Gov. Mark Sanford did not order flags lowered to half-staff over state buildings Wednesday in honor of Rosa Parks — a decision a leading black lawmaker called a “lack of respect.”

President Bush called for all U.S. flags over public buildings to be lowered Wednesday in honor of the funeral for the late civil rights pioneer. But Bush’s order has no authority over state government buildings.

Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said the governor had no option, because state law “spells out very clearly when the flags can and can’t be lowered.”

But the chairman-elect of the Legislative Black Caucus called Sanford’s decision an embarrassment.

“At some point, you use common sense and common decency,” said Rep. Leon Howard, D-Richland. “It’s a lack of respect for the state. It’s embarrassing.”

Section 10-1-161 of the S.C. Code of Laws says flags should be lowered on Memorial Day and to honor the deaths of certain public officials. The flags also are lowered on the day of funerals for U.S. servicemen and women from South Carolina who died in combat.

The cities of Columbia and West Columbia lowered their flags Wednesday. The town of Lexington did not.

Many other states lowered their flags Wednesday in honor of Parks, including Georgia, Arkansas, Washington, Texas, Idaho and Hawaii.

When Pope John Paul II died in April, Sanford’s office also said he did not have authority to lower the flag. The Legislature, which was in session at the time, quickly adopted a resolution ordering the flags to be lowered to half-staff in the pope’s honor.

That prompted former S.C. Senate clerk Frank Caggiano, a Democrat known for his knowledge of state law, to opine in a letter to the editor in The State newspaper that Sanford had misinterpreted the law.

While the law orders the flag lowered under certain circumstances, “it does not make these the exclusive circumstances and limit the governor’s ability to order the lowering of the flag out of respect for this beloved world leader,” Caggiano wrote.

Sanford’s chief of staff, Henry White, said Sanford’s office asked that the flags be lowered out of respect for the pope. But the General Assembly’s action was a “clear indication that there was no state law on the books for the flags to be lowered for the death of a foreign official.”

But Sanford’s office lowered the flags at the State House in February 2003 after the space shuttle Columbia crashed.

Sanford had been in office barely a month when the shuttle crashed. Afterward, Sawyer said, the governor’s office was told it did not have that authority, and “since that time, our position has just been to keep with the statute.

“The one time it was done, we didn’t know we didn’t have statutory authority.”

Sawyer said Sanford would support legislation to “standardize the process a little more.” For instance, Sawyer said, the governor would support lowering the flag when it is also lowered at federal buildings.

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com. Staff writers Tim Flach and Shalama Jackson contributed.