What's next?"Thank you, South Carolina"
JUNE 18, 2010 – What more can this state do for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart?”
 That’s become a question that more and more people are wondering in South Carolina’s seemingly nonstop attempts to stay on the nation’s front pages.
Let’s look at the record over the past few years:
- State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel steps down after being indicted on felony cocaine charges.
- A Republican operative calls Michele Obama a “gorilla” in an online joke.
- Gov. Mark Sanford makes international news by leaving the state to visit his South American girlfriend in lieu of hiking the Appalachian Trail. He then steps all over himself apologizing and eventually divorced his wife.
- "You lie!"
- An assistant attorney general is arrested in a car parked in a cemetery with a stripper, Viagra and sex toys.
- Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer compares citizens on free and reduced lunch to “stray dogs.”
- Comptroller Richard Eckstrom’s email affair with a state superintendent of education candidate becomes cringingly public.
- And just in time for the primary elections, two men come forward with claims, but no proof, of an affair with a gubernatorial candidate, who is later referred to as a “raghead” by state Sen. Jake E. Knotts (R-W. Columbia).
 Now comes Alvin Greene. Unemployed and reportedly facing a felony obscenity charge, this Manning man defeated a respected Statehouse veteran in the Democratic primary to face U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint in November. Greene’s victory was such a surprise that U.S House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) is demanding an investigation.
These days every time South Carolina sticks its proverbial foot in its mouth, comedian Jon Stewart unsheathes a segment on his show called, “Thank You, South Carolina,” during which the fake news anchor thanks the Palmetto State for making it so easy for his writers.
Surprisingly, the author of the segment, Josh Lieb, is a native of South Carolina who grew up in Columbia and graduated from Heathwood Hall. Heck, state Sen. Joel Lourie (D-Columbia) was his youth basketball couch.
Lieb, who serves as the show’s producer, says he is tired of his home state getting abused in the press and waits for the day he can stop writing jokes about it.
“South Carolina has done enough, it can absolutely rest on its laurels,” said Lieb, Thursday, taking a break from running the show in New York. “I can’t wait for some other state to take up the ‘crazy’ mantle.”
Growing up, Lieb said South Carolina was the “invisible” state, where national attention only focused “when a hurricane came ashore.” Suddenly, the state’s senators were getting quoted, and that felt good, he said. For a while.
Dueling Ashleys
So what is next for South Carolina? We asked players and observers around the state about what they thought the next shoe to drop would be to embarrass the Palmetto State. Some of the answers were funnier than Lieb’s. Some weren’t.
The overriding through-line focused on the elevation of state Rep. Nikki Haley (R-Lexington) as the leading GOP candidate for governor going into next week’s Republican primary run-off.
Some, like Erskine political scientist Ashley Woodiwiss, saw Haley’s ascension from combative, isolated representative to gubernatorial Tea Party front-runner as more than worrisome.
 Woodiwiss said Haley represents more than just a traditional fear of creeping socialism, but a two-edged sword of attempting to further limit government and an expression in the general mistrust many in the state have in their elected officials in Columbia.
On the contrary, Ashley Landess, president of the S.C. Policy Council, sees Haley’s rise as an important hedge against the “out of control growth” of state government. On this point, she said that Haley, a friend of hers, will fight the “shell game” of telling voters that the state’s total budget is so low that teachers will have to be furloughed, while at the same time giving a $100 million tax gift to Boeing for plant expansion in the Lowcountry.
 Landess, tongue in cheek, said the next state debacle would likely come from the legislature’s obsession with naming state animals. She pointed to the “wasted” hours legislators spent fighting over which should be the state’s official heritage work animal. (Marsh Tacky horse, 1, mule, 0.)
Woodiwiss said that forecasting the next embarrassing debacle would be like sitting in the crow’s nest aboard the Titanic and figuring out when the next iceberg was going to hit. On a serious note, he said the next state shame would probably arise as the result in the gutting of state funding (over $7 million cut) at the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.
What public good will be met, Woodiwiss wondered, when uninsured workers aren’t able to show up at their jobs because of botulism not identified by DHEC restaurant inspectors.
Health care cuts would focus the nation’s eye back on South Carolina, as ongoing cuts to the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicaid, according to Phil Bailey, the communications director for the state Senate Democratic Caucus.
Bailey has had experience with debacle. It was on a recent Web-chat show he co-hosts that Knotts not only referred to gubernatorial candidate S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley (R-Lexington) as a “raghead,” but defamed President Obama with the same inaccurate slur.
One player, speaking on background, predicted the next debacle could be a blessing in disguise: the oil released from the still-gushing spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The insider said that should oil balls come ashore in South Carolina, it could force the state to finally get serious about energy efficiency and conservation efforts.
Crystal ball: The forgotten blight upon the land in this discussion has been education. “Thank God for Mississippi” jokes have been quelled for a while, thanks to the political tumult. But that can’t last, especially with K-12 and higher ed cuts sure to doom score increases for another generation. Regardless of where South Carolina screws up next, Josh Lieb will be there to make fun of it. He’s just not going to enjoy doing it.
6/11: Election provides questions and answers
6/4: Sanford rises to top again5/28: Haley, Sheheen atop new poll 5/21: Budget battle climaxing
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Dealing with the vetoes stillWith conference reports still pending, as well as a host of gubernatorial vetoes to tackle, the General Assembly extended its session so that it could return on June 29 to deal with the remaining issues.
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Social issue rears head againAbortion, the issue that just won’t die, will be resurrected when the General Assembly returns June 29 as a conference report on a bill requiring a 24-hour waiting period for women wanting an abortion will once again be debated.
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The never-ending storyUnable to get through all of Gov. Mark Sanford’s budget vetoes this week, the legislature will return for a second extended-session week on June 29. So far, the House sustained close to half of the vetoes, including a $214 million line item that was dependent on federal Medicaid funds that haven’t been signed into law in Washington, D.C.
Additionally, the legislature has overturned vetoes that would have sucked funds out of SCETV, the state’s tech school system, assistance for county libraries and the state museum in Columbia.
The veto fight was supposed to be a harbinger of the tenor of next year’s coming budget fights, when nearly one-quarter of the General Fund budget is expected to disappear. But with House Democrats playing ball, it may portend better relations next year. Or it may signify chastened Dems realizing they overplayed their political hand earlier this session.
June 22 primary runoffs ahead This Tuesday, Republicans across the state will head to the polls for runoffs. There is only one district Democratic run-off, House 41, which pits Boyd Brown versus Kamau Marcharia.
The GOP runoff field is much more crowded with four statewide races and five House seats up for grabs:
- Governor: Gresham Barrett vs. Nikki Haley
- Lt. Governor: Ken Ard vs. Bill Connor
- S.C. Attorney General: Leighton Lord vs. Alan Wilson
- S.C. Superintendent of Education: Elizabeth Moffly vs. Mick Zais
- House Dist. 38: Doug Brannon v. Joey Millwood
- House Dist. 39: Marion B. Frye v. Ralph Shealy Kennedy
- House Dist. 87: Jerry Howard v. Todd Atwater
- House Dist. 117: Bill Crosby v. Jimmy Hinson
- House Dist. 123: Richard Chalk v. Andy Patrick.
NOTE: In this year's primary endorsements, Statehouse Report endorsed Lord for attorney general.
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Haley’s thin record offers little leadership hopeBy Andy Brack, editor and publisher JUNE 18, 2010 - - The really bitter irony of the June 8 elections is that the angry people who voted for Nikki Haley as the GOP’s choice for governor are in for a big shock one day: Instead of being a change, she represents more of the same.  The hyper-ambitious Haley is little more than Mark Sanford in drag.
Like Sanford, she doesn’t get along with the legislature and, quite frankly, many lawmakers don’t trust her. She’s bickered with the House and Senate leadership over accountability and internal voting procedures as if she had the only solution to any problem. As governor, she’d have the same “my way or the highway” attitude that’s plugged up progress for the state for the last eight years. In a state that needs forward progress, Haley would offer little. Like Sanford, Haley swallowed whole the libertarian notion by Washington insider Grover Norquist that government should be so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub. She doesn’t respect how government is the civilizing influence on society that allows us to live at more than a subsistence level. Like Sanford, she’s got a lot of charm. She can twinkle and jab, smile and joust with the best of the media. But unlike Sanford, she’s not got much substance. In a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, Haley offers no detailed plan to create jobs. Instead she talks about economic prosperity in a dozen lines on her Web site. Relying primarily on rhetoric, she’s riding a wave of Tea Party zeal inspired by that rocket scientist of a politician, Sarah Palin.  When our state needs real leadership that will bring in more jobs, solve a coming budget earthquake and try to get South Carolina off the bottom of lots of lists, Haley offers nothing more than fluffy lines to appease people who have seen the movie “Network” too many times. (“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.”)
For example, she says South Carolina – with its Republican governor, Republican House and Republican Senate – needs to be conservative, not just Republican. Is she kidding? That South Carolina – the nation’s testing ground for any whacked out divisive policy that comes along from school vouchers to prolonged abortion waiting periods – is not conservative? What’s she smoking? Here are some highlights from Haley’s thin record: - Little real leadership. First elected to the S.C. House in 2004, Haley desperately wanted to be chair of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee in late 2008. But her zeal for a leadership position backfired after continued tussling with House Speaker Bobby Harrell, who eventually reassigned her to the Education and Public Works Committee. At the time, he noted she was “just pandering to voters and grabbing for headlines.” (From February through May this year, Haley attended no meetings of the committee.)
- Opportunism. GOP runoff opponent Gresham Barrett highlights an “honest difference” with Haley in her budget votes. According to Barrett’s Web site: “[Haley} voted for every state budget until she announced her campaign for governor – for a total of $2 billion in budget increases.”
- Opacity, not transparency. For all of Haley’s high-falutin’ appeals for transparency, she refused to release her legislative correspondence, including email, prior to the June 8 election. Why? Because she was trying to kill stories about much-denied allegations that she was involved in an extramarital affair. Also, according to Barrett’s site, she’s been unwilling to bring her income tax returns into the light of sunshine like many candidates do.
Nikki Haley may just win the June 22 runoff. If so, she’ll face more intense scrutiny in the months ahead. As she does, ask yourself these questions: Is this really the kind of person that you want running the state? Is this your best hope for South Carolina’s future?
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ACLU of South Carolina The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. This week's spotlighted underwriter is the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU of South Carolina’s National Office in Charleston is dedicated to preserving the civil liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Through communications, lobbying and litigation, the ACLU South Carolina’s National Office works to preserve and enhance the rights of all citizens of South Carolina. Foremost among these rights are freedom of speech and religion, the right to equal treatment under law, and the right to privacy. More: http://www.aclusouthcarolina.org/
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Farmers can help clean up the oil To Statehouse Report: If in the event that the state does get slimed with pollution from the Gulf oil disaster, please look at this interesting video: http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/ -- Roxy Rust, Charleston, SC
You were right To Statehouse Report: I came across this article today while looking for something completely different: I figured everyone likes to hear “you were right.” Right now our best hope is to pray…which so far has been working for the Texas coast. My heart goes out to everyone East of us. -- Kristi Corse, Houston, Texas NEED TO VENT? Or mad about something we wrote? Send us a letter to the editor and we'll print it (as long as it isn't libelous!). Please include your name and town for identification purposes. Send up to 200 words to feedback@statehousereport.com.
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Mostly thumbs down Haley. Against the stimulus, but voted for it twice; she and husband made nearly $200k, but donated only $1,000 to charity; for transparency, but won’t release House emails; says leadership comes in many forms, but only has had one bill made into law, and it involves shampoo. Hmmm. More.
Greene. The unemployed Manning man, Alvin Greene, will be the official S.C. Democratic Party candidate against incumbent U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). But it’s still not clear if Greene, who is reportedly facing a felony obscenity charge, is a puppet to some GOP trickster or the voices in his head. More.
Cuts. Sustained vetoes hit crucial agencies hard – state Medicaid $170 million, DHEC $7.4 million. More.
McMaster. Henry, sometimes, being a “party man” means knowing who not to invite. More.
DHEC. State cuts now mean this toothless lion just had its claws removed. Don’t eat out. Don’t swim in ponds. Enjoy your mercury sandwich. More.
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