Veto countdownSanford sure to veto, but how many?By Bill Davis, senior editor MAY 15, 2009 - How many vetoes will it be? Will it be one, or will it be 100 – or even 200?
 The question circulating the Statehouse this week focused on just how displeased would Gov. Mark Sanford be with the $5.7 billion 2009-10 General Fund budget that the General Assembly passed over to him this week.
Sanford has until Tuesday night at midnight to hand down vetoes on the budget. In the past, he vetoed more than 100 budget line items one year, Another the year he vetoed the entire thing in a single veto. No one in Columbia outside of the governor’s office seemed sure this week how many vetoes to expect next week.
And the governor, who has railed against portions of the budget, wasn’t saying. Two trips for comment to his office from him or his staff netted no comments.
“I’ve given up on guessing what this governor is going to do,” said Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman (R-Florence).
House Ways and Means chairman Dan Cooper (R-Piedmont) says the same. As does House Speaker Bobby Harrell (R-Charleston). And longtime Sen. John Land (D-Manning). And …well, you get the picture.
“I think he’s going to hand down a single veto, because that will get him more attention nationally from his fellow Republicans,“ said Phil Bailey, executive director of the S.C. Senate Democratic Caucus, who charged once again that Sanford is more interested in running for president than doing a good job of running the state.
What happens with a lot of vetoes?
One legislative staffer said he prayed Sanford went the one-veto route because of the time it would to take to record some 300 possible voice votes.
 The staffer, begging anonymity, no Sanfordite, said it would be a nightmare in the Senate especially, where the dozen or so members of Sanford’s “Juicebox Caucus” -- a joke on who has “drunk the Sanford Kool-Aid” -- could take to the pulpit and bully the process.
“I think votes on the floor this week in the House are a good indication of how quickly any vetoes will be dealt with here,” said Harrell, referencing a host of amendments put forward by the governor’s loyalists which were quickly and summarily dispatched.
Land, who serves on Senate Finance, said the governor might not be able to issue as many vetoes as he has in the past for a simple reason: there’s not much more in the “bare-knuckle budget to cut,” he said.
“If he knocks down any more money, it will put some agencies out of business,” said Land, who earlier this year was the force behind www.countdowntochaos.com, an Internet clock ticking off the days and seconds until the federal deadline to accept certain portions of the federal stimulus package. “It’s like taking three wheels off a car: it’ll drive, sort of, until you take off the fourth.”
This is the hardest budget I’ve had to deal with in my time in Columbia,” said Harrell. “But even Sen. Leatherman said it was his toughest and he’s been up here 27 years.”
Veto targets emerge
Rhetoric aside, talking with representatives, senators, observers, and House and Senate brass, several likely veto targets have emerged.
The first obvious veto will come in the Part 3 portion of the state General Fund budget that accepts $350 million in federal stimulus funds slated for education and law enforcement. It’s half of the two-year sum of $700 million Sanford nationally vowed to oppose accepting.
If the measure survives Sanford’s seemingly assured veto, it will force him by law to accept and certify the funding. The governor had been withholding fully accepting the money in hopes of forcing the legislature into cuts.
The second veto will likely be for the line item creating a Capitol police force to patrol Statehouse grounds. This has been an argument-rich topic for several years, with Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell (R-Charleston) sparring with the governor over issues of safety and cost.
 McConnell has consistently complained that while the governor enjoyed a full safety contingent, the Senate and House office buildings were accessible through virtually every pore. The underground parking decks were accessible from the unsecured street, there was nothing stopping a would-be assailant from walking into the building via the garage-level elevators, and so on.
Safety measures have been beefed up, such as the installation of better video equipment and metal detectors on the buildings’ first floors. It still felt unsafe to McConnell, who fought for a Capitol police department to be formed.
Sen. Greg Ryberg (R-Aiken), a member of the so-called Juicebox Caucus, said to also expect the governor to veto $7 million the House added to its own budget. The House furloughed itself and its employees several times this year as cost-saving measures to keep within its reduced budget.
Another likely veto is a budget item that would move the state’s Division of Aeronautics from the governor’s purview in the Commerce Department to the Budget and Control Board.
Ironically, should Sanford take the 100-plus veto route, he could end up costing the state money. In the sine die resolution, which ends this year’s legislative session on May 21, there is a provision that the legislature must stay on if it hasn’t dealt with all of the gubernatorial vetoes.
And every day means more money bled out of state coffers.
Crystal ball: Even if Sanford goes for 200-veto mark, don’t expect the legislature to dawdle in overriding them. “Legislators who voted philosophically with Sanford this week,” said Harrell of the governor’s loyalists, “will vote locally when it comes to overrides.”
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Perfunctory week ahead
With the upcoming week marking the last three scheduled days of this year’s legislative session, little beyond a handful of perfunctory housecleaning committees will meet. The big work will be done on the floor of the House and Senate, and in chambers between, where the final touches -- or death blows -- will be administered to pending legislation.
With the date passed for bills to make it from chamber to chamber with less than a two-thirds vote, here’s a quick list of bills that died this week, or will croak in the coming week:
- Cigarette tax increase
- 24-hour abortion waiting period
- Restructuring state government (especially the state Employment Service Commission to governor’s cabinet)
- Voter I.D.
- Payday lending, and
- School vouchers
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The other shoe
There was a lot of complaining and agreeing in the Statehouse this week that the 2009 legislative session was a bit of a nothing, accomplishment-wise.
But the following year, 2010, could be an even bigger disappointment. Why? It’s the second year of the session, traditionally when more important work gets done.
But next year is also when House seats are back up for reelection. That may mean a flood of “politics” inspired bills put out by representatives more focused on getting reelected than promulgating good law (think: gun sales tax holiday).
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Stubbed out
For an intents and purposes, it appeared this week that the proposed cigarette tax increase has died and will not rear its head again until next year. The divisions between the House and the Senate on the issue of whether to raise the state’s per-pack cigarette tax from 7 to 50 cents were too great, many said.
The House wanted to create a program that gave tax credits to businesses to expand health care coverage to more of their employees. The Senate wanted recently to put the expected $135 million of increased revenue into a year-long lock box, so members could gauge President Obama’s move toward universal health care coverage.
Some in and around the Statehouse have grumbled that the delay didn’t serve the over-worked and the under-insured, or small business, or health care. Rather, the delay meant more profits and more new smokers for the tobacco industry.
Angry words a-flyin’
A nasty fight between Gov. Mark Sanford and the General Assembly has been flying under the radar. Until now.
In the budget the legislature just sent to the governor was an item that moves the state’s Division of Aeronautics out of the Commerce Department and under the control of the Budget and Control Board.
 Here’s why that’s such a catty move: Commerce is a cabinet agency and Sanford has lobbied long and hard for the destruction of the legislative-heavy budget board. Several legislators interviewed said the move came after Commerce took bigger cuts out of the division than it did out of other divisions.
“I find it ironic that Gov. Sanford, after he has flown around the country in the state plane for seven years, wants to eliminate the maintenance staff, sell the hangar, and eliminate one of the pilots,” said House Speaker Bobby Harrell (R-Charleston). Neither the governor’s office nor Commerce returned requests for comment.
Sen. Phil Leventis (D-Sumter), a former fighter pilot who still works in aviation, said it wasn’t just Sanford, but the past three administrations that gave short shrift to the division meant to foster growth in the aviation industry in the state.
Ford’s turn
 Sen. Robert Ford (D-Charleston) cornered a member of the Statehouse Report crew last week to complain that we never write about him, namely his gubernatorial campaign. We pointed out that we had mocked his candidacy in the commentary portion of the report. He agreed, and then asked why no one was pointing out the good work he was doing on the judicial screening committee. “When I got on, there were only seven black state judges; now there are 11,” claimed Ford. Noted, senator.
Third time not ‘charming’
Sen. Hugh Leatherman (R-Spartanburg), chair of the Finance Committee, took to the Senate podium on Wednesday and announced that 2009-10 will mark the fifth time in modern, post-war history that the state had suffered through of falling tax revenues. And that this year was the second of three consecutive years revenue drops.
The good news was that the state economy was predicted to begin turning around in the first quarter of 2010. Will that be enough time for legislators to realize that low tax revenues are not a “state” crisis, but a “Statehouse” crisis, as the rest of the state’s employment, education and environment are crumbling? Probably not.
Movin’ and shakin’
State Rep. Carl Gullick (R-Lake Wylie) announced this week he would step down from his state office effective this summer to join his wife in another state, where she has taken a job. His seat was to expire in 2010. A special election will be held to replace him.
Moss pulls a reverse Specter
Rep. Dennis Moss of Gaffney confirmed this morning that he is leaving the Democratic Party to become a member of the Republican Party. Moss declined comment until the switch was official, and referred questions to a press release that came out today. That release was to come out after this edition’s deadline.
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Juicebox Caucus doesn't yet have the juiceBy Andy Brack, editor and publisher
MAY 15, 2009 – The emergence of the Senate’s Juicebox Caucus is too little and too late for Gov. Mark Sanford.
 The group of Sanford loyalists – called the “Juicebox Caucus” because they’ve drunk Sanford’s ideological punch of being in government to try to get rid of a bunch of it – numbers at least 11 Republican state senators. But to have real power, they need at least 16 of the 46 members of the Senate to be able to make sure any Sanford vetoes aren’t overruled.
Over the last seven years, Sanford has developed a leadership style based on confrontation and ideology, compared to Republican and Democratic governors of the past who tended to use their soap boxes to persuade and reach compromises.
Some call Sanford’s style “obstructionist,” as evidenced in this year’s battle between the Legislature and Sanford over $700 million in federal stimulus money. Sanford doesn’t want it to be part of the budget without a reduction in state debt. Most lawmakers say the state can’t afford to pay off debt and really doesn’t need to so when so many needs are unfilled in a year that already has seen a drop of $1 billion to state government coffers.
And while some see Sanford as a courageous innovator, others describe his leadership as being unwilling to budge or ideological due to his well-known penchant for vetoing scores of bills and budget provisions, most of which quickly are overridden by a recalcitrant General Assembly.
“It’s a unique way to govern,” noted one Senate veteran. “It’s not quite there [for the Juicebox Caucus], but they’ve made some inroads.”
When Sanford was inaugurated in 2003, Republican leaders that controlled the state House and Senate had high hopes for a unified government. But relationships became strained early on as the governor employed media stunts to rub the General Assembly’s nose that it wasn’t doing what he wanted. Historian Jack Bass recently described it as Sanford being a master of symbolism.
Just this week, powerful Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, ripped Sanford in a letter that described an ongoing “public relations war” against the General Assembly: “While the attacks you have launched may have been intended to build your national image as a reformer, in the final analysis, the work of a true reformer is measured not by words or TV ads or by press releases but by what he or she has been able to accomplish." (Read the Sanford letter that McConnell was replying to.)
During his terms, Sanford suffered from the problem that state legislators didn’t like to be lectured or poked fun of. They were looking for a political partner, not a smarty-pants who wanted his way over whatever they said.
 By the time 2004 rolled around, Sanford hadn’t figured out that the way to govern as an obstructionist or ideologue was to have true believers in place to do his bidding. But as a former staffer became a state senator (Chip Campsen of Mount Pleasant), the governor and his deep-pocket pals figured they’d try to change the legislature to change the system.
Along the way, former chief of staff Tom Davis (Beaufort) and Kevin Bryant (Anderson) joined Campsen and long-time Sanfordite Sen. Greg Ryberg (R-Aiken) as the core of the governor’s support. In 2008, Sanford helped elect five Senate freshmen Republicans to grow the caucus – Mick Mulvaney (Indian Land), Phil Shoopman (Greer), Shane Martin (Spartanburg), Mike Rose (Summerville) and Lee Bright (Roebuck). When the dust from the 2008 elections cleared, the Juicebox Caucus included nine senators.
This year, it looks like new GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Grooms (Bonneau) and Danny Verdin (Laurens) have become loyal backers of Sanford’s plans on budgetary and education measures. So the Caucus now includes 11 senators. Four additional members – David Thomas (Greenville), Mike Fair (Greenville), Ray Cleary (Murrells Inlet) and Shane Massey (Edgefield) – often are caught in the middle. Sometimes they support the GOP’s Old Guard (McConnell, Leatherman, Peeler); sometimes they support the Juicebox Caucus, observers say.
But at present, the governor just doesn’t have enough support to completely obstruct the Senate.
After the session ends this year – and with next year, his last, promising little different in support in the Senate – many are starting to wonder how much the Kool-Aid Governor will spend fiddling with South Carolina’s challenges since he’s got eyes on a bigger prize, the presidency.
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Five myths about the new state budget By Dr. Jameson Taylor
S.C. Policy Council
Special to SC Statehouse Report
MAY 15, 2009 -- This year’s budget debate has been one of the most contentious in state history, and produced the second-largest state budget in history ($20.7 billion) as passed by the General Assembly this week.
 However, Statehouse talking points repeatedly tell the public spending is cut to the bone. A closer look at the budget reveals this is simply not the case. Below are some of the myths about this year’s state budget, and the truth behind them.
Myth 1: The proposed state budget is $5.7 billion. Most of the public and many elected officials believe the state budget is around $6 billion, but that is actually less than a third of what is spent on state government.
- The total state budget ratified by the General Assembly this week is $20.7 billion. This figure includes: $5.7 billion in General Fund spending; $7.8 billion in federal funds; and $7.2 billion in Other Funds.
Myth 2: The new state budget will save thousands of jobs. According to an independent study by economist Arthur Laffer, South Carolina’s high dependence on government spending is hurting the state’s economy. In short, public sector spending is crowding-out private sector growth and creating private sector job losses.
- South Carolina’s unemployment rate (11.4%) is the third-highest in the nation.
- The impact of the federal stimulus package will be particularly detrimental, costing the state between 23,800 and 34,850 additional job losses.
Myth 3: This is a fiscally responsible budget that will grow the state’s economy. In the minds of many legislators, increased government spending translates into more economic opportunities for the people of South Carolina. The truth is that economists are beginning to see a correlation between South Carolina’s high rate of government expenditures and the state’s poor economic performance. Consider the following:
- The total state budget increased by almost 20 percent over the past five years. During the same period household income rose by approximately 15 percent – which means state spending grew by 33 percent more than household income.
Myth 4: The state has drastically cut spending. The budget passed by the General Assembly this week is $730 million more than last year’s final budget ($20.7 billion vs. $19.9 billion)
Myth 5: There is no pork or waste in this year’s budget. Some examples:
- $7 million in economic development funds for a Commerce Department “Closing Fund” to provide incentives for businesses to relocate to or expand in South Carolina (provisos 40.12, 40.25). In effect, the fund uses tax dollars paid by other businesses to provide incentives to favored companies.
- Although the budget already allocates $775,000 for hydrogen research, House leadership inserted an amendment (90.19) that provides an additional $1.45 million in nonrecurring revenue for hydrogen-fuel station loans.
- $1.38 million to private-sector entities for tourism promotions including: $105,000 for the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce; $50,000 for the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce; and $20,000 for the Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce. These funds are in addition to a $13.9 million allocation for tourism sales and marketing (proviso 39.1).
- $500,000 to continue operating the state’s two publicly subsidized golf courses at Cheraw State Park and Hickory Knob State Park (cf. proviso 39.4).
If these myths sound familiar, it’s because they have become a permanent part of the budget debate here in South Carolina. Instead of rhetoric, we need concrete solutions – an effective constitutional limit on state spending, increased contributions to the state’s two rainy day funds, and zero-based budgeting – that will enable legislators to focus on saving taxpayer dollars, not just during a budget crisis, but in good times as well.
Taylor is director of research at the S.C. Policy Council. This commentary is adapted for SC Statehouse Report from a longer piece.
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Up, down and in-betweenBy Ric Castagna, Contributing Author
 Hearn. Congratulations, Kaye Hearn, on being named this week as the next justice to serve on the S.C. Supreme Court. Hearn will become the second woman to serve on the court, along with Chief Justice Jean Toal. More: GSA Business.
Craigslist. Go to this page on Craigslist and read a posting from last month putting Gov. Mark Sanford up for sale. Since there’s nothing erotic about it, even Attorney General Henry McMaster might get a laugh out of it.
 Abortion. The 24-hour waiting period was defeated, but not before its supporters in the Statehouse scored points in home districts. Same for voter I.D., payday lending and school vouchers.
 Cigarette tax. Political divisions and timing killed what could have been the single definitive piece of legislation to come out of this year’s session.
Sanford. By fighting so hard over the $700 million, you helped ensure that little would get done this legislative session.
Legislators. See “Sanford” above. Weeeeeeeeeak.
Dealers. Thanks to the closing of dealerships across the state, Chrysler (11) and GM (pending), soon the only new car lots may belong only to Yugo. More: The State.
Knucking-up. It’s embarrassing to see old, white legislators bumping knuckles with black legislators (e.g. former USC lineman Anton Gunn (D-Columbia) on the floor of the House.) If Anton were Puerto Rican, would you keep asking him about Gloria Estefan?
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