad-minded because they may have a nonEuro, something that would excite relatively little comment among Dems) — may protest loudly at the notion, on some operational level, consciously or unconsciously, every Republican with the pragmatic sense to win a primary knows this. Occasionally we see overt manifestations of it, such as in 1994 when the GOP unashamedly boosted their primary turnout by including a mock “referendum” question on the Confederate flag. Or when, having taken over the House as a result of that election, the new majority made it one of its first orders of business to put the flying of the flag a matter of state law, so that no mere governor could take it down.

Lord knows that other pathetic gang the Democrats has enough to be embarrassed over, but this is the big dirty secret of the Republican Party. Huh. Some secret. Everybody knows it.

The Republican Party can talk all it wants to about conservatism and “small government,” yadda-yadda, but we all know that it has political control in these parts because of the rednecks in its ranks. That’s just the way it is.

Two views on the McMaster endorsement

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First, we have this release from Nikki Haley:

Friends,

With one week until Election Day, I am proud to welcome my friend Attorney General Henry McMaster to our campaign! General McMaster was a true gentleman on the campaign trail and I am thrilled to have him join our team.

You can watch General McMaster’s endorsement from this morning here.

Over the past few days, we have seen South Carolinians from all political backgrounds join our movement. The people are tired of arrogant, unaccountable governance and we are ready to take our government back! General McMaster’s endorsement is merely a reflection of the support we are seeing from across this state – and I am honored by the trust he has placed in me.

To help us build on these great successes, please consider contributing to the campaign today. I can promise you that we are spending campaign contributions wisely.

Thank you for all your hard work on my behalf and I look forward to seeing you on the campaign trail soon!

My very best,

Nikki

Interestingly, that came over the transom (view transom here) AFTER I got this from S.C. Democratic HQ:

SC Dems: McMaster Endorsement Confirms Haley as Establishment Candidate

COLUMBIA- South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler released the following statement today in response to State Attorney General Henry McMaster’s endorsement of GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley.

“It’s no surprise to South Carolinians that Henry McMaster would endorse Nikki Haley today. Mrs. Haley proudly represents the Republican Party establishment in South Carolina. As a devoted student of Mark Sanford’s School of Political Ideology, she would continue to promote the same failed policies and agenda of the Sanford/McMaster administration. South Carolina voters are tired of the GOP establishment and ready to take our state in a different direction under the leadership of Vincent Sheheen,” said Fowler.

Paid for by the South Carolina Democratic Party – 1.800.841.1817 or www.scdp.org –

and not authorized by any federal candidate or candidate’s committee.

Establishment candidate? Our Nikki? Them’s fightin‘ words!

How many budget vetoes did they deal with? Zero

CREW wants Henry to probe Greene candidacy

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“CREW?” Yeah, I had to look it up, too. I learned that it is “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington,” which rang a bell, and sure enough, they’re the crowd that not only listed Mark Sanford as one of the worst governors in America, they used his picture to illustrate the concept.

For what that’s worth.

Anyway, now they’re all worked up about Responsibility and Ethics right here in SC, and demanding that Henry McMaster, among others, investigate how in the heck that Alvin Greene guy became the Democrat’s champion against Jim DeMint. Here’s what they say, in part:

Washington, D.C. – Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), took two significant actions against the questionable Democratic candidate for South Carolina Senate, Alvin Greene. In a letter to South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, CREW asked for an investigation into whether Mr. Greene was induced to run for the Senate in violation of South Carolina law.

CREW also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that primary-winner Greene and three other candidates in the June 8, 2010 Democratic primary in South Carolina: Gregory Brown, Ben Frasier and Brian Doyle and their campaign committees, violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and FEC regulations by failing to file mandatory disclosure reports prior to the election.

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s Executive Director, said “The people of South Carolina have a right to fair, transparent and fraud-free elections. Paying candidates to run for office and concealing the sources of campaign funds undermines the integrity of the electoral process and threatens our democracy.”…

Seems kind of overly optimistic to me that Henry would be interested. He’s kind of busy these days knuckling under to the Nikki Haley tidal wave that’s washing the state GOP far, far out into right field (bradwarthen.com, never afraid to mix two overworked metaphors). After the whuppin’ he got last week, he’s now dutifully following in her footsteps.

So that leaves the FEC on its hands and knees looking for that elephant poop Jim Clyburn’s talking about.

Man up, lawmakers: Override those vetoes

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Little left to say, except it’s time for lawmakers of both parties in the House to set aside all the B.S., lay down their insecurities, eschew their customary fecklessness, man up and veto those indefensible vetoes. I’m talking about this veto and this one and this one and most of the others.

I’ve really had it with the argument from the GOP leadership that they just have to sustain most of these vetoes. Kenny denied it the other night when I asked whether Nikki Haley’s strong showing last week had scared the leadership into thinking they have to go along with the Sanford nihilists, even though they’ve slapped him down every other time (even when he had a case, which he doesn’t this time). But I’m convinced that’s the only logical reason to explain this fear to do the right thing. Cindi thinks so, too. And Cindi knows WAY more about the budget process than I do. You’ll note that she gives the governor credit where he deserves it, on fairly marginal issues that don’t involve much money (Cindi has always been much more inclined than I am to reach WAY out to try to find some things to give the governor credit on), but she concludes with this cold bath of common sense:

Most insidious is his repeated implication that by vetoing what he considers frills, he will cause the money to be spent on “core services” of government. Now, I’ll be the first to agree that, as he puts it, “the vast majority of this year’s budget should be directed to core government functions like public safety, education, and health care.” But the facts are that 1) that already is happening and 2) his vetoes do not redirect money from “frills” to “core services”; they simply allow the money to sit in the bank for a year.

I have long believed that the Legislature needs to either increase taxes or else eliminate some programs or agencies altogether (and probably eliminate some even if it does raise taxes). But that’s a decision that needs to be made in an orderly way, by a clear majority in the Legislature — not by a disgraced lame-duck governor with an ax to grind and a third of the members of the House. And perhaps not even by a Legislature that is too frightened of its own shadow to make rational decisions about the responsibilities that come with insisting on operating the government. If lawmakers can’t override most of the governor’s vetoes this week, perhaps they should make arrangements to come back to town later this summer, when emotions have settled down, to consider taking some of the money Mr. Sanford wants to squirrel away and using it to patch critical holes that he has created.

And as for you Democrats: I was much reassured by James Smith telling me yesterday that the Dems would override (with the caveat that while that was the leadership position, Dems don’t do bloc voting), but then I read the paraphrase of Joe Neal in the paper this morning saying Democrats have not decided how they will handle Sanford’s vetoes today and I wonder: Will they stick it out and do the right thing? (And you know what? This is one case in which we actually NEED the Dems to vote as a bloc, because that might embolden the jittery mainstream Republicans.)

If they don’t, and if the Republicans (minus the Sanford loyalists) don’t, then on the whole they are useless.

Fun Post IV: Jon Stewart’s latest on SC

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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Alvin Greene Wins South Carolina Primary

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

I say it’s a “Fun Post,” but you know what — the fun of being mocked by “The Daily Show” is starting to wear thin. Even Jon Stewart, so charmed by us last week, seems to be getting sick of all the absurdity here in what he terms “America’s whoopie cushion, South Carolina.” There was an edge to his delivery last night — as when he said, “Only South Carolina can take a silk purse and turn it into a sow’s anus” — that seemed to say, “Enough already with you people!”

Fun Post II: Ariail on Roll-Call Voting Bill

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Secondly, we turn to our favorite cartoonist Robert Ariail for a hilarious take on our dear senators and their commitment to transparency.

Yep, this is to a certain extent a pro-Nikki Haley cartoon, since she has made that issue her own (even though she has amply demonstrated her disdain for the Senate version — either because she thought it didn’t do enough or because she didn’t want them “stealing my issue;” take your pick), and I figure Nikki doesn’t need a boost, riding as high as she is right now.

But as well as she’s been doing, I doubt she’s had a good laugh lately. I mean, think about it: It’s not like she can enjoy the Jon Stewart stuff. So this one’s for you, Nikki.

And the rest of us can enjoy it with you.

Why ETV Matters, by Mark Quinn

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Trying to catch up on my e-mail, I ran across this item which also bears upon the Sanford vetoes:

Why ETV matters

For nearly 3 years, my job in public television has forced me to explore many of the crushing effects America’s Great Recession has had on our state. Now, it appears, the economic tsunami which began to wash over the land in 2008, may wipe away 50 years historic and pioneering television produced by ETV. The Great Recession has arrived on ETV’s doorstep, and I am forced to report on what may be the demise in vitality of a treasured state institution.

I work as the host of a weekly radio and television program entitled, The Big Picture. The premise is fairly simple, and almost ancient in its origins. Barry Lopez, the prolific novelist and essayist, summed up my job thusly: “it means to go out there and look and come back and tell us, and say what it is that you saw.” For millennia, this has been an integral part of the human experience. The earliest cave drawings were nothing more than one person’s reporting of the world that existed over the mountain or across the river. And it has always been so.

And while it’s deeply gratifying to travel our state to find the stories that give expression to the lives we lead today, there’s equal satisfaction in being a conduit to help serve another timeless need that we all have, the need to be heard. There is immense power in the connection with ordinary, everyday people and the dignity they claim when they are allowed to tell their story. The brilliance of ETV hasn’t been its coverage of the powerful or the popular, as essential as that may be. It’s been thousands of collective glimpses into the lives of everyday people doing extraordinary things. Or peeks at places you never knew existed. It’s the story of South Carolina.

For me, public television is taking you somewhere you will never go you’re your local newspaper. Nor will you ever go there with your local television station.

For me ETV is sitting in the Sullivan’s Island living room of best-selling author Dorthea Benton Frank, laughing riotously at the random acts of calamity life will throw at you… knowing if you don’t laugh, you will likely cry.

It’s thumbing through a scrapbook and shedding a tear with Dale and Ann Hampton in their Easley home, remembering their daughter Kimberly who was killed in the war in Iraq. This is where divine grace lives.

It’s being completely captivated by the force of nature known as Darla Moore. Her bank account is impressive, but her resolve, wit and determination are much more so. The first woman to conquer Wall Street still lives in Lake City.

It’s sitting down with 5 former first ladies of South Carolina, and hearing what we all assume; that life inside the Governor’s mansion is for most, a pretty grand affair.

It’s Mrs. Iris Campbell, recounting the thick fog of cigar smoke that surrounded the pool of the Governor’s mansion, as her husband hosted a group of German businessmen and wrote out the plan for BMW’s move to South Carolina on a series of cocktail napkins.

It’s the terrible misfortune of Mike Burgess, staggering as best he can through a life that includes a wife who contracted Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 46. Another day when it’s tough not to cry.

It’s spending a day with the resolute Mayor of Marion, Rodney Berry. The city has been in an economic funk for 20 years. It’s on the rebound now thanks to a fierce pride and stubborn resolve to remake its image in the absence of textiles and tobacco.

It’s hiking to see the rare rocky shoals spider lilies on the Catawba River, knowing the river itself has been named America’s most endangered. I’m not a naturalist, but the lilies are regal and captivating.

It might be a boat ride down the Pee Dee River with a group of unlikely activists. They are hunters and fisherman who opposed the building a coal-fired power plant on the river’s banks. They won.

It’s standing in Arlington National Cemetery on a gray, cold November day with Colonel Charles Murray, recipient of the Medal of Honor. He’s a World War II veteran who calls today’s soldiers America’s Greatest Generation.

It’s a long walk through the Harvest Hope Food bank in Columbia with Denise Holland. She saw the Great Recession first. The number of people they serve is up 250%. Denise Holland is scared, but grateful to tell the story of the down and out, and the dispossessed.

It’s 82 year old Laura Spong, now a best-selling artist. Her paintings fetch as much as $10,000. She took up serious art at the age of 62. Anything is possible.

It’s Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, trembling in anger when he produces a small picture of a teen-age boy, shot dead. Mayor Joe wants better supervision of people on probation and parole. Some of his pleas are now being heeded.

It is the absolute decency of former Governor Richard Riley, and his pleas for civil political discourse as we talk about leadership in the 21st century. This one will take some work.

It’s conversations with Dr. Walter Edgar about the complex history of the south, and why it’s meaningful traditions are an endless source of fascination for people all around the world.

And it’s the passion of Charleston chef Sean Brock. His seed-saving campaign to bring back South Carolina grains and vegetables that are almost extinct, is the biggest revolution in lowcountry cooking in a half century.

Chances are, unless you watch ETV, you probably haven’t heard much about any of these stories. And let me be clear, these stories will not be told, will never see the light of day if our institution is starved of its support.

Think about this: the average story on your local television news station is 75 seconds. Imagine that. I worked in that world for many years and can tell you that most all of these stations are truly committed to their communities. But how effectively can they tell you about our collective condition in 75 seconds?

I represent a very small part of the overall efforts of ETV, and its deep connection to the many thousands of people in South Carolina. And yet, I know that my enthusiasm is matched and even exceeded by many of my co-workers. What we do, everyday, is collect the patchwork pieces of stories that make up the fabric of our life here in this state. Public media is an incredibly important resource in a noisy and sometimes polluted information environment.

Bill Moyers, dean of public broadcasters said, “the most important thing that we do is to treat audience as citizens, not just consumers of information. If you look out and see an audience of consumers, you want to sell them something. If you look out and see an audience of citizens, you want to share something with them, and there is a difference.”

More than 50 year ago, in the advent of a ground-breaking experiment that came to be known as ETV, the mission of public broadcasting was to create an alternative channel that would be free not only of commercials, but free of commercial values, a broadcasting system that would serve the life of the mind, that would encourage the imagination, that would sponsor the performing arts, documentaries, travel. It was to be an alternative to the commercial broadcasting at that time. And guess what, it worked… and it still works today.

Can South Carolina survive without ETV? Absolutely. Will she be as rich? Not a chance.

What will you do to keep the story going? What will you do to help save ETV?

.

Mark Quinn

Host, The Big Picture

www.scetv.org

Rep. Smith: Democrats WILL vote to override all 107 Sanford vetoes

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Not as a bloc, mind you, because as you know, Democrats don’t do blocs. But according to Rep. James Smith, who called me a few minutes ago to set me straight (thereby saving me a call to him or Minority Leader Harry Ott), it will be the official House Democratic leadership position that ALL of Gov. Sanford’s 107 vetoes should be overridden. And he hopes they will be — but of course that will depend on the Republicans doing their duty by South Carolina — which James suggests the Tea Party has made GOP lawmakers scared to do.

James called me because a lot of y’all were calling him, egged on to do so by this blog (in the absence of really helpful coverage of the

Rep. James Smith

budget vetoes by the MSM). I urge y’all to keep on calling your lawmakers, Democrats and especially Republicans (since there’s more of them) to tell them what you think. And if you’ve forgotten who your lawmakers are, or how to contact them, here are instructions on enabling yourself.

If you’ll recall, House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham told me over the weekend (“Lawmakers will uphold most of Sanford’s vetoes“), the governor is likely to prevail on most of his vetoes of funding for such things as public libraries, the State Museum, technical colleges, SC ETV, the Arts Commission and the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in part because Democrats can’t be relied upon to vote to override. He based this on the lack of support he got from Democrats on some key votes on the budget.

James says that was then, this is now.

Indeed Democrats were divided on some things such as court fees. But that has nothing to do with these budget vetoes. If the Legislature fails to override, says the former Minority Leader, it won’t be because of lack of Democratic votes. And of the governor’s 107 vetoes, “I have yet to find one that we would not override.”

And while Kenny is worried, James still hopes “to be successful in overriding them.”

If the Democrats can indeed stick together tomorrow, that means the fate of these vetoes will lie in the bitter rivalry between regular mainstream Republicans and the Sanford fringe — a fringe that was emboldened by Nikki Haley’s near victory in the primary last Tuesday. All Sanford and Haley and their allies need is to drum up a third of either the House or the Senate for Mark Sanford to have his biggest victory in his eight sorry years in office.

So once again, folks, rather than merely refer you to a link, here are the instructions on how to contact your legislator, as we used to say at the bottoms of editorials:

To find out who your legislators are and how to contact them, go to www.scstatehouse.net and select “Find your legislator” on the left. Or call Project Vote Smart at 1-888-VOTE-SMART.

Some background on Sanford’s tech system vetoes

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You may have seen a piece in The State today by Otie Rawl regarding governor’s vetoes of funding for the S.C. Technical College system. (This may be the only place you’ve seen mention of this in the MSM).

Let me give you some numbers to add to your perspective on this particular outrage of the governor’s.

Basically, the governor was looking for $4 million. What he wanted to do initially was ReadySC. As Sonny White, Midlands Tech president, ‘splained to me this afternoon, ReadySC is the entity at the heart of South Carolina’s ability to tell industrial prospects — the example he gave was Boeing — that yes, we’ll be able to train your workforce for you. To explain to you what the governor apparently doesn’t understand, here’s what ReadySC does:

As an integral part of the SC Technical College System, The Center for Accelerated Technology Training and its readySC™ program work together with the 16 Technical Colleges to prepare South Carolina’s workforce to meet the needs of your company.

Established in 1961, readySC™ is one of the oldest and most experienced workforce training programs in the United States. We are ready to bring this experience and expertise to work for your company.

We are ready to quickly and successfully start up your new facility.

We are ready to help you seamlessly expand your existing facility.

We are ready to discover the skills, knowledge and abilities needed at your facility.

We are ready to design new and innovative training solutions customized specifically for your needs.

We are ready to respond to your time frames and deadlines no matter how tight.

We are ready to deliver world-class training and project management.

The Center’s new moniker — readySC™ — sums up perfectly our message to

companies that are considering a relocation or expansion in South Carolina.

We are ready!

As Sonny explained to me, the problem is that the governor simply doesn’t believe that the technical colleges should be involved in economic development. Let me say that again: Our governor (Nikki Haley’s guiding light) does not believe that the technical college system — which was created under Gov. Fritz Hollings as an economic development tool — should be involved in economic development.

The good news is that Sanford was talked out of this, by ecodevo types like Otie Rawl, according to Dr. White.

But the governor still wanted his $4 million. Fine. So he took it out of administration for the 16 technical colleges. He said that the three biggest colleges — Midlands Tech being one — should provide administrative services for the other 13.

Fine, says Sonny. But there’s no plan to do that, no authorizing legislation, no nothing — except the governor’s airy wish that it come into being.

Shadd endorses Meadors as 5th circuit solicitor

Bolchoz endorses Wilson for attorney general

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While I was at Rotary at 1 p.m. today, Robert Bolchoz endorsed Alan Wilson for the Republican nomination for state attorney general.

So if you’re Leighton Lord, you’re worried right about now. You would have barely trailed Wilson in the vote last Tuesday, 39 percent to 37. The question becomes, how much of his 24 percent can Bolchoz deliver?

I don’t know. We’ll see. More on this race later. I’m trying to get some face time with the two remaining candidates.

Vic Rawl files protest of Alvin Greene’s win

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Photo of Vic Rawl from his Facebook page. I mean, I THINK it's Vic Rawl. It's HIS Facebook page so it's gotta be him, right?...

Vic Rawl had a press conference down in Charleston today — yeah, like I’ve got time to run down to Charleston — to announce that his erstwhile campaign has filed an official protest of his bizarre defeat by Alvin Greene in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Here’s his statement:

STATEMENT OF JUDGE VIC RAWL

June 14, 2010

Good afternoon, and thank you all for coming.

Earlier today, our campaign filed a protest of last Tuesday’s election results with the South Carolina Democratic Party.

We have filed this protest not for my personal or political gain, but on behalf of the people of South Carolina.

There is a cloud over Tuesday’s election. There is a cloud over South Carolina, that affects all of our people, Democrats and Republicans, white and African-American alike.

At this point, the people of our state do not have the basic confidence that their vote will be counted.

The strange circumstances surrounding Tuesday’s vote require a thorough investigation. For better or worse, this protest process is the only platform currently available for that investigation.

And let me be clear: regardless of the outcome of this protest, a full and unblinking investigation of this election and the overall integrity of South Carolina’s election system must go forward. Whether our protest is upheld or not, I intend to bring my full energies to electoral reform well into the future.

I want to speak briefly about the bases for our protest.

First is ongoing analyses of the election returns themselves, which indicate irregularities.

Second are the many voters and poll workers who continue to contact us with their stories of extremely unusual incidents while trying to vote and administer this election.

These range from voters who repeatedly pressed the screen for me only to have the other candidate’s name appear, to poll workers who had to change program cards multiple times, to at least one voter in the Republican primary who had the Democratic U.S. Senate race appear on her ballot.

For those who experienced problems voting, I urge you to go to our website, www.vicrawl.com and use the form there to report them. You can also call our Election Integrity Hotline at 843-278-0510.

Third is the well-documented unreliability and unverifiability of the voting machines used in South Carolina.

It is worth noting that these machines were purchased surplus from Louisiana after that state outlawed them.

The full details of our protest will be presented on Thursday.

For the people of South Carolina, getting to the bottom of Tuesday’s results will build confidence, either way.

I also hope that a full and frank discussion of our voting system will result in substantial reform.

At the risk of repetition, this protest is not about me, or my personal political fortunes. Indeed, if the protest is upheld and a new election ordered, I have not decided whether to run in it.

But, either way, I am not done with the issue of fixing our elections.

Lastly, let me make something clear. Like all of you, I am aware of the controversies surrounding Mr. Greene. This protest is not about him either.

I would like to speak directly to Mr. Greene and say: “Sir, this is not about you, and it’s not about me. I wish you and your family nothing but the best in the weeks and months ahead.”

I will be happy to take questions.

Yeah, I’ve got a question, which I would ask if I were indeed in Charleston: What’s YOUR explanation for how this happened? You keep saying it’s not about you, but isn’t it, to some extent? Don’t you share some of the blame? I mean, I admit that I share some blame, for not voting in that race. But maybe if you’d been a little more visible, I would have voted for you. Maybe.

Anyway, we’d all like to get to the bottom of this. So protest away, by all means.

Fusco says veto WOULD decimate programs

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I was going to write “Fusco Says Sanford Full of It” as my headline, but it probably would have given ol’ Frank a heart attack. But that’s what this amounts to.

Remember how I wrote that, according to Kenny Bingham, the GOP leadership seemed inclined to take the governor’s word for it that his veto of the entire $29.5 million appropriation for the Budget and Control Board would NOT decimate several state programs, because, according to the gov, the board just had all this money lying around? And I asked Kenny what Frank Fusco, the head of the B&C Board, had to say about that, and Kenny told me he hadn’t talked to Frank yet? Remember?

Well, here’s what Frank has to say:

Veto Would Devastate Board, Key Programs

This week Governor Sanford vetoed the Board’s entire $29.5 million General Fund appropriation plus other line items for the S.C. Enterprise Information System.

In his veto message to the General Assembly, the Governor stated that he was taking this action because the “Board has sufficient carry-forward and other funds to maintain its operations in this fiscal year.”

The Board does not have funds to make up for this cut. If sustained, the impact of this veto would be severe and would result in very significant staff reductions in our agency.

Board programs rely on a variety of funding mechanisms. Some areas, like the Employee Insurance Program and the S.C. Retirement Systems, draw money from dedicated accounts outside the General Fund and are not impacted. But many other areas of the Board are entirely or partially dependent upon general funds.

If our General Fund budget is not restored, these areas of the Board would have to virtually cease operation:

• The State Budget Office

• The SCEIS statewide financial system

• The Board of Economic Advisors

• The Office of Human Resources

• The Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum

In addition, other areas would see very significant staff reductions:

• The State Procurement Office would lose 30 percent or more of its staff. The auditing function would be eliminated and the State Engineer’s Office will be virtually eliminated.

• The Office of Internal Operations would lose about one-third of its staff and would be severely crippled because it has already made so many reductions.

• The Office of Research and Statistics would lose funding for mapping, redistricting of Congressional and legislative seats and the Geodetic Survey. It would lose about 30 employees.

• The General Services Division would lose all funding for operation of the State House and Capitol Complex. Layoffs would be necessary.

• State funding for local water and sewer grants would be eliminated.

We wish it was the case that the Board had ample extra funds that we could simply use to make up for the shortfall. But that is not the case at all.

While some Board programs have funds in trust or other accounts, most of these dollars can be used only for purposes directed by law. For example, funds from the Retirement System could not be moved to General Services. Nor would it be right, for example, to take money we receive to provide Internet service to public schools and libraries and redirect it to a totally unrelated purpose.

And it is exactly because we do not have lots of free cash that we have reduced spending and staffing, including layoffs last year.

The S.C. House of Representatives will take up the vetoes on Tuesday. If two-thirds of the House votes to override the veto, it would then go to the Senate which would also have to override the veto with a two-thirds vote. Please know that I and the Board’s senior leadership team are working diligently to communicate all the facts to the General Assembly as they prepare to consider the vetoes. We will keep you up to date as events warrant.

– Frank Fusco

Thanks to Bob Amundson for bringing that to my attention. There it was, big as life, already up on the Web — although not anyplace I would normally look. Saved me a phone call, which I appreciate…

Lawmakers will uphold most of Sanford’s vetoes

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Governor threatened to veto entire budget again

It took me all afternoon, but I finally balanced my checkbook. Having done that, it is with a great sense of self-sacrifice that I know turn back to the state budget. Oh, my head!

Anyway, you’ll recall that I mentioned the e-mail exchange that a reader had had with House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham, which to me raised questions. That reader later wrote to me again to relate a phone conversation that he’d had subsequently with Kenny. That caused me to send Kenny an e-mail asking him the following:

Kenny, I’ve got a question for my blog… is this correct? Did the governor threaten to veto the whole budget again? And did y’all promise to uphold his vetoes if he didn’t?

If so, why in the world didn’t you just tell him to veto the whole budget if that’s what he wanted to do, and then override him, just as you did before?

I’m just not following this…

— Brad

Kenny responded last night by calling me at home and taking a long time to explain to me what had happened. The two startling things I learned are reflected above in my headline and subhead, to repeat:

In all the wrestling back and forth over the budget at the end of the session, at one critical moment the governor threatened again to do the outrageous thing he did in 2006 — veto the entire budget. Rather than call that bluff, the GOP leadership (the group led in the House by Speaker Bobby Harrell, Ways & Means chair Dan Cooper and Kenny) made a deal to uphold most of his line-item vetoes. Why did they not just let him veto the whole budget and override him as they did in 2006? Because between the Democrats, who were voting as a bloc against every move the GOP leaders made, and the Republicans who could be counted on to vote with Sanford, the leaders didn’t think they COULD override a veto of the entire budget. And the leadership didn’t want to see the government shut down.
To avoid that, the leadership agreed to sustain most of the governor’s vetoes. I can’t give you numbers, because frankly I’m not sure of them, and Kenny wasn’t giving me precise numbers anyway. We’re talking about roughly $70 million in vetoes that will be sustained. That’s nowhere near the $414 million that the 107 vetoes total up to. But about half of that is a special pot of money created to deal with a special, stimulus-related, higher Medicaid match that Congress hasn’t yet extended, and the governor says they won’t and lawmakers think it will, and even if it doesn’t there’s enough money to last in the program through next February or April, and… well, it gets REALLY complicated. That disputed Medicaid match is isolated in a section of the budget called Part Four. Most of the vetoes lawmakers will be sweating over are in Part One. (Part Two is where you find provisos, and I never even bothered asking about Part Three, if there is a Part Three…)

And yes, the parts they’re likely to sustain include some of the things that folks are most upset about being cut, such as the State Museum. So does that mean the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, for instance, will shut down?

Kenny says no, because the Budget and Control Board has reserves that will keep the museum and other drastically cut programs

Kenny Bingham -- 2006 file photo/Brad Warthen

going. But there he is relying on the governor SAYING those reserves are available to bail out those programs. And the e-mail campaign against these vetoes that I’ve seen says the governor is wrong about that. I asked, how do you know the governor’s right? And he doesn’t know. I asked, what does Frank Fusco (head of the B&C Board) say? Kenny said he hadn’t talked to Frank yet. Presumably he will before the voting on Tuesday.

Bottom line, Kenny doesn’t know exactly what will happen Tuesday on all those vetoes, because there are a number of things that haven’t been worked out yet. And THAT’S what’s different about this situation. In the past, at this point he would have said with confidence that no one should worry; the vetoes would be overridden. That’s what we’ve seen year after year: Sanford makes his symbolic gesture, and the Legislature keeps the government running.

But this is the first time I’ve seen the GOP leadership this flummoxed over the Sanford vetoes. And as Kenny tells it a lot of it arises from the fact that the leaders just don’t think they have the votes. They blame the Democrats (no surprise there, huh?) for voting against them on a number of key budget votes. He said every single Democrat, with the occasional exception of Herb Kirsh, voted against them. Add to that the minority bloc of Republicans that can be relied upon to vote the Sanford way, and the leadership barely had the votes to pass a budget at all, much less come up with the two-thirds to override the governor.

As an example of the things they fought over… the leadership came up with a plan to raise court fees and license fees to help keep the courts running and pay for the next class of state troopers. The Sanford loyalists wouldn’t go for it, and the Democrats said Republicans should raise a general tax rather than paying for the added expenses with new fees.

I need to talk with somebody with the Democratic leadership this week to get their side of it, but Kenny’s account of the Democratic position sounds pretty credible: Basically, they’re saying that the Republicans got themselves into this mess with their tax cuts and such, and the Democrats aren’t inclined to help them out of it.

Anyway, what I got out of all this was this time, we might actually see some of the more headline grabbing consequences of the governor’s vetoes actually happen: shutting down the State Museum and the Arts Commission, for instance. Might not happen, but there’s a bigger probability this time than ever.

And in spite what I’ve been hearing about how the governor has tried to be more reasonable in dealing with lawmakers since his personal troubles began, it appears that he’s up to his old shenanigans, engaging in the same kind of ideological brinksmanship that we saw at the height of his arrogance.

It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens Tuesday. And those who care about the State Museum or ETV or the arts in SC have every reason to be in suspense.

Vic Rawl and the pros from Dover

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I read in the paper this morning that the stunned Vic Rawl did not wish to comment yesterday.

But he was sending out this press release:

Statement by the Vic Rawl for US Senate Campaign

“South Carolinians would rather be 100% right than 90% uncertain.”

As we stated yesterday, our campaign began examining election data on early Wednesday morning. Over the course of the next 24 hours, our staff found several results that seemed unusual to us. We stress that, then and now, we very much hope that Tuesday’s primary was conducted fairly and that nothing untoward happened.

Expert Data Analysis

No one on our staff is a statistics expert or mathematician. As the unusual information began to accumulate, several unconnected people and teams who are far more expert in election forensics than our staff contacted the campaign and volunteered to look at results from Tuesday’s primary.

One of the teams was Dr. Walter Mebane of the University of Michigan and Dr. Michael Miller of Cornell University. Dr. Mebane is a professor of political science and statistics and a recognized expert in detecting election fraud. As of August 2010, Dr. Miller will be professor of political science at the University of Illinois, Springfield, and specializes in the analysis of election data.  Neither is affiliated with the Rawl campaign.

Dr. Mebane performed second-digit Benford’s law tests on the precinct returns from the Senate race. The test compares the second digit of actual precinct vote totals to a known numeric distribution of data that results from election returns collected under normal conditions.  If votes are added or subtracted from a candidate’s total, possibly due to error or fraud, Mebane’s test will detect a deviation from this distribution.

Results from Mebane’s test showed that Rawl’s Election Day vote totals depart from the expected distribution at 90% confidence.  In other words, the observed vote pattern for Rawl could be expected to occur only about 10% of the time by chance.  “The results may reflect corrupted vote counts, but they may also reflect the way turnout in the election covaried with the geographic distribution of the candidates’ support,” Mebane said.

Dr. Miller performed additional tests to determine whether there was a significant difference in the percentage of absentee and Election Day votes that each candidate received. The result in the Senate election is highly statistically significant: Rawl performs 11 percentage points better among absentee voters than he does among Election Day voters. “This difference is a clear contrast to the other races.  Statistically speaking, the only other Democratic candidate who performed differently among the two voter groups was Robert Ford, who did better on Election Day than among absentees in the gubernatorial primary,” Miller said.

These findings concern the campaign, and should concern all of South Carolina. We do not know that anything was done by anyone to tamper with Tuesday’s election, or whether there may have been innocuous machine malfunctions, and we are promoting no theories about either possibility.

However, we do feel that further investigation is warranted.

Voting Machine Examination

With that in mind, another expert volunteer traveled today to the SC State Board of Elections in Columbia to conduct an examination of selected voting machines that were employed in Tuesday’s election. When we have the results, if any, of that examination, we will release them immediately.

Gathering of Anecdotal Accounts

While we believe, and urge others to note that “the plural of anecdote is not data,” our campaign is receiving calls and e-mails from people – voters and poll workers – who experienced significant problems with voting for whom they intended. We are looking into these reports and will release any information we find.

Judge Rawl and the campaign stress again that no one knows exactly what happened on Election Day. South Carolinians would rather be 100% right than 90% uncertain.

Well, of course, I said that all along. On the morning after the shocking vote, I was shouting, “Why doesn’t someone do a second-digit Benford’s law test? I mean, come ON!”

Sure I was. You just weren’t listening.

An exchange about the budget vetoes

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A reader writes to me via e-mail to say, with regard to the governor’s budget vetoes:

After receiving an e-mail alert from ETV yesterday and reading about Medicaid cuts, I e-mailed Majority Leader Bingham and asked him to vote to override these two items. I am attaching his response. He does not commit to a yes or no answer, and the remainder of his response left me scratching my head. Why would house Democrats team up with Governor Sanford against House republicans? Am I misreading this?
I know that there is more going on than I know about, but this just does not make sense to me.
I have asked Majority Leader Bingham for clarification; I have e-mailed Senator Setzler as well.

Here is the response he says he got from Kenny Bingham:

Thank you for your email and for taking the time to write. As you can probably imagine, as a result of Governor Sanford’s budget vetoes, I have been inundated with emails and phone calls from those who are concerned about the negative impact that these vetoes will have on various agencies of state government. In past years, the General Assembly has been able to override many of the catastrophic vetoes that have been handed down from Governor Sanford. Unfortunately, this year will be different. As those who have closely followed the budget process know, we have had a very difficult time putting together a budget that a majority of members would support.

In the House of Representatives, our first try to pass the final budget conference report, failed by a vote of 47 to 69. After several days of intense negotiations, we were finally able to pass the budget, but only by the slimmest of margins and without any help from the House Democrats. This set the stage for what we now have before us. As a result of not having the support of House Democrats throughout this years budget process, this allowed the Governor and a group of his closest allies, to hold us hostage with this year’s budget. We were faced with the dilemma of either agreeing to accept his line item vetoes, or he was going to veto the entire budget document which would have required that we start the budget process over from scratch. A process that took 5 months to complete the first time, and one that would have been next to impossible to complete prior to government having to shut down on July 1st.

Therefore, when the House Democrats informed us on the last day of session that they would not help us override the Governor’s veto of the entire budget, we were left with no other real option but to agree to sustain the Governor’s line item vetoes. While this is clearly not the kind of news that I hoped to be sending you, it is unfortunately the truth. So barring the Governor having a change of heart, or some other unforeseen circumstance, I anticipate that the Governor’s vetoes will be sustained.

As always, if I can ever be of assistance to you or your family, or answer any questions about state government, please feel free to contact me.

Take care,

Kenny Bingham

I must say, I don’t follow it either. No matter what happened with the Democrats during the budget debate (whine, bitch, moan; it’s always somebody else’s fault, preferably someone of the other party, even the completely hapless Democrats), why can’t lawmakers override the vetoes? I mean, that was then; this is now.

Maybe this will make sense to some of y’all; it doesn’t to me.

“Where Have All the Reporters Gone?” Duh…

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Doug T., back on this thread, kindly brings our attention to a piece by Walter Shapiro on Politics Daily headlined “Nikki Haley and Rand Paul Races: Where Have All the Reporters Gone?” An excerpt:

On the cusp of her historic landslide victory in the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary, Nikki Haley swooped into Hartsville last Saturday afternoon. More than 100 Tea Party activists waited in the scorching heat for the Indian-American state legislator, who had fought off two public but totally unproven accusations of adulteryand survived a Republican state senator castigating her as a “raghead.”

It was the perfect political scene to cap the weekend’s campaign coverage less than 72 hours before the state’s most raucous, riveting and, at times, repugnant gubernatorial primary in decades. Hartsville (population: 7,465) may be a small town in the Pee Dee region, but it is just 70 miles northeast of the state capital (and media center) in Columbia. But still there was one thing missing from the picturesque scene — any South Carolina newspaper, wire service, TV or radio reporters.

What we are witnessing in this election cycle is the slow death of traditional statewide campaign journalism. I noticed the same pattern (and the same nearly reporter-free campaign trail) in Kentucky last month as I covered libertarian Rand Paul’s decisive defeat of the state Republican establishment in the GOP Senate primary. Aside from an occasional AP reporter, virtually the only print journalists whom I encountered at campaign events were my national press-pack colleagues from the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico and the Atlantic Monthly.

Newspapers like the Louisville Courier-Journal and The State, South Carolina’s largest paper, have dramatically de-emphasized in-depth candidate coverage because they are too short-handed to spare the reporters. A survey by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) found that newsroom staffs across the country have declined by 25 percent since 2001.

Actually, those numbers underestimate the problem. At the start of the decade I had essentially 8 full-time people in the editorial department (actually 7, but I had a part-timer whom I could work full-time in a pinch without getting into trouble with the bean-counters). There are now two full-timers, folded into the newsroom. As for the newsroom — a separate department on a separate floor reporting separately to the publisher (although that separation exists no longer) — I cannot speak with any accuracy. But it’s easily more than 25 percent.

And near as I can tell, that’s pretty typical of the business. The people left are busting their humps, but can only do so much. So it is when the business model underwriting an industry evaporates.

And we see the effects daily. Our democracy is suffering from a lack of anyone to play the Fourth Estate’s traditional role. Yeah, you can get interesting stuff here and there from enterprising independents who go were the MSM reporters ain’t (which isn’t hard). But you don’t get wall-to-wall coverage, you don’t get “newspaper of record” coverage that lets you in on the totality of what’s going on.

I should add that when Shapiro writes of the “slow death of traditional statewide campaign journalism,” it’s actually been much slower, much more gradual, than he describes.

When I was a reporter (oh, jeez, here we go; the old guy’s gonna tell us again how much better it was in the olden days), we actually had something that you could call “statewide campaign journalism.” I cut my teeth on state politics in 1978 in Tennessee covering the gubernatorial contest between Lamar Alexander and Jake Butcher. I was working at The Jackson Sun, a 37,000-circulation p.m. daily. For the last month of that general election, we had somebody with each of those candidates all day every day, traveling with them across the state, riding on the campaign plane and in the cars with them (and reimbursing the campaign on a pro rata basis). We went everywhere with them; we shared their meals. The only breaks they got from us was when they were sleeping, and we probably would have watched them then, too, but we had to write sometime. A typical workday ran about 20 hours. Your metabolism adjusted. Then, of course, we’d call in new ledes for our stories on the run. No cell phones, of course — you’d go to a phone booth, call the city desk and dictate the new lede — based on the latest thing the candidate had said or done — off the tops of our heads. (This, of course, required skills now extinct.)

This was an unusual level of coverage, even then, for a paper that small (how small? Think Florence Morning News). I remember a reporter from the Tennessean once saying — condescendingly, but I think he was trying to be nice — that the Sun was the “little paper that did things in a big way.” But it was fairly typical for the big paper out of Nashville and Memphis.

By the time I arrived at The State in 1987 the standard of coverage across the country had diminished considerably. But still, we had the horses to cover most of major candidates’ important appearances. We didn’t get them with their hair down as much as we had a decade earlier, but the coverage was still pretty good. And if we ran short of political reporters, we had a deep bench. For instance, in 1988 I pulled Jeff Miller in from the Newberry bureau to be the lead day-to-day reporter for the GOP presidential primary, so that the State House reporters didn’t have to take their eyes off the State House. Today, there is no Newberry bureau — and no Camden, Sumter, Florence, Orangeburg or Beaufort bureaus either. The last of them closed in the early 90s.

Nowadays, reporters will catch a big campaign event if it’s in town, or if it’s big enough run to Greenville or Charleston for a high-stakes debate. But sticking to a candidate one-on-one throughout the campaign? No way. In fact, some of today’s few remaining reporters weren’t even alive back when we did that.

But yeah, the big cuts have happened in the past decade. Things started out bad for the industry in the first six years (killing off Knight Ridder, which used to own The State), then got dramatically worse starting in the summer of 2006, with the bottom falling out of what was left in September 2008.

So no, you shouldn’t be surprised if the South Carolina MSM is missing from a campaign rally in Florence. Or from the Alvin Greene story. Or from comprehensive coverage of the battle over the state budget. This is the way things are now. The army’s largely been disbanded, forcing a lot of us to go guerrilla. You’ll get coverage, and sometimes it will be inspired and even in-depth, but it will be spotty.

Anyone see a good rundown of what Sanford vetoed?

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In the last few days, I’ve run links to a story in The State and another in the Post and Courier giving the 30,000-foot view of Gov. Sanford’s budget line-item vetoes, with all the quotes about political philosophy, descriptions of the state of the political relationship between the governor and lawmakers (somewhat better than in past years, you may be surprised to learn), and rehashes of just how much the governor hates the federal stimulus and is looking forward to saying “I told you so” when the money runs out.

What I have not seen is a good rundown of what he was cutting. And boy, am I missing having Cindi Scoppe working for me. Give her a couple of days of communing with the budget document (which might as well be written in Greek for all the good it does me), and she’d tell me everything I needed to know about it. When it comes to writing about the budget, to paraphrase Blanche Dubois,I have always depended on the kindness of… people who know how to read that stuff.

But a number of things have caused me to wonder in the last couple of days.

For instance:

The consternation I picked up on over at ETV studios over the massive cut to their budget. ($5.2 million — that detail was in the P&C report)
The call I got from someone yesterday whose girlfriend works at the State Museum, and she was worried because the governor had vetoed the museum’s entire appropriation (which would shut it down if not overridden).
An e-mail I got saying the same about the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. (I say, is nothin’ sacred?) This appears to be part of the governor’s elimination of the entire appropriation for the Budget and Control Board.

To quote from that last:

Yesterday Governor Sanford vetoed the Board’s entire $25.2 million General Fund appropriation for the Budget and Control Board for next year. This section of the budget includes the entire General Fund operating budget for the S.C. Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. If this veto is not overridden, the museum will have to cease operations.

In his veto message to the General Assembly, the Governor stated that he was taking this action because the “Board has sufficient carry-forward and other funds to maintain its operations in this fiscal year.” This is not correct. There are not sufficient funds to make up the $25.2 General Fund cut to the Board, which includes $765,000 for the museum.

This veto represents the greatest threat the museum has faced in our 114 years of existence. If this veto is not overridden we will no longer be able to preserve South Carolina’s proud military legacy.

Now one can have all sorts of debates as to the relative importance of the museum formerly known simply as the Confederate Relic Room (although I can tell you from having visited that it’s much more now), but what’s bugging me is that, with the vote coming up Tuesday, I just don’t have a clear idea of WHAT all is at stake.

Do any of y’all? And if so, please share.

bradwarthen.com

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