MARCH 30, 2005
POLITICS: "None of Your Business"
Who is paying for the Put Parents In Charge media campaign?

BY JAMES SHANNON

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If you've watched television in South Carolina in recent weeks, you've no doubt seen the commercials singing the praises of what they call "school choice." The first spot showed Gov. Mark Sanford in an ornate sitting room, presumably in the Governor's Mansion, pushing the concepts embodied in his tuition tax credit bill currently before a subcommittee in the state House of Representatives. Without calling it by name, the campaign-style ad is designed to promote the legislation proponents have labeled Put Parents In Charge (PPIC), which critics insist is really a back-door voucher plan.

On screen, Sanford talks soothingly about the benefits of PPIC without actually mentioning it by name. "Some say we can't make changes to the system; I believe we've got to have the courage to try," he concludes. The fine print at the end reveals the advertisement was paid for by a group called the South Carolina Policy Council (SCPC), which bills itself as a "conservative think tank."

A second spot is set in a classroom. Again without mentioning PPIC directly, a narrator extols the concept in between brief film clips of young children saying things like "Won't you please help?" Filmed in black and white, the clips skillfully manage to suggest these are kids in need who can only be helped by this particular piece of legislation. When they unveiled this spot, SCPC President Ed McMullen told reporters his group had spent $217,000 for broadcast time on television stations around the state.

Andy Brack publishes the SC Statehouse Report, a political newsletter that chronicles state government. When he contacted McMullen in an attempt to determine the source of the $217,000, the think tank prez stonewalled him. "That's none of your business," McMullen told Brack. In addition, Brack says McMullen refused to be interviewed "because he was irritated about descriptions of the bill as a voucher proposal, instead of a tax credit measure."

McMullen was more forthcoming when contacted by Metrobeat, but at the end of the day, the result was the same. "Our membership list is confidential," says McMullen. "There isn't a 501-C-3 in the country that releases their membership list." The reference is to the IRS designation for a non-profit corporation, and donor lists for such organizations are highly prized by those in eleemosynary circles who seek access to "proven givers." The theory is that somebody who has contributed to one group is a better target for the fundraising solicitations of other groups.

There is an argument that says funds collected to directly influence the political process should be subject to reporting requirements similar to those that regulate contributions to political campaigns. But Denver Merrill, communications director for South Carolinians for Responsible Government (SCRG), says the confidentiality is necessary.

"This is a policy that protects our supporters," says Merrill. "We've had our supporters being accosted by opponents of the bill." SCRG has also produced television spots promoting PPIC as part of broad public campaign on behalf of the tuition tax credit.

In an interview, Merrill insists, "This is a free speech issue, just like newspapers have sources and conversations that you don't want to unveil. We're an organization speaking on behalf of many members and contributors. Just as you won't divulge your sources and behind the scenes workings, neither will we."

Both groups appear immune to any pressure being exerted to force them to disclose the identities of their contributors, and current laws support their decisions. In the case of the SC Policy Council, the home page of their website contains an endorsement from House Speaker David Wilkins, who refrained from urging SCPC to release the information.

"I think that's a decision they've got to make," Wilkins tells Metrobeat, noting that the General Assembly tightened reporting requirements for political campaign after the influx of video poker money in the 1998 David Beasley-Jim Hodges gubernatorial election.

"Disclosure in most cases is a good thing," says Wilkins, adding, "But I'm not going to pass judgment on the Policy Council. I think they do good work." Speaker Wilkins is a figure of interest to both sides in this debate. He has conspicuously declined to endorse PPIC, but has not opposed it either. Noting that the bill is still working its way through the committee process in the House, Wilkins says, "I think it's good that this issue is being debated."

Although there is no legal mechanism to discover who is putting money in the campaign to promote the current legislation, a report filed by the political action committee All Children Matter contains the names of some high-powered donors who invested in South Carolina candidates in the 2004 election cycle. These donors include such six-figure contributors as Richard DeVos Jr. of Michigan who has used his Amway fortune to promote school choice, and John Walton of Arkansas, son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and one of five Walton billionaires.

According to their campaign disclosure form, All Children Matter contributed to a number of Senate candidates including Steve Parker in Spartanburg and Ken Wingate in Columbia, both candidates endorsed by Gov. Sanford who had pledged their support for school choice. The group poured more than $150,000 into the Wingate race against Joel Lourie, a Richland County Democrat looking to move up from the House to the Senate. In a hard-fought campaign characterized by attacks on Lourie as a tax-and-spend liberal, Wingate was unable to parlay his connections with Sanford into electoral victory. But the tenor of the campaign revealed the sharp ideological bent of All Children Matter.

For many years, ultraconservative groups and free-market economists have pursued an agenda to privatize public education in the United States to pursue their ideological goals. This necessarily requires a broad-based campaign to discredit public schools, a strategy that has been present in the current struggle in South Carolina.

Charles "Chuck" Saylors is an Upstate businessman who currently serves as chairman of the School Board of Greenville County. He says the motives of the groups pursuing tuition tax credit and voucher legislation across the country are clear: "They want to dismantle public education in this country," says Saylors. "The reason they picked South Carolina is that it's relatively cheap to buy radio and television spots here. The population is relatively small; it's a conservative state. If you win in South Carolina, it will spread to other Southeastern states."

Saylor's contention could answer the question of why out-of-state groups would pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into what would otherwise appear to be a local issue. Many of the same contributors have been associated with similar initiatives in other states, but the issue is usually framed as a way to use certain strategies to improve education. The jury is still out on whether their true intent is to undermine public education, as some have argued.

"It's a national agenda," says Saylors. "If I'm wrong, prove it. All their side comes out with are the same repetitive answers to the same questions. They have no track record."

Closer to home, two of Saylor's colleagues on the Greenville County school board were targets of what were called "slash and burn" tactics by All Children Matter. Incumbent board members Debi Bush and Tommie Reece were singled out for harsh attacks contained in two direct-mail pieces, but handily defeated opponents whose campaigns featured broad attacks on public education.

"They got their clocks cleaned," says Saylors of All Children Matter's attempt to influence the local election. He goes on to blast the current efforts by those who support PPIC behind a wall of secrecy, contrasting them with those working openly against the plan.

"Folks who are against this thing have never tried to hide behind somebody's skirt," he says. "If they're so proud of what they're doing, let them come forward." Saylors says PPIC opponents are working to counter the heavy spending of the other side.

"We're trying to raise money from people that are supportive of public education," he says. "It's not that easy to raise that kind of money right after a political campaign. People with big checkbooks forked out a lot of money during the last election cycle... My folks are more grassroots, they don't have six or seven figure incomes to compete with organizations coming into South Carolina with a national goal."

To stem the tide, PPIC opponents have organized their own group - Choose Children First. Recently, they launched their own media campaign, albeit without a shock and awe paid advertising blitz to date. With a campaign theme of "Beware of the Wolf - No Vouchers," they probably shouldn't call Ed McMullen. Choose Children First labels PPIC as "unproven, unaccountable and unaffordable" and flatly states "This wolf is a backdoor voucher program that will take your tax dollars to fund private and religious schools."

Betty Gregory, an education advocate who is director of Choose Children First, says it is "an umbrella organization of groups assembled to oppose this plan." Gregory says, "This has really created a network for all of us who work on education issues. We want to debate this bill wherever we possibly can."

To say there is bad blood on both sides is like saying the ocean is wet, but Ed McMullen seems almost hurt that his South Carolina Policy Council has come under fire. "I've been working on this issue since 1986," he says." It's frustrating as hell. You get called a racist and every thing you do is turned into an attack on your personal character." Again taking pains to correct any suggestion PPIC is a voucher bill, McMullen insists, "This is a tuition tax credit bill. The Policy Council opposes vouchers."

While he declines to identify SCPC contributors, McMullen does say, "The vast majority of our donors are from in state. Overwhelmingly, we get South Carolina donors giving $50 or $100; people from Keowee, Hilton Head, Beaufort. If I had to guess, I'd say 90 percent comes from South Carolina."

On a personal note, he adds, "This does not impact me in any way. I'm over the income cap," and thus ineligible for the tax credit. Besides, "my kids are at Heathwood," referring to Heathwood Hall, a K-12 Episcopal school in Columbia. McMullen summarizes his position - and that of many who support school choice - by saying, "I think what the governor and legislative leaders and the Policy Council has long argued is that every child is different, that every parent needs to do what is best for their child."

While it is too soon to tell the fate of PPIC in this session of the General Assembly, there are some indications that it faces troubled waters ahead. In addition to some original co-sponsors of the bill dropping their support, there have been reported expressions of doubt creeping into private conversations even among supporters. But opponents are not letting down their guard.

"The word is out," says Chuck Saylors. "They have a multi-year plan to pass this legislation, and the money and political will to keep going for five years. They think if you keep pushing hard enough, sooner or later, you'll get something through." Saylors also takes exception to some of the hardball tactics being employed in an attempt to bring GOP partisans in line on this issue.

"I would consider myself a life-long Republican, but this lockstep mentality is driving people away," he says. "This is just an honest disagreement over what we consider a bad piece of legislation."

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