PALMETTO STATE HAS SERIOUS WORK TO DO ON ETHICS REFORM
The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) – which has recently partnered with The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier on two big anti-corruption pieces (here and here) – issued its state corruption rankings this week.
How did South Carolina fare? Not well.
The Palmetto State received a “D-Minus” from the group – with its report card including failing grades on public access to information, campaign finance law, legislative accountability, judicial accountability and ethics enforcement.
“The comprehensive probe found that in state after state, open records laws are laced with exemptions, and part-time legislators and agency officials engage in glaring conflicts of interests and cozy relationships with lobbyists,” CPI’s Nicholas Kusnetz noted. “Meanwhile, feckless, understaffed watchdogs struggle to enforce laws as porous as honeycombs.”
Ouch …
Astoundingly, the organization described South Carolina’s 2015 ranking as “a marginal improvement from 2012,” when the state received a failing grade overall.
Should we celebrate? Hell no …
“South Carolina is one of only two states where judges are elected by the legislature and one of only a handful that don’t require public officials to disclose private income,” the report noted. “As a host of reform advocates have said, South Carolina is still very much a ‘Wild West.'”
Indeed … the powers-that-be in this state do two things: Cash checks and evade accountability.
As we noted last month, “this website has been fighting for years to not only expose the corruption itself, but more importantly the self-policing system that perpetuates it. We’ve also aggressively exposed the ‘reforms in name only‘ lawmakers have put forth as part of a backdoor effort to muzzle criticism of their chronic self-dealing … while giving the appearance of doing something to promote ‘public integrity.'”
We will continue to do that …
17 comments
D -, that good, huh? I’m shocked that we did that good.
Yep, if this state didn’t have Lee Bright & Tom Corbin as state senators SC would have scored a D+ at least
South Carolina ranked 36th.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/11/09/18517/south-carolina-gets-d-grade-2015-state-integrity-investigation
yeah i clicked on the link in the article ended up reading articles for a couple of hours, very cool source for information, i put in my favorites.
Not sure if you’ve tracked all of these POLLS and studies…but the more states go REPUBLICAN, the more the surveys bash them.
It’s just another propaganda tool the left uses to try to make up for the TOTAL rejection they are faced with from the people, they have betrayed. Nothing new here. Just more leftwing lies, trying to cover for their failure.
And Dumbasses like FITS (willingly) buy into this Bullshit.
How cute. GT learns to cuss, just like a grown-up, without using that stupid comic book nonsense in place of the the real words.
I’m inclined to partially agree. These ratings often discount the corruption that exist between public employee unions and public officials. California was ranked 2nd or 3rd.
FITSNews has been PROVEN a LIAR about Dr. Ben Carson. Politico has pulled back the lie. FITS has published the lie about Carson, but has refused to admit he got it wrong, and LIED about the man…
What grade should we give FITSNews on its Public Integrity Report Card?
A plus!
What a profession journalism has become.It is bad enough that the news pages have become the opinion pages for the liberal print media.
Now the MSM and its sycophant wanna be followers routinely just make up lies,falsehoods and create conspiracy theories in an attempt to perpetuate its mindless,Godless agenda of destroying public servants,private citizens and this country.
You sound like a total idiot. How could so much dumb reside in one person?
Leatherman runs the state. Leatherman is a crook. Therefore, SC is a crooked state!
The only reason it’s not an “F” is because nobody knows the full extent of the malfeasance.
If they had added “agency accountability” it would have plunged too.
Congratulations, FITSNEWS you are the primary disseminators of the most relevant news that matters most to Americans. Uncensored too!
As high as a D-Minus ??? Somebody in Haley’s office must have paid off the Center for Public Integrity.
If you Google “oxymoron” this story comes up right after the Wikipedia entry.