Author: Paul Gable

Bobby Harrell’s Travel Reimbursements

South Carolina House Speaker Bobby Harrell’s problems with travel reimbursements continued last week when The Nerve reported problems with travel reimbursement records since 2008.

House mileage reimbursements for legislators are generally restricted to one round trip per week while the legislature is in session.

The Nerve reported Harrell was reimbursed for nine weekly round trips for use of his airplane and 21 weekly round trips by car in 2008. However, the House was only in session for 23 weeks that year.

Similarly, in 2012 the House spent 20 weeks in session while Harrell was reimbursed for 18 round trips by car and five round trips by air.

Continue Reading →
Martin Luther’s Revolution: Democracy is Born

Martin Luther’s Revolution

This Sunday, many protestant churches will recognize the Reformation of the Catholic Church. But I say everyone should stop, pause, because Martin Luther’s actions have a much larger, ripple affect, extending far beyond church doctrine.

In Europe during the 16th Century, several key events inspired Martin Luther’s revolutionary action:

1. The Pope wanted to build Saint Peter’s Basilica – the crown jewel of the Vatican. But there was one small problem. The Church was broke.

2. When the Pope approached Venetian bankers to finance is vision, they balked at the Church’s credit.

3. In return, the Papacy devised a plan to satisfy the Church’s debt to the bankers. Indulgences—payments to the Church so that parishioners could buy a loved one’s ticket into heaven.

4. St. Peter’s Basilica becomes the first building to be built on credit.

Continue Reading →

Freedom Works Weighs In on District 56

Over the last two days, I have received two e-mails from FreedomWorks, an initial statement and an expanded statement after I requested one. The statement is here in full:

October 25, 2012

Statement from Allen Page, Southeast Regional Director, FreedomWorks

Yesterday, I released the following statement. The statement was sent to Mr. Paul Gable.

Continue Reading →

More Dirty Tricks

The past two days we have attempted to discover the source of a door hanger, that Grand Strand Daily has labeled “dirty tricks”. The door hanger appears to be a push piece favoring one candidate in the House District 56 race while claiming to be a non-partisan informational message to voters.

That quest continues as we are awaiting information from Freedom Works Southeast Regional Director Allen Page as to who printed and who paid for the door hanger. We were told yesterday that Page had all the information and would be in contact with Grand Strand Daily.

Regardless of the provenance of the door hanger and whether it is in fact a partisan piece, one question addressed on it falls into another area of dirty tricks that is much more egregious, in our opinion.

Continue Reading →

District 56 Dirty Tricks – Part II

The “dirty tricks” effort to sway voters in the S.C. House District 56 race, with a door hanger allegedly bringing voters a message about the positions of the two candidates in the race, strongly demonstrates to what level elections in America have sunk.

Allegedly funded by Freedom Works, a Washington, D.C. 527 PAC run by former U.S. Representative Dick Armey, the real genesis of the door hanger remains a mystery.

Grand Strand Daily contacted the Washington, D.C. national headquarters of Freedom Works to inquire about the door hanger. We were told Freedom Works knew nothing about it and had no files on either candidate.

Continue Reading →

Candidates to Address Conservatives for Responsible Government

The Conservatives for Responsible Government PAC will feature talks from local politicians seeking endorsement from the organization at its regular meeting Thursday October 25, 2012.

This will be an opportunity to hear from candidates who were unchallenged in the June primary elections who are seeking CRG endorsement in next month’s general election.

Scheduled to speak to the meeting are Horry County council incumbents Bob Grabowski, Paul Prince and Marion Foxworth as well as Senate District 28 Republican candidate Greg Hembree and Horry County Republican chairman Johnnie Bellamy speaking for S.C. 7th District House Republican candidate Tom Rice.

Continue Reading →

Haley Appoints Ethics Reform Commission

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley appointed a special commission this week to make recommendations on ethics reform in South Carolina governments.

The 11 member commission, created by executive order of the governor, will have until January 28, 2013 to draft an “ethics blueprint” recommending new and/or stronger ethics laws.

Commission members will look into freedom of information, campaign finance and practices, conflict of interest and ethics enforcement by state and legislative ethics panels.

On the surface this sounds good and is certainly needed in South Carolina, a state that is ranked at or near the bottom of all states in ethics and freedom of information by the independent Center for Public Integrity.

Continue Reading →

Flow Control Ruled Unconstitutional

A recent decision in a Texas federal court room may have large ramifications for a government established monopoly flow control law in Horry County. A federal judge in Texas ruled earlier this week that a similar Dallas flow control ordinance violates the U.S. Constitution.

The court finds that, despite the city’s proffered justifications, the evidence demonstrates that it implemented the flow control ordinance to raise revenue to advance its economic and proprietary interests…,” the judge wrote in his opinion. “This is an unreasonable exercise of its police powers.”

The virtually identical flow control ordinance in Horry County is currently being challenged in Florence federal district court.

Continue Reading →

No Quick Solutions for Carolina Southern Railroad

Last week’s first meeting of the new committee discussing the state of the Carolina Southern Railroad comprised not much more than organizational work.

Comprised of public officials and prominent business people, the committee draws representation from Horry, Marion and Brunswick (NC) counties.

Shutdown since August 2011, he railroad has spent approximately $400,000 repairing bridges along the line, but estimates at least another $1.5 million must be spent to complete the bridge repairs.

Continue Reading →

Palmetto Liberty PAC Legislative Scorecard

The Palmetto Liberty PAC released its legislative scorecards for the 2012 S.C. General Assembly session completed in June.

In a state that likes to consider itself one of the most conservative in the nation, the scorecards from Palmetto Liberty PAC, a Tea Party based organization, tell a different story.

A total of 15 votes in the House and 17 votes in the Senate were tracked on the scorecards. Included were the state budget, a proposed rebate to taxpayers, government reorganization and other fiscal issues.

In a year when the state experienced an excess of more than $1 billion in expected revenue, it would have been supposed that state legislators would have put that money to good use.

Continue Reading →
1 … 143 144 145 146 147 … 171