Haley Watch: Nikki wastes another $1M, needs tutorial in how to govern

This just in from the intrepid Renee Dudley of the Charleston Post and Courier:

SC Gov. Haley dictated health panel finding
Outcome ordered before committee met
BY RENEE DUDLEY
rdudley@postandcourier.com
Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Gov. Nikki Haley dictated the conclusions of a committee charged with deciding how the state should implement federal health care reform before the group ever held its first meeting, public documents show.

Now, some of those involved in the dozens of meetings are calling the entire planning process a sham that wasted their time and part of a $1 million federal grant.

In a March 31 email thread that included Haley, her top advisers and the committee member who eventually wrote the report, Haley wrote, "The whole point of this commission should be to figure out how to opt out and how to avoid a federal takeover, NOT create a state exchange," which is eventually what happened.

A central part of the federal health care overhaul, an exchange is a marketplace where various insurance plans eventually will be sold.

The emails were released to the newspaper Friday afternoon in response to a Nov. 16 public records request to the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

The newspaper had made a nearly identical request of the governor's office in May, but the office did not include the emails in its response.

The documents show a first-term Republican administration focused on public perception of its handling of the Democratic health care reform law. They also reveal the tight control Haley and her top aides exercise over other state agencies, requiring media inquiries to various state departments to pass through the governor's office for inspection.

"Oh my God, we just threw $1 million away here," said Frank Knapp, who participated in the meetings as president of the S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce. "This confirms this whole thing was an effort to justify the million-dollar grant, but the reality is they had no intention of even exploring whether the state should establish an exchange -- which is exactly what the grant called for."

Through a spokesman, Haley said she had no time to be interviewed Tuesday or today for this story. Spokesman Rob Godfrey said the governor's office responded fairly to questions about the committee.

"She has a lot to do over the next few days in preparation for the holidays," he said. "It's just a matter of a tight schedule."

Godfrey did not respond to questions related to the email discrepancy. In an email, he wrote, "The governor calls it watching out for the citizens of our state as we try to deliver the most health care for the least amount of money."

Lack of oversight

In a March 10 executive order, Haley established the nonpartisan South Carolina Health Planning Committee to "build trust and consensus among stakeholders" and to decide "whether or not the state should establish a health insurance exchange."

States that decline to set up their own exchanges are subject to federally run ones beginning in 2014.

Members of the nonpartisan committee and its four subcommittees, who met more than 30 times over the past seven months, did exactly that. In a report sent to the governor two weeks ago, the panel rejected the idea of a state-run exchange, saying South Carolina has few incentives to be a "first-mover" nationally.

Instead, it would "encourage and facilitate ... private exchanges," the report said.

It is unclear whether federal health officials will accept the private solution, but consumer advocates have raised concerns about lack of oversight and regulation. Insurance exchanges are the state- or federally-established marketplaces where health coverage will be sold to individuals and small business employees beginning in 2014.

Copied on Haley's March email thread was S.C. Health and Human Services Director Tony Keck, an influential member of the Health Planning Committee established by executive order.

Read it all.

I told yall NOT to vote for this woman, didn't I? (sigh) Her wanton mismanagement just gets worse and worse.

Here is the short version:

The newly released emails enraged consumer advocates, small business leaders, local economists, taxpayer watchdogs and S.C. Press Association officials this week.

"They took the money on the pretense they would conduct an objective analysis of whether the state should do the exchange or not," said John Crangle, executive director of Common Cause of South Carolina. "But they decided what they were going to find before they even started the research process."

This seems to be Haley's standard method of governance.

Jenny's finally had enough

...and as the Associated Press photo at left shows us, she is hauling ass out of the Governor's Mansion and decamping to Sullivan's Island. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)


Our hapless romantic Governor Mark Sanford and his family had just returned from the much-ballyhooed European vacation, (where things would get all ironed out, one assumes)... only to see the wife pack up her shit and get out. GOOD FOR YOU, JENNY!

Huffington Post comments:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford moved out of the official governor's residence with their four sons Friday, a little more than a month after he admitted to a yearlong affair with an Argentine woman he called his "soul mate."

First lady Jenny Sanford and several other women moved bags of clothes, a suitcase and armloads of suits and dresses on hangers from the governor's mansion in Columbia before departing in a caravan of sport utility vehicles. Three of the four boys were present, carrying tote and duffel bags.

Before departing, she hugged several of the women who helped her carry belongings out. In a statement, Jenny Sanford said she was heading to the family residence on Sullivans Island, some 120 miles southeast, for the upcoming school year.

"From there, we will work to continue the process of healing our family," she said. "While we will be leaving Columbia, we will return often, and I will remain engaged in activities in my role as First Lady, acknowledging that my responsibilities to my family come first."

The governor, who spoke to reporters elsewhere in the state later Friday, termed the reconciliation "a day at a time process" and said the move was a mutual decision.

"It's been brewing for a while and something we've been back and forth on and kicked around at length. It was not entered into lightly but with a whole lot of thought and prayer," he said.

Jenny Sanford is a former Wall Street vice president who helped launch her husband's political career only to endure his tearful public confession in June. She had separated from her husband and sought refuge with her sons at the couple's coastal home two weeks before news of the affair broke.

The coastal home is a low, two-story house set back 50 yards from the beach, featuring a large great room with windows overlooking the water. It was briefly on the market earlier this year with an asking price of $3.5 million.

So, Jenny can obviously take care of herself. Don't cry for her, Argentina!

Now, we have some more goods on Mark Sanford:

COLUMBIA — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford used state aircraft for personal and political trips, often bringing along his wife and children — contrary to state law regarding official use, an Associated Press investigation has found.

Records reviewed by the AP show that since he took office in 2003, the two-term Republican has taken trips on state aircraft to locations of his children's sporting events, hair and dentist appointments, political party gatherings and a birthday party for a campaign donor.

According to state budget law, “Any and all aircraft owned or operated by agencies of the State Government shall be used only for official business.”

On March 10, 2006, a state plane was sent to pick up Sanford in Myrtle Beach and return him to Columbia, the state capital, at a cost of $1,265 — when his calendar showed his only appointment in Columbia was “personal time” at his favorite discount hair salon. He had flown to Myrtle Beach on a private plane and attended a county GOP event.

The trip home on the state aircraft took off at 1:50 p.m. and arrived in Columbia at 2:35 p.m., enabling the governor to keep his plans for a 3 p.m. haircut across town. There were no other appointments on his official schedule that afternoon; the trip back to Columbia would have taken about three hours by car.

Also, on five of the last six Thanksgiving weekends, Sanford used a state plane to fly himself, his wife and their four sons from the family's plantation in Beaufort County to Columbia for the state Christmas tree lighting. The cost for those flights alone: $5,536, including $2,869 for flying the plane empty to pick them up.

Sanford, 49, has been under increased scrutiny since he admitted in June to having a mistress in Argentina. He's vowed to stay in office and says he is trying to reconcile with his wife, though she moved out of the governor's official residence on Friday with their sons and plans to spend the school year at the family's beach house.

The governor has made a political career out of being outwardly thrifty — known to demand that state employees use both sides of Post-It notes. He has frequently railed against government spending, and attempted for months to block federal stimulus money for South Carolina schools.

Last month, the AP revealed how Sanford had flown first class and business class on commercial airlines at taxpayer expense, despite a law requiring lowest-cost travel.

On many occasions, records show, the governor mingled his non-official travels with official business.

For example, on March 23, 2005, Sanford flew on a state plane from Columbia to Mount Pleasant, near the beach house, where the governor was scheduled for a 5 p.m. appointment with a dentist. Later that day, he had a TV interview before speaking at a Republican Party event for Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties along with U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint.

Such mingling also is problematic under South Carolina regulations.

Aeronautics Division rules say that “under no circumstances shall aircraft owned and operated by” the division “be used for personal or politically partisan purposes.” But there's no clear enforcement mechanism for such violations; the division says it simply lets citizens know that statements attesting to official use of the planes are open to public inspection.

Still, misuse of state resources arguably could subject Sanford to civil or criminal penalties under the state's ethics laws, which are enforced by the South Carolina Ethics Commission. Any public official found to have used state property for personal financial gain is subject to as much as a $5,000 fine and five years in prison. Only incidental use that does not result in additional public expense is exempt.

On April 29, 2006, a state plane flew Sanford from Greenville, not far from where one of his sons was in a soccer tournament, to Charleston, so the governor could attend a National Republican Senatorial Committee meeting on Kiawah Island.

“That's personal use and political use. That's not what the state plane is for,” said former Gov. Jim Hodges, a Democrat who said he occasionally mingled official state business with political and public events while using state aircraft, but only if the main purpose of the trip was official business.

Peggy Kerns, ethics director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said she knows of no state that allows its property to be used for personal or campaign purposes. “It's like a no-brainer,” she said.

Government watchdogs said federal officials have to repay the cost of flying government planes for personal or campaign events and said they didn't know of a state that permitted planes to be used for such trips.

The AP review also raises questions about how South Carolina polices the use of its aircraft and reveals a system rife with shoddy record keeping and violations of laws that require the public be able to see documents.

In South Carolina, governors are able to use aircraft run by different agencies: a King Air twin turboprop run by the Aeronautics Division that can seat nine passengers, and smaller, slower propeller-driven planes managed by the Department of Natural Resources.

As governor, Sanford has flown 353 hours aboard the larger plane and an additional 73 hours on the smaller, propeller planes — a total cost of nearly $373,000, according to Sanford's office and other state records.

Sanford's children spent more time on the bigger state plane than the children of the past two governors, records show. At least one of Sanford's sons was aboard 43 flights during his first term alone. That compared with 11 during Hodges' single term and 12 during David Beasley's one term.

Overall, flights that included his children cost taxpayers more than $50,000, or about 14 percent of his total travel on state planes.

“If it was somewhere the governor was going, sometimes the kids tagged along. There is no additional cost to the taxpayers for the kids to be on the plane if it's somewhere the governor is headed anyway,” said Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer, who stepped down Aug. 5.

Additional matches of flight documents and Sanford's schedule show:

— An Oct. 14, 2004 pickup in Bishopville, where his schedule shows his son Marshall's private school football team was playing. Afterward, the plane took him to Charlotte, N.C., for a commercial flight to Dallas, where his schedule placed the governor at a lake house in Texas for a gathering of Republican donors.

— A Nov. 14, 2006 flight to Mount Pleasant, where he attended a book signing. He then flew to Aiken for the 65th birthday party for a business owner who had donated more than $12,000 to his campaign.

— A July 8, 2005 use of the state's turboprop to fly from Charleston to Greenville, where Sanford lists the official use of the King Air for a round-table discussion with business leaders, interviews and “Greenville County Bronze Elephant Dinner,” a county GOP event.

Sawyer said the governor had fewer hours on Aeronautics Division planes in his first term than his two predecessors: 229 hours, compared with Beasley's 303 hours and Hodges' 310 hours. Sawyer characterized the review of Sanford's flight schedule as “continued cherry picking,” a term he used when the AP examined the commercial flights.

“Every time the governor used the plane it was for an official state purpose and that state purpose was documented,” Sawyer said.

He also said Sanford's schedule doesn't chronicle all his official activities. “The governor's schedule is not reflective of everything he's doing that day,” he said.

Former state Rep. Margaret Gamble, a watchdog on political travel issues, said Sanford should get the benefit of the doubt on a case-by-case basis. For instance, one of Sanford's flights took him from Anderson to Marion County for a soldier's funeral and then to Greenwood so he could get to a McCormick County GOP fundraiser. “Maybe he had a prior commitment,” she said, but needed to go to the funeral, too, and the plane was the only way to keep his promise.

Other governors have faced questions about aircraft use, including Beasley for using a state helicopter to get to a speech and then back for a golf game. John Crangle, state director for government watchdog group Common Cause, said governors “have been given almost unlimited latitude to do as they please, to come and go as they please or when they want to and to use the state's resources for travel when they want.”

He said the AP research indicates Sanford repeatedly made mistakes.

“This was the Wild West for the governor's travel when basically anything was permitted or done and accepted as normal,” Crangle said.

In fact, state law requires the Aeronautics Division to collect and keep sworn statements from aircraft users certifying flights were for official business within 48 hours of flights. Sanford's office routinely filed that paperwork days or weeks late and the division destroys documents more than three years old.

“They're actually destroying data that the Legislature gave them no permission to destroy. That's like destroying evidence,” said state Sen. David Thomas, a Republican congressional candidate who has begun holding legislative hearings into Sanford's use of state funds.

The same law requires the agency to post those records on its Web site. That was done briefly earlier this month, but the Aeronautics Division pulled the link to the records as the commission that oversees its operation reviews the law. Until July 1, the agency reported to Sanford's cabinet.

And the law required the natural resources agency to keep official statements on flights, which it never has. Governors appoint the entire board overseeing the agency.

“The situation is one that's dramatically out of control and needs to be completely overhauled,” Crangle said.

Added Thomas: “It's an overwhelming ethical issue here. To me, this is clear misuse of state property.”

Can we please, please, please get rid of this embarrassing asshole? Pretty please.

(((Daisy fumes on her way to work)))

Former SC State Treasurer sentenced to prison

Left: Thomas Ravenel on his way to court, September 2007, photo by Alan Devorsey of the Greenville News.

Judge delays former treasurer's sentence for 5 months

Friday, March 14, 2008

By Tim Smith
CAPITAL BUREAU

COLUMBIA -- Former state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was sentenced to 10 months in prison, but the start of the sentence was delayed for 5 months. He also was fined $250,000, including $28,000 restitution to the state for the special election held to replace him.

The delay is to see what comes from the information Ravenel and his co-defendant Michael Miller, provided investigators.

A third man charged in the case, Pasquale Pellicoro, an Italian citizen, fled before his arraignment and has been sought ever since by the FBI. He was charged in a second indictment in the case, following the original indictment of Ravenel and Miller.

"We’re still looking for him," McDonald said today.

Ravenel, a Charleston multimillionare, and Miller, a Mount Pleasant disc jockey, are scheduled to be sentenced this afternoon by U.S. District Judge Joseph Anderson.

Both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine. Miller also pleaded guilty to a count of distribution of cocaine.

Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, but a pre-trial report recommended 10-16 months for Ravenel, according to his lawyers.

Miller sold cocaine to Ravenel, who used it and gave it to friends, according to prosecutors.

In their "downward departure" motion filed Thursday, prosecutors argued that Ravenel and Miller had been cooperative.

"He has given a complete debriefing of his participation in the drug conspiracy and the participation of others involved in the conspiracy and provided the government with historical information concerning drug distribution in the Charleston area," prosecutors stated in identical motions for both men.

"Based upon this information, the government has indicted another individual who is a fugitive from justice."

Common Cause of South Carolina, a non-profit watchdog group, has asked Anderson to require that Ravenel pay for the cost of the special session by lawmakers to choose his replacement, said John Crangle, director of the organization. If Anderson follows the group’s suggestion, he said, it would be a first in the nation.

"The significance of it in our view is this is a national precedent," he said. "No judge, as far as we can tell, has ever required a public official who is a criminal defendant to do this kind of restitution before."

He said the cost totaled about $30,000. If other federal judges were to follow such a precedent, he said, it could mean defendants who were congressmen would have to repay states millions of dollars for the cost of the elections held to select their replacement.

Ravenel and Miller were indicted last summer by a federal grand jury.

Gov. Mark Sanford suspended Ravenel, and Ravenel resigned in September and pleaded guilty.

Miller originally also faced a state charge of trafficking in cocaine. The charge was later dropped, and he was indicted on seven counts of distribution of cocaine. Miller pleaded guilty last year to one of those counts.

Giving Ravenel a break is justified, his lawyers argued in a motion earlier this year.

"He has already begun actively trying to make amends in a variety of ways ranging from treatment and resignation to cooperating with law enforcement authorities," lawyers E. Bart Daniel and Gedney Howe wrote in their motion. "The additional punishment of jail time is not necessary in this instance."

The lawyers described his crime as a "modest scale, first-time offense."

"It is unusual in terms of the manner of distribution," they argued in their motion. "The offense has already carried with it severe and much publicized ramifications for Mr. Ravenel. Mr. Ravenel has and is learning from this experience."

Daniel declined to comment this week on his client’s sentencing.

Both men are free on bond. Miller was briefly detained late last year after he was arrested by Mount Pleasant police on charges of striking an officer and disorderly conduct.

Leaders of the black community told The Greenville News in November that African-Americans in the state are watching the case to see how Miller is treated in comparison to Ravenel, a white 45-year-old Charleston multimillionare.

Former U.S. Attorney Reggie Lloyd has said what is important isn’t that both men are treated equally, since the facts of their cases are different, but that both are treated fairly.

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Listening to: Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
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