Tags : mark sanford
Gov. Sanford Dismisses State House Speaker’s Call For His Resignation
Columbia, SC (AHN) – South Carolina Mark Sanford is rejecting the second call from a fellow party member and prominent state leader for his resignation in the last two weeks. State House Speaker Bobby Harrell on Tuesday sent the governor a letter for him to resign so the state government can “deal with pressing issues” instead of “constant distractions caused by [Sanford] remaining in office.”
Answering questions from constituents on WVOC-AM`s “Afternoon Drive Show with Keven Cohen,” the governor said, “Some people have seen it in their best interest to keep things stirred up,” referring to the year-long extramarital affair he revealed in a press conference in June.
Sanford dismissed allegations that he was misusing taxpayer dollars, saying his use of business class tickets for an economic development and other trips, which is being investigated by a budget committee led by state Sen. David Thomas, was based on “the accepted practice in the Commerce Dept. for the last 25 years” and had been done by previous governors, state officials and members of the state legislature.
The governor said Thomas should have done some “research” first before accusing him of violating state law. He cited studies by the Legislative Audit Committee in 2002 and 2004 that found no anomalies in the use of business class tickets by state officials.
Asked by a caller during the radio interview about his five-day disappearance in June, Sanford replied, “I’m dead guilty of being gone over that weekend,” but also said “it is for the General Assembly to decide” if his action is enough grounds for impeachment.
“There have been eight governors impeached in the history of this nation, and they’ve been for really heinous things in terms of taking money out of the general fund of the state, going out and purchasing property,” Sanford said. “So there is certainly a world of difference between what happened in those instances and what has happened here.”
The governor remained firm in his decision not to resign.
“If I thought that was the cure-all to all problems ailing South Carolina and to creating the most beneficial legislative year in the next session, or to solving unemployment or to bettering education, ” he explained, “I would have resigned. But at the end of the day, I don’t think that.”
The same day, the top Republican in the state House sent him a letter asking him to step down.
“Your actions have amounted to a self-inflicted wound that has forced unnecessary suffering on the people of South Carolina,” Harrell wrote. “This is a critical time to have strong and effective leadership for our people. Unfortunately, the recent controversies and negative publicity surrounding your personal life and administration make it clear that you are not in a position to lead us in that direction.”
The letter comes two months after the state GOP voted to censure Sanford instead of asking him to step down, and two weeks after Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer held a press conference calling for him to resign.
Sanford had admitted in a June 24 press conference that he had been having an extramarital affair with a friend in Argentina over the past year. He had returned that day to South Carolina and revealed that he had not, as his aides had said, been hiking on the Appalachian Trail but had been to Buenos Aires.
His sudden five-day disappearance had prompted criticisms and concerns about gubernatorial succession, and he subsequently resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. He later admitted to having had affairs with other women, pushing critics to heighten their calls for for him to step down.
The 49-year-old governor currently faces possible impeachment proceedings and an ethics inquiry into his alleged use of the state aircraft for unofficial trips. Last month, state Attorney General Henry McCaster, a Republican, asked the Ethics Commission to investigate Sanford’s use of the state airplane and other resources amid reports that the governor violated ethics rules.
Sanford last month had issued his lieutenant governor a reply that said, “The original failing that I disclosed on June 24th was mine. That human frailty has been more than well reported on, analyzed and dissected by a chorus of media outlets… I own its consequences past, present and future. What’s going on now though is pure politics… The administration has.watched out for the taxpayer and saved very large sums of money for taxpayers. We have acted consistently in accord with what we believed to be both the letter and spirit of the law.”
Before that, the governor said in an op-ed column in the State that an Associated Press report on his use of the state plane was “misleading,” and that he has traveled on the aircraft a total 228.95 hours, less than predecessors Carroll Campbell’s 451 hours and David Beaseley’s 303 hours.
“Of the 228.95 hours I flew, roughly 70 were in the Department of Natural Resources’ single-engine Cessna,” Sanford added, “because whenever I had a chance I tried to use this small plane that has an operating cost about one-fifth that of the King Air; this alone saved taxpayers more than $60,000. No governor has done this before.”
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