Harrell: ‘I probably will be more specific’ on financial records
Can Bobby Harrell “unrob the bank”? If you or I took funds through any mechanism that do not belong to us, and someone pointed it out, could we just give them back and be off the hook?
Well if you are the Speaker of the House in South Carolina … I guess you can.
House Speaker Bobby Harrell told The Associated Press he “probably will be more specific” on finance forms detailing reimbursements from his campaign account when he uses his personal credit card and pays bills online. Harrell also said he moved $23,000 back into his campaign account because he couldn’t account for the expenditures.
On Tuesday, Harrell showed AP the documents — credit card and phone bills, hotel invoices and pay stubs — that he said back up his assertions. He would not allow copies to be made, saying the documents also contained personal spending and information. He also said they were not public documents under state law. “The way I’ve been doing it is within the law,” Harrell told the AP. “Going forward, I probably will be more specific.”
In an editorial appearing in The State, we learn more details about this maneuvering of funds by Speaker Harrell.
Charleston’s Post and Courier reports that Mr. Harrell has reimbursed himself more than $325,000 since 2008, mostly for flights on his single-engine plane and for legislative work done by an assistant who works for the insurance agency he owns. The speaker’s office says that figure covers a slightly longer period than the newspaper reported but doesn’t dispute that it’s a large number, noting that being speaker carries extra duties that other legislators don’t have, which requires extra administrative support and extensive travel inside and outside the state.
There’s nothing wrong with using campaign funds to travel to political or legislative events. There’s nothing wrong with using campaign funds to pay for extra clerical help on legislative or political business. The problem is the lack of detail on Mr. Harrell’s expenditure reports. For instance, on nine occasions, he reported travel reimbursements to himself of more than $10,000, three of them for more than $20,000, with no explanation of how many trips were involved, the destinations or what time period was covered.
Harrell’s justification is that he paid for clerical help through his business office (an insurance company unconnected with his duties as Speaker or even as representative for Charleston) and then reimbursed himself for the clerical employee’s salary from his campaign funds.
No really. That’s what passes for ethics in South Carolina.
Angry? I urge you to take action. This is YOUR state.
#1 Call your legislators, and tell them the House and Senate Ethics committees must be eliminated and Legislators must be subject to the State Ethics Commission just like every other public official in South Carolina. Ask them to work for this reform, and that standing by and doing nothing … as YOUR representative … is unacceptable. Ask them for their specific plan to eliminate these committees. Hemming and hawing, making excuses, talking around the issues … well you’ll know whose side they are on then. It’s either your side or their side.
#2 Contact Attorney General Wilson’s office and ask how one South Carolina citizen can take/misuse funds they are not entitled to and … when caught just put them back, and if that would the the law applied to YOU were you to take funds from your church, or from your employer. If not … why is Speaker Harrell who admitted publicly to doing so, not under investigation by the AG office?
September 27, 2012
Posted in: Uncategorized
2 Responses
Jim Lee - September 28, 2012
Admittedly, I’m not an expert on the ethics rules of the House or the ethics statutes (assuming there are any) codified in SC law. Political and campaign related expenses I get. Those are likely partisan in nature. But how is it that campaign funds can be used for expenses related to “legislative events?”
Aren’t legislative events “the people’s business?”
Bobby Barton - September 28, 2012
Everyone reading this needs to heed both #1 and #2. It is time to clean up our state !!!!! We cannot leave it for someone else !!!!!
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