Sanford right to aim campaign at those who are blocking reform

Gov. Mark Sanford's solid voter approval in November gave him renewed hope that the Legislature would be more amenable to his agenda this session. But for the most part, that hasn't happened. As a result, the governor and his allies are preparing a needed new strategy clearly aimed at unseating those who continue to stand in the way of reform.

The governor hinted earlier this year that he was prepared to go to the grass roots if reform efforts continued to stall the way they did his first four years in office. It didn't take long for the majority of the Senate to reveal just how uninterested it continues to be in giving the executive branch the authority it should have. Unwilling even to let the voters decide through constitutional amendments whether the governor should have an expanded Cabinet, the Senate buried the restructuring package in committee early in the session.

The completion of the restructuring effort led by Gov. Carroll Campbell has been on hold for far too long. While the governor does have a small Cabinet, most state agencies still answer to legislatively appointed boards and commissions instead of the governor's office. Rather than the buck stopping with one man or one woman — the governor — the boards and commissions are answerable, in theory at least, to legislative bodies. But the system reeks of a lack of accountability.

The most recent proof of the problem is the Department of Transportation. Six of the seven members are appointed by legislators on the basis of congressional districts. The seventh is an at-large appointment by the governor. It was the governor's appointee who raised the questions that led to a Legislative Audit Council report that revealed an agency knee deep in scandal, including the waste of millions of transportation dollars. Reform of that agency should have been the first order of legislative business.

While the House did act relatively quickly with recommendations for meaningful change, too many members of the Senate actually tried to make a case for the status quo. The Senate finally has passed a half-hearted measure, but there's still no certainty that an acceptable compromise will emerge from conference.

The governor also continues to be frustrated in his efforts to cut the rate of growth in state spending, warning of the potential dire consequences of an economic downturn.

In a letter being sent to supporters asking them to give their time or contributions to a non-profit group called "Reform SC," the governor said, "The common thread between these issues and others like them is that people in Columbia are not acting on the same wavelength that people are thinking on across the state." It is time, he insisted, that "we try something new in dislodging the interests that fight change and hold onto 'the way things have always been done' in our state."

That "something new," in the governor's words, is the launching of a second campaign. "This doesn't mean another campaign for me, but 'a campaign of ideas' to advance many of the notions I ran on last fall," he wrote. That campaign clearly will involve targeting those legislators who have stood in the way of his agenda. The governor wrote that Reform SC will "work to bring a direct spotlight on exactly who is working for and against" the platform that won him re-election.

"I can have all the personal meetings a day will offer and a full slate of press conferences the next day, but if there is not a specific awareness of where a senior ranking legislator stands on an issue in their district it does not have a political effect."

The governor also made it clear he intends to help his legislative allies be recognized for their efforts back home.

According to The Associated Press, Reform SC is set up under the same IRS rules used by groups such as AARP and MoveOn.Org for political education efforts. While it may not actually involve the recruitment of candidates, there is little doubt that prospect is in the minds of some of the governor's allies.

But that's the kind of hardball politics needed if the governor is to have any hope of real restructuring reform during his last term. The political reality is that since the days of single-member election districts, lawmakers have drawn themselves so-called safe seats and most aren't opposed in either the primary or general election. That's why so many believe they can maintain the status quo and ignore the kind of reform sentiment that put and has kept Mark Sanford in office. But the governor clearly is mindful that the entire Legislature — both the House and Senate — is up for election in 2008. It's high time he got tough where it really matters — at the ballot box.