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Date Published: July 6, 2004   

Sanford should try diplomacy, not pig stunts

Back in the waning days of this year’s session of the state General Assembly, Gov. Mark Sanford picked up a lot of laughs — but not from legislators — with his defecating pigs stunt when he carried the squealing porkers up the steps leading to the chambers of the House and Senate at the Statehouse.

His purpose was to protest the alleged pork in the 2004-2005 state budget, passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature in spite of the governor’s vetoes, which were easily overridden.

For his grandstanding, the governor was rewarded with a bump in his already-high approval ratings by the public and fawning editorial praise from large newspapers in the state, which he seems to cherish.

He was portrayed as the crusading defender of the taxpayers and a visionary reformer fighting the status quo, as represented by the General Assembly, controlled by his own Republican Party.

However, some legislators are firing back now that Sanford’s publicity blitz has concluded and the General Assembly has adjourned. For example, state Rep. Bob Leach, R-Greer, in a guest column in Sunday’s The Greenville News, has taken it upon himself to give the legislative side of the story.

Leach, who has served for seven years in the House, had this to say: “To define the budget recently passed by the General Assembly as ‘pork-barrel’ is like calling a fender-bender the sinking of the Titanic.”

As Leach sees it, most of what the governor proposed in his own executive budget was included in the final version of the bill.

“The governor’s vetoes,” wrote Leach, “represented less than 1 percent of a $5.5 billion budget, and had just one of his vetoes been sustained, for example, it would have cost the state $800,000 in private money.”

Leach pointed out that the budget calls for $53 million in tax cuts, which includes $39 million in new money to eliminate the onerous marriage penalty tax. The marriage penalty tax was not included in the governor’s executive budget.

Additionally, a plan was implemented by the House to pay off the state’s deficit by funding it in the budget and with the Fiscal Discipline Act, plus the sale of state property, with the proceeds to be used in reducing the deficit. Although the Senate balked at passing the income tax reduction act, which was the centerpiece of the governor’s legislative priorities, the House passed it twice.

All told, says Leach, the House passed 14 of the 16 bills listed as top priorities by the governor, including tort and medical malpractice reform, administrative government restructuring, SMART education funding, conduct grades, capital access reform, charter school reform and the sunset commission act. By his count, Leach contends that the House had a 90 percent success rate in delivering on the Sanford agenda.

Not all of those initiatives made it through the Senate, which has always been far more independent and contentious than the House, but that’s the reality of the legislative process. Governors who understand that process and the give-and-take required in creating important legislation find ways to work with the Legislature. It’s call the art of compromise.

Instead, the governor has chosen to whine about not getting his way and sought to humiliate and embarrass the Legislature with pig stunts. That’s not the way to get things done. With his party in control of the Legislature, one would think the governor could embrace diplomacy rather than confrontation.

There are two sides to every story — sometimes there are many sides. To the governor’s way of thinking, it’s his way or the highway. So far he has been a slow learner, even as he makes points with an easily swayed public and amen corner editorialists seeking to elevate the governor to mythic status.

It all makes for good fiction, but romance novels don’t play well in the political arena.

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