Sanford makes some inroads with Legislature

e-mail this story print this story Dan Hoover • Sanford makes some inroads with Legislature (03/27/05) • Graham has had good timing, meteoric rise (03/19/05) • DeMint, Inglis agree, differ with Graham on timeline for Iraq war (03/13/05) • Campbell name could test dynasty theory (03/06/05) • Bauer still supports tort reform (02/13/05)

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It seemed that way on Monday, and it came after a couple of years of fits and starts, Sanford's arm's-length dealing with lawmakers who tend to be more touchy-feely sorts and a couple of animal capers that had steam spouting from legislative ears.

Sanford came to Greenville, surrounded himself with legislative leaders and the Upstate's business elite and, four pens later, had signed a landmark tort reform bill into law. He could even look ahead to strong prospects for early approval of medical malpractice legislation.

"It's big, but he's always said it's going to take time to make these changes," said Luke Byars, executive director of the state Republican Party. "You're starting to see some of those changes take place."

Life was good.

Things changed

Two days later, it looked like the same ol', same ol' of Sanford's first two sessions when his key issues were greeted with indifference or outright hostility, mostly from the Senate.

State Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, may have smiled on tort reform, but on Wednesday, he shredded Sanford's House-passed broad income-tax cut by steering a subcommittee to a 6-0 vote on his own far more modest tax relief bill for small businesses.

With 37 of the 46 senators having signed Leatherman's bill, the Senate is unlikely to yield much to the House when conferees get together later on.

Sanford, as has been his practice, tends to directly appeal more to the public at large than to legislators where his programs are concerned. After the tax bill's defeat, he cited $660 million in new money in the upcoming budget: "We're saying, can't taxpayers get a piece of that money back, not just small businesses?"

His other centerpiece, the hotly debated proposal for tax credits for pupil transfers to public or private schools, also faces a questionable future.

Slow going

With re-election looming next year, Sanford is still painfully building a record.

"Change is hard and change comes slow," Sanford said at week's end.

"It's the nature of the political process that, at first bite, you oftentimes don't get all of what you're after," he said. Reminded that it's more like a third bite, Sanford said, "If I get re-elected, it could be the fifth or sixth year" before his programs carry.

Will he have to run against his Republican Senate in 2006?

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," he said.

All this comes at a time when Republicans outside the administration are beginning to look around to assess the 2006 landscape and are finding, well, nothing.

"The Democrats don't have anybody," Byars chortled last week.

"How the hell do they know that? They might just be wrong," snapped Joe Erwin, the state Democratic Party chairman.

Allowing for partisan hyperbole, Sanford said he doesn't expect a free pass.

Although no challenger has surfaced, Erwin said Republicans had "better not get too cocky," then dropped a hint of a possible ace in the hole.

State Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, Erwin said, "if she changed her mind, would be a great candidate who could beat Sanford."

Tenenbaum, fresh from her defeat by Republican Jim DeMint for a U.S. Senate seat, is gearing up for re-election.

Tenenbaum looking?

But Tenenbaum had a hint of her own.

While she hopes that a candidate will emerge from among several Democratic legislators said to be considering a bid, if no one emerges, "I'll just have to look at the situation then. If I'm in that situation where people are coming to me, I'll have to weigh all the options then. Right now, I'm running for state superintendent."

To Byars, "Democrats have a decision to make" — put up their best candidate as a sacrificial lamb for governor or down-ticket, "where they might have a better chance."

"That's a decision they're going to have to make pretty soon."

Erwin says Sanford is far from having turned a legislative corner and isn't the shoo-in Byars suggests.

"He's certainly got a couple of things done that he wanted, but at the end of the day, I just look at the totality of his administration and they still haven't gotten a lot done."

Still, Democrats enter the 2006 campaigns at their lowest ebb in modern times. They hold only two statewide offices, 50 of the 174 House seats that will be up, 26 of 46 in the Senate and two of six congressional seats. Both U.S. senators are Republicans.

Whomever the Democrats come up with for governor, the nominee will be at the far end of the fund-raising curve. When campaign reports are filed in a couple of weeks, Sanford will show around $3 million in the bank, nearly half the $7 million he spent through two primaries and a general election in 2002.

Dan Hoover's column appears on Sunday. He can be reached at 298-4883 or toll-free at 800-274-7879, extension 4883, and by fax at 298-4395.