Tag: House Ethics Committee

Bobby Harrell v. Alan Wilson at Supreme Court Today

The S.C. Supreme Court will hear arguments beginning at 1:30 p.m. today on the continuing controversy over who has the right to investigate possibly illegal actions by S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell.

The case originally dates from an alleged ethics complaint brought to S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson by the libertarian South Carolina Policy Council. It included allegations that Harrell used his influence as Speaker to obtain a contract for his pharmaceutical supply business and improperly appointed his brother to a judicial candidate screening committee.

(In South Carolina, the legislature appoints a panel that screens judicial applicants and sends recommendations back to the legislature which votes on the recommendations for final approval of the judges. To further complicate the situation, many of the applicants are former legislators.)

The complaint also questioned the use of approximately $324,000 of Harrell’s campaign funds to reimburse himself for costs associated with trips in his personal airplane.

Ethics Reform – Not So Fast

Watered Down Ethics Reform Bill Nears Approval

A very watered down ethics reform bill was reported out of conference committee Wednesday and received an overwhelming vote of yeas in the S.C. House yesterday.

The bill must be approved by the Senate before going to Gov. Nikki Haley’s desk for signature.

But, the key measure needed for real ethics reform in South Carolina was left behind by the conference committee.

South Carolina’s legislators just can’t allow themselves to be at the mercy of an independent ethics commission, so the House and Senate Ethics Committees remain as the investigatory bodies for the state’s legislators.

Ethics Reform – Not So Fast

Another Ethics Reform Failure

There is no ethics reform this year for South Carolina politicians because the S.C. Senate wasn’t interested in changing the way the ethics of its members is monitored.

Last summer, Gov. Nikki Haley ran around the state, accompanied by Attorney General Alan Wilson, trumpeting the need to tighten ethics laws in the state and overhaul the way in which ethics oversight is accomplished.

That no bill was passed in the General Assembly this year says everything that needs to be said about the way in which the state is governed.

The 1895 Constitution, which governs the state, places all real power in the General Assembly. If it doesn’t want to act, no force on earth can make it.

Election Filing Mess Leads 2012 Stories

As we look back on the news of 2012, the top story in South Carolina this year was the election filing mess that kept nearly 300 candidates off the ballot.

Most candidates affected were challengers to incumbent Republicans, although many Democrats got left off too, in the June primary. They were ineligible to be certified as candidates because the state and local Republican and Democratic parties did not understand, and did not make allowance for, a minor change in state law that required electronic filing of the candidates’ Statement of Economic Interests.

The party leaders never saw it coming and they blew it. I don’t believe it was a big conspiracy to keep new candidates off the ballot. Some newcomers did file properly and did get certified, too few for a real democratic process, however.

Bobby Harrell and His Campaign Funds

South Carolina House Speaker Bobby Harrell has refused to provide detailed receipts of more than $325,000 he reimbursed himself from campaign contributions, according to an ongoing series of stories by Renee Dudley, AKA “little girl” of the Charleston Post and Courier.

For nearly a month, the reporter has been requesting receipts and itemized expenses, as required by state ethics law and subject to public disclosure. S.C. Code of Laws Section 8-13-1302 enumerates requirements for maintenance of expenditure records from campaign contributions.

Disclosure reports on campaign receipts and expenditures are required to be filed quarterly with the S.C. Ethics Commission. These are supposed to include a detailed listing of to whom and for what purpose expenditures are made.

Nikki Haley Ethics Case Won’t Make Difference

Haley Ethics Case Won’t Make Difference

The S.C. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear an appeal of whether a circuit court judge erred when he refused to hear a lawsuit concerning alleged ethics violations by Gov. Nikki Haley when she was a state legislator.

Judge Casey Manning ruled state courts were not the proper venue to hear alleged ethics violations. Rather he said ethics regulators should hear the case. The complaint was heard by the S.C. House Ethics Committee twice, behind closed doors in May and in open session in June. Both times, the committee excused Haley’s actions.

This case says everything that needs to be said about the lack of ethics in S.C. governments.

Haley’s Ethics Defense

Gov. Nikki Haley’s defense for alleged ethics violations during her time as a House member became obvious this week when the House Ethics Committee voted to hold a full scale investigation.

Haley’s lawyer has said she did nothing more than other lawmakers do and to investigate Haley’s actions would bring those lawmakers’ actions into question. He said he would provide the committee with a list of lawmakers who work for lobbyists’ principals.

That’s the old ‘everybody’s doing it so it’s okay’ defense.

Haley claimed the original investigation (of which there was none) was dismissed based on fact, but the investigation has now been reopened for political reasons. Haley asked that she be left alone to “do her job”, whereupon she almost immediately left for Wisconsin to campaign for Gov. Scott Walker in his recall election.

Haley’s Ethics Problems

The ethics investigation into actions of Gov. Nikki Haley while she was a member of the House could cause the governor considerable problems with ethics laws.

In a complaint to the S .C. House of Representatives, Republican activist John Rainey alleged Haley “traded on the influence of her office (representative) for her personal benefit and the benefit of those paying her by (1) lobbying a state agency, (2) failing to disclose that her reason for recusing herself from voting on legislation was because the legislation’s beneficiary was secretly paying her, (3) failing to abstain from a vote authorizing payment of public money to a corporation paying her, (4) soliciting money from registered lobbyists and lobbyist principals for the benefit of her employer and (5) concealing all of this activity by making false and incomplete public disclosures.”

The S.C. Ethics Commission defines a lobbyist, “as any person who is employed, appointed, or retained, with or without compensation, by another person to influence by direct communication with public officials or public employees.”

Harrell Responds to Haley Accusations

The fight over alleged ethics violations by Gov. Nikki Haley when she served as a member of the House is being heard far and wide from Columbia.

The governor claimed House Speaker Bobby Harrell was interfering with the House Ethics Committee investigation, which could be an ethics violation in itself. Harrell responded to those charges yesterday.

“Statements made by Governor Haley today at a press conference are simply not true.”

“It is not true to claim that lawyers for the House Ethics Committee were ‘directed’ to refuse to meet with the Governor’s lawyers in order to accept the documents the Committee requested. The truth is, the Governor’s lawyers did in fact present those documents directly to counsel for the Ethics Committee…”

State Ethics Committee Violated State Law

The appeal of Republican operative John Rainey to House Speaker Bobby Harrell asking the full House to re-consider ethics complaints against Gov. Nikki Haley, for actions when she was a House member, virtually screams for an investigation to be opened.

The fact that stands out most in Rainey’s appeal is that just minutes before voting 5-1 to dismiss an ethics complaint by Rainey against Haley, the House Ethics Committee voted unanimously that probable cause existed to investigate the complaint.

S.C. Code of Laws Section 8-13-540 states, “If the ethics committee determines complaint alleges facts sufficient to constitute a violation, it shall promptly investigate the alleged violation and may compel by subpoena the testimony of witnesses and the production of pertinent books and papers.”

In failing to investigate the complaint and, instead, voting to dismiss it, the ethics committee violated state law. There doesn’t appear the committee is allowed any discretion in this decision as the law plainly states “shall promptly investigate.”