POLL

COLUMBIA - Legislators are questioning Gov. Mark Sanford's motives in a poll that puts him up against legislators.

That reaction comes as Sanford wraps up work on a state budget linked closely to his state government restructuring agenda and needs legislators to support his agenda. And the poll touched on Statehouse races next year.

"The types of questions on the poll left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths," House Republican Majority Leader Rick Quinn said. "I think it made it appear as though the governor would be running against the General Assembly this year."

But the reactions suggest some in the legislature are "being hypersensitive," Sanford said.

When he took office, Sanford told lawmakers he would deal with them directly and without surprises. Still, the governor's veto of local-issue bills predecessors had routinely allowed to become law annoyed some legislators. Sanford said the bills were illegal legislation.

Sanford also told legislators that if they didn't go along with his plans to raise the cigarette tax and lower the income tax, he would go to their districts to pressure them to change their minds.

Sanford didn't release the Basswood Research poll, but legislators have seen results. Quinn said the poll also asked questions on the popularity of legislative leaders, including House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, and Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.

"A lot of people were bothered by it," Wilkins said. "It certainly can be read as a strategy on the governor's part. I hope that's not the case."

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bobby Harrell said "it's distressing to see a poll conducted that was clearly adversarial in wording" with Republicans in control of the General Assembly and Governor's Office for the first time since Reconstruction.

The hubbub is unwarranted, Sanford says. He says he's a direct person and wouldn't use a backdoor political move.

"I didn't particularly pay attention to the questions," he said. "But to somehow suggest that a pollster asking the wrong question as somehow a challenge to the General Assembly is being hypersensitive."