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Date Published: January 25, 2004
Sanford to USC Sumter: Drop dead
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What would Sumter County do without friends such as Gov. Mark Sanford?
During the course of his rambling State of the State oration Tuesday night, Sanford took direct aim at the local and legislative effort to make USC Sumter a four-year institution. He claimed that not only is USC President Andrew Sorensen opposed to it but also the USC Board of Trustees and the Commission on Higher Education.
Wrong on two of the three claims. Neither the USC Board of Trustees nor the Commission on Higher Education has taken a position on USC Sumter status. Only the CHE’s executive director, Conrad Festa, has taken it upon himself to state his opposition to USC Sumter being granted four-year status in legislation now before the state Senate. And since when does a CHE staffer make policy for the commission?
As for Sorensen, he made his opposition known in a letter to USC Sumter Dean Les Carpenter, which The State newspaper conveniently “obtained” and quoted from in a Jan. 11 article. The crux of his argument is that USC Sumter faculty aren’t publishing enough research papers. Big deal what’s wrong with them teaching, which is what they do quite well.
Also while delivering his State of the State address, Sanford singled out Rep. Murrell Smith and Sen. Phil Leventis of Sumter with a patronizing and grandstanding aside, saying “I don’t blame you, Murrell, and I don’t blame you, Phil, but that is exactly the problem we have in South Carolina with respect to higher ed, namely that politics, not a statewide plan, too often drives the decisions we make.”
We agree with the governor that politics too often drives decisions in South Carolina. So why did his own Commerce Department send out an e-mail on Thursday urging all the state’s developers to lobby against the USC Sumter amendment in the Life Sciences Act? If that isn’t hardball politics, what is?
Steve Rust, president of the Sumter County Development Board, responded with his own e-mail to the same development groups around the state outlining the case for USC Sumter four-year status, explaining its vital importance to Sumter and local efforts to save Shaw Air Force Base during the upcoming round of closures. He concluded his comments with this observation: “I believe it is borderline unethical for fellow economic development individuals and organizations to take direct action that would have so much negative impact on one community’s future.”
It is not only “borderline unethical,” in our view, for the Commerce Department to interject itself into this debate but completely and totally unethical as well as contemptible. This now-politicized government agency and the governor’s office as well has apparently made no attempt to study the merits of the USC Sumter case, which is fully documented in a presentation report by the Sumter Legislative Delegation, the Mid-Carolina Commission for Higher Education, Sumter County Council, Sumter City Council and Art Bahnmuller of Sumter, a member of the USC Board of Trustees, issued on Dec. 3, 2003.
And while we’re talking about politics, isn’t it interesting that the governor sidestepped any reference to another amendment to the Life Sciences Act authorizing Trident Technical College in Charleston to offer a four-year culinary arts program? Just what the state needs more chefs.
After declaring prior to his State of the State address that he would veto the Life Sciences Act if the USC Sumter amendment is attached, Sanford was silent on what he would do if the Trident amendment remains in the bill and USC Sumter is removed. Hint: The governor lives in Charleston County. Politics? It’s in the eye of the beholder.
To his credit, Sen. Glenn McConnell of Charleston, the politically astute Republican president pro tem of the state Senate, told Statehouse Report columnist Andy Brack, who was critical of the Commerce Department’s lobbying against USC Sumter four-year status in his column in Saturday’s edition of The Item, that he believed the USC Sumter amendment has good bipartisan support in the Senate, and would not “cripple economic development,” as suggested by Commerce’s ill-advised email. He added that “It (the USC Sumter amendment) would enhance it (economic development) for Sumter.”
As for the governor’s threatened veto, McConnell told Brack he believed the General Assembly should be able to override it, just as it did on several of Sanford’s vetoes of last-year’s leftover bills.
Sumter’s leadership has made the case for USC Sumter’s four-year status in a principled, forthright and objective manner. The same cannot be said for some in high places who for a variety of unpersuasive reasons, mostly political, seek to scuttle the USC Sumter amendment with an unseemly power play at the expense of this community’s future.
We urge the Senate, when it prepares to vote on the Life Sciences Act, to cut through the fog of misinformation and distortion and do what is in the best interests of higher education and economic growth in Sumter and South Carolina by passing the bill with all amendments intact.
Sumter and USC Sumter deserve better than the lack of respect, consideration and understanding from the governor and his tin-ear associates.
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February 12, 2004
