“Next Speaker Must Clean House.” - Ashley Landess, President, SC Policy Council
Ashley Landess came to Greenville Friday to thank the RINO Hunt faithful for their support of South Carolina Policy Council efforts to ensure that ethics charges against the House Speaker were not dismissed by judges who owe their appointment to Speaker Bobby Harrell and his colleagues.
Landess said the work of removing corruption from South Carolina government has only just begun.
Candidates to replace Harrell as speaker “must promise to get rid of all Harrell appointees,” Landess said. “We need all House members to feel the pressure,” she concluded.
One of the examples of alleged abuses is the appointment by Harrell of his brother to serve on the Judicial Merit Selection Board that screens judge candidates. Only candidates approved by the board may be considered by the Legislature.
The State Grand Jury began investigating House Speaker Bobby Harrell, a Charleston Republican, in January 2014, after a 10-month investigation by the State Law Enforcement Division. A public-corruption complaint filed with the State Attorney General by the South Carolina Policy Council was the basis for the investigation.
Judge Casey Manning made a very controversial ruling that stopped the State Grand Jury proceeding before it was completed. Manning ruled that the Attorney General could not take a member of the House before a grand jury unless the House Ethics Committee gave their approval . The House Ethics Committee staff works for the Speaker and members of the committee, in effect, serve at the pleasure of the Speaker of the House.
Attorney General Wilson appealed the case to the State Supreme Court and Judge Casey Manning was overruled.
Attorney General Wilson referred the allegations to the Richland County Solicitor who presented it to the County Grand Jury that issued nine indictments alleging misconduct in office and violations of the state Ethics Act.
All but one of the charges pertain to misuse or personal use of campaign funds.
The most serious charge is “common law misconduct in office.” It carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
The charge alleges that Harrell “willfully and dishonestly failed to properly and faithfully discharge the duties of his office imposed upon him by law; to wit, by using the office and position of House Member and by using his campaign funds to obtain personal profit and benefit to himself, the Defendant did commit acts or omissions in breach of his duty of good faith and accountability to the public.”
Landess thanked the activists from Greenville and vicinity who traveled to Columbia and “packed the courthouse” the day the court heard the appeal of the Manning ruling.
The record turnout for the court hearing not only demonstrated the public interest in this case, but the fairness of the justice system and a court that is “appointed by the legislature.”
Should Harrell be found guilty on any or all of the charges, it is not likely that he will serve time in prison. This may not be the end of the charges, however. Some observers believe there may be federal charges to follow.
Landess and others who have been concerned about the alleged corruption in South Carolina Government for a long time plan to move on to reclaim and return the power to the people of South Carolina.
There is no celebrating over the removal of the Speaker from office. “There is too much yet to do,” Landess emphasized. There are others who are “making money off the system” and must be exposed. Exposing the others will be easier than the first one, Landess insists.
There is a lot of tension among lawmakers. They don’t know who will be exposed next and who will be taken down with them.
Ashley Landess is urging citizens to pressure their representatives to vote for a speaker who will “clean house” and replace Harrell appointments with fresh people committed to good government.
The South Carolina Policy Council is following a plan that was made public months ago. They will continue to follow the plan.
“South Carolina has some of the most powerful politicians in the country. They exercise unwarranted powers over state government and the economy, and face very little accountability for their decisions.”
Eight Steps to Taking Your Government Back is a start toward reclaiming power and returning it to the people. The ultimate goal is to have the most free state in the Union.
(1) Restore judicial independence. The public deserves confidence that judges rule independently of the legislature whose laws they judge. South Carolina is the only state in the nation in which the legislature unilaterally appoints judges even when vacancies arise. The governor should nominate judges, with only advice and consent from the Senate.
(2) Make the governor fully accountable for the Executive Branch. South Carolina lawmakers control the executive branch through a complicated web of boards and commissions, to which lawmakers appoint members to run state agencies instead of allowing the governor to run them. The legislature has further diluted the governor’s responsibility by doling out power to multiple constitutional officers (the Comptroller General, Treasurer, Agriculture Commissioner, Secretary of State, and so on), thus creating little executive fiefdoms that properly belong in the governor’s cabinet.
(3) Ensure a true citizen legislature by shortening session. Our state has one of the nation’s longest legislative sessions: a system that favors career politicians over citizen-legislators, and empowers lobbyists and special interests over taxpayers. Legislative sessions should be limited to 90 calendar days or 45 legislative days, every other year, forcing lawmakers to limit their activity to citizen priorities.
(4) Open the state’s secret incentives process. Corruption is virtually guaranteed when politicians have the power to strike secret deals with private companies using public money. Taxpayers deserve full transparency in all incentive deals – including public applications for subsidies, public debate on the merits of deals, and full reporting on investment “return.”
(5) End lawmakers’ ability to police themselves. House and Senate members police their own ethics violations – and much of the process is kept private. Legislators should be governed by the same agency that governs other public officials, and details of hearings should be publicly reported.
(6) All South Carolina elected officials should report their income sources. The public has no way to ensure that lawmakers don’t personally profit from legislation on which they vote. Members of Congress and elected officials in other states report their income – and so should South Carolina politicians.
(7) Strengthen the state’s open records law and abolish lawmakers’ exemption from it. State agencies should organize their transactions and expenditures to be accessible to the public rather than charging taxpayers double for “labor” costs. And there’s certainly no justification for lawmakers exempting themselves from the state’s Freedom of Information law.
(8) Enforce the state law that mandates an open budget process. The law requires the governor to write “the” budget and the legislature to hold “joint open hearings” to debate it. Compliance with that law would allow the public to engage in the budget process in real time. In addition, lawmakers should submit the budget in a simple format that is accessible to citizens online.
