Could Glenn McConnell become Governor?

If John Rainey gets his way, it will be so: Glenn McConnell -- now less than a week into his service as Lieutenant Governor -- may succeed Nikki Haley before her first term ends in January, 2015.

As widely respected as McConnell is for his whipsmart political mind, today's news from Columbia may show that McConnell is also the cleverest person in the entire legislature.

The news? It comes from Columbia's Free Times, which broke the story last fall of Lt. Governor Ken Ard's ethical challenges.

A judge heard oral arguments on March 12 in a public corruption lawsuit brought on behalf of a prominent GOP fundraiser against Republican Gov. Nikki Haley.

Fifth Circuit Judge Casey Manning has yet to make an official ruling on whether the case will move forward.

If ever answered prayers might prove beneficial to the people of a state, now is the time to pray that Judge Casey Manning grants time and space for justice to blossom in his courtroom. In the spirit of last year's Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans, let's pray for a Carolina Spring.

Reached by phone, Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said the governor's office had no immediate comment on the matter.

Of course she hasn't. That doesn't stop the rest of us from considering it aloud, in public places.

Former Board of Economic Advisors chairman John Rainey, who recruited Mark Sanford to run for governor in 2002, filed the lawsuit in November. It asks whether Haley broke any laws as a House member either by lobbying a state agency on behalf of her employer Lexington Medical Center or by doing secret consulting work for Wilbur Smith and failing to properly abstain from legislation benefitting the engineering firm. Both occurred during the time she represented Lexington County as a Republican in the S.C. House prior to becoming governor in 2010.

Regardless of how the judge rules, a complaint could still be filed with the S.C. House Ethics Committee, a six-member panel of House members that regulates the conduct of current and former House members and candidates.

Complaints brought before the committee can end up in front of Republican State Attorney General Alan Wilson. On March 9, Wilson indicted former Lt. Gov. Ken Ard, a fellow Republican, on public corruption charges.

“I believe Governor Haley is the most corrupt person to occupy the Governor’s Mansion since Reconstruction,” Rainey has said. “Put it another way: I think she is corrupt to the core of her being.”

To the core of her being.

I don't know for sure about Haley's anatomy, but I believe that when the House proposed improving its appropriation to public schools, she excoriated House members and demanded they use that money instead for corporate tax breaks. If that represents being corrupt to the core of her being, then she's corrupt.

Rainey's lawsuit also alleges that Haley filed false claims on her ethics reports, failed to disclose her association with lobbyists; neglected to disclose conflicts of interests when voting on bills; illegally voted to benefit a business she was associated with; and used her office to solicit money from lobbyists.

Whew. That's a lot of failing and using.

The House Ethics Committee is charged with regulating its own members and former members. The State Ethics Commission does not have jurisdiction over current or former state legislators.

Oh, no, no -- this is too big an issue to leave to the House Ethics Committee. That's a recipe for delay, distraction, disappointment and dissatisfaction. A Haley investigation would be buried there, and we'd never hear of it again.

Aiken Republican Rep. Roland Smith chairs the House Ethics Committee. The retired rural mail carrier and minister says he is not aware of any complaint against Haley before his committee.

If his committee received one, Smith says, he would refer it to staff attorney Emma Dean to determine if it’s valid. Dean has been there about a year, he said. She is also assistant counsel to the House Judiciary Committee. If Dean decides the complaint deserves an investigation then she would refer it to the committee for a vote on whether to proceed.

The committee has a staff of two, according to its researcher Adam Anderson. After staffers make recommendations on a complaint, the committee members serve as “the judge and jury,” Smith said.

See? Recipe for disappointment. When was the last time the House Ethics Committee ruled against a sitting governor and called into question the legitimacy of his (or, now, her) claim to the office? I wager it's never happened.

Smith says his committee could be fair and impartial if it had to investigate a sitting governor – and a fellow Republican.

“We would certainly have to entertain that,” he said March 16 about what would happen if he received a complaint about Haley. “We have to be fair … that's our motto: to see that House members are treated fairly as well as people in the public that may be dealing with whatever is being dealt with.”

Smith said if the committee found probable cause in an investigation it would refer the findings to the attorney general.

Five Republicans make up the six-member panel.

“We’ve got honest people on the Ethics Committee that really take their job seriously,” Smith said.

We had an honest governor who cheated on his wife and lied to South Carolinians about leaving the country to be with his mistress.

We had an honest state treasurer who was using and dealing cocaine.

We had an honest agriculture commissioner who held illegal cockfights.

We had an honest 66-year-old assistant attorney general who was caught on a Monday at 3:15 in the afternoon sitting in his car with some adult toys, some little blue pills and an 18-year-old stripper in Columbia's Elmwood Cemetery.

We have two honest state representatives serving today, one under indictment for failing to file tax returns, and another arrested for harrassment; and a third state representative suspended from office, under indictment for failing file state tax returns.

Our government is full of honest people. They're so honest, they rarely seem able to find fault in the crimes and ethical lapses of others like them.

Which, luckily, our judicial system is designed and empowered to do for them.

As it related to any complaint against Haley, Smith said in November, “I’m interested if there is substance … If that’s brought before the committee.”

He also said his Ethics Committee doesn’t comment on any investigations -- or about whether it is even conducting them.

Common Cause of South Carolina director John Crangle, whose watchdog group has observed state government for decades, doesn't have much faith in the panel.

“The House Ethics Committee in my opinion is little more than a fraud,” he says.

Little more than a fraud. I don't know John Crangle, but I respect his intelligence and judgment. He seems to know a bit about our state government.

Crangle says the panel has historically accomplished little more than receiving reports filed by House members related to their campaign fundraising and says anything it does is confidential.

Options for sanctions against a House member under the committee could include a private or public reprimand, depending on what the members find.

“Historically I can't recall a single case in which they have publicly disciplined a House member, and that even goes back to Operation Lost Trust where a number of House members were indicted and convicted of bribery,” Crangle says.

Not a single case, he says, in all these years. There's been just too many honest people serving in government, obviously.

Lawmakers are proposing a bill that would abolish the respective House and Senate ethics committees and instead put legislators under the jurisdiction of the State Ethics Committee.

“Right now you have the fox guarding the hen house,” says bill sponsor Rep. Boyd Brown, a Fairfield County Democrat. “It's like delivering lettuce by way of the rabbit. It's anything but ethical.”

Candidly, I don't see this proposal going far. South Carolina doesn't have a good record of abolishing bad ideas.

As for John Rainey and his corruption charges: After what happened this week to our former Lieutenant Governor, momentum would seem to be on the side of investigation and resignation.

Onward!

Support for public schools elevated Courson in Senate

According to the account rendered in The State newspaper this week, Sen. John Courson became Senate President Pro Tempore thanks in part to his long-time support for public education in South Carolina.

Reporter Gina Smith writes:

Longtime Columbia state Sen. John Courson was elected to the top post in the state Senate Tuesday, but the political musical chairs may not be over.

The 67-year-old Republican defeated Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, by a 27-17 vote for the job of Senate president pro tempore, one of the most powerful in the Legislature.

Courson succeeds the Senate’s longtime leader Glenn McConnell. McConnell was sworn in Tuesday by S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal as South Carolina’s new lieutenant governor, replacing Ken Ard who resigned last week.

While Republicans control the Senate — holding 27 of 46 seats — Democrats supplied Courson’s margin of victory after Republicans senators split between Courson and Peeler.

Democratic senators, who voted 18-1 for Courson, had expressed concern that Peeler, the Senate’s Republican leader, can be too partisan. Courson, chairman of the Senate’s Education Committee, also appealed to Democrats for his history of supporting public education and the University of South Carolina.

See, a lawmaker can support public education and still be successful.

Congratulations to Senator Courson, and to the 700,000 public schoolchildren who look forward to his good service in his new office.

Will Haley's book feature a chapter on veto overrides?

Really, a book?

Her Excellency, Governor Nikki Haley, has been in office slightly more than five months.

In that time, she has booted the state university's largest benefactor in history from the board of trustees and replaced her with a campaign contributor. See Moore, Darla.

She fired the state's popular and effective retirement system director and quickly named a replacement without notifying key officers. See Boykin, Peggy.

She has presided over a rise in the state's unemployment rate, seeing it return to double digits. See Job Creation, Lack of.

Though millions of South Carolinians, with jobs and without, stretch the weekly groceries bill with ground beef and Hamburger Helper, she has lived well on the public grace, enjoying "menus with Peruvian squid tubes, rabbit loin, shiitake mushrooms and other exotic ingredients," plus "small amounts of Fresh Market Chilean sea bass at $25.99 a pound and Yellowfin tuna at $21.99 a pound, and a number of Publix sushi platters," as well as spending public funds "to buy a Riedel wine decanter and Riedel cabernet/merlot wine glasses." See "Let Them Eat Cake."

She has offended lawmakers in both parties with petty slights, withholding invitations to a Governors Mansion from some, turning another away at the gate. See Brown, Boyd; also Howard, Leon; also "Petulance and Pettiness"; also Not the People's House.

She injected herself gracelessly -- and has infamously sought to drag national candidates -- into a dispute between a federal agency and a corporate campaign contributor operating in South Carolina. See Boeing.

She has fueled a well-publicized feud with another elected executive officer, declaring him "irrelevant" to the state's official business. See Loftis, Curtis.

She bungled an agreement made by her predecessor's economic development team with one of the world's largest companies, who had begun construction on a location in South Carolina but shut down and withdrew when she engaged in a foolish game of chicken over tax breaks. See Amazon.

After campaigning on a platform of "transparency," she has conducted closed-door meetings with national bond-rating agencies and shut the state's retirees out of discussions about their retirement system. See Griswold, Sam.

She embarrassed the state by ignoring the President of the United States during a briefing of governors in the State Dining Room of the White House, and checking email on her iPad instead. See Reuters Photographer, Caught by a.

She provoked legal action from the President Pro Tem of the state Senate by issuing an executive order in contravention of constitutional powers and state law, losing the fight before the state Supreme Court. See McConnell, Glenn. See also Supreme Court.

She earned a stunning rebuke from the full legislature by issuing 35 vetoes and having all but nine overridden, just as quickly and spectacularly as were the vetoes of her predecessor, and garnered an especially raw accusation of double-dealing and dishonesty from a lawmaker from her own home legislative delegation. See Bingham, Kenny.

And she bragged, oblivious, to a small audience of fans in Florence this spring that she hadn't made any mistakes while in office. See Hubris.

All the while, apparently, Her Excellency has been writing a book, no doubt expounding on the highest principles of governance and her nascent, derivative political philosophy. (See Sanford, Mark.)

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley has a book deal.

Sentinel, a conservative imprint of Penguin Group (USA), said Wednesday that Haley’s “Can’t is Not an Option” will come out in January.

Haley, a Republican and Tea Party favorite, was elected last year. At 39, she is the country’s youngest governor and only the second Indian-American governor.

In an interview in March, Haley said writing had been “therapeutic” and that she would cover everything from growing up in rural South Carolina to her contentious 2010 campaign, when she faced — and denied — allegations of infidelity.

Haley said she was not planning a run for national office. Her literary representative, Washington attorney Robert Barnett, has negotiated deals for Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Notice the names that her "literary representative" has aided in the past: Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, all presidents of the United States, including two two-term presidents. What is it that governor-for-five-months Haley has to offer that compares with these political giants? A Newsweek magazine cover?

The title is particularly trite: "Can't is Not an Option." Here's what "cant" is: "cant" is "empty, uncritical thought or talk."

"Cant" is also the "jargon of a group, often implying its use to exclude or mislead people outside the group."

"Cant" is also "insincere, especially conventional expressions of enthusiasm for high ideals, goodness, or piety."

Yes, I know. She's using the word "can't" as a contraction for "cannot," as in "Haley can't play well with others" or "Her Excellency can't understand why people won't just do as she instructs them."

Here's a fun project for readers: What do you imagine will be the chapter titles of Haley's book?
Example: "Voters Would Soon Learn What Hit Them, Hard"

Here's another one: What do you imagine would comprise Haley's top ten list of governing principles?
Example: Reward your campaign contributors early and well.

Or another: What should be the subtitle of Haley's book?
Example: "Can't is Not an Option: If You Can Read This, We're Spending Too Much on Education"