John B. White Jr., state contracter and Spartanburg attorney The S.C. Ethics Commission has its mission as proceeding according to the laws of South Carolina. Under the heading, “South Carolina Code of Laws (Unannotated) Current through the end of the 2008 Session,” there is “Title 8 – Public Officers and Employees.” The next subdivision is “Chapter 13. ETHICS, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY, AND CAMPAIGN REFORM.” In “SECTION 8–13–1342” it reads:

Restrictions on contributions

by contractor to

candidate who participated

in awarding of contract.

No person who has

Henry Dargan McMaster, S.C. Attorney General

been awarded a contract

with the State, a county, a

municipality, or a political

subdivision thereof, other

than contracts through

competitive bidding practices,

may make a contribution

after the awarding of

the contract or invest in a

financial venture in which

a public official has an

interest if that official was

Susie McWilliams, chair, S.C. Ethics Commission

in a position to act on the

contract’s award. No public

official or public employee

may solicit campaign contributions

or investments in

exchange for the prior

award of a contract or the

promise of a contract with

the State, a county, a

municipality, or a political

subdivision thereof.

Section 8–13–1342 has been cited often enough in

The Columbia Star to wonder why it’s necessary to quote the whole section in almost every article covering the matter. That’s because the S. C. Ethics Commission is inconsistent and confusing. After a formal complaint was filed in April 2006, the Ethics Commission tossed out the complaint in about a month. Citing questionable campaign contributions to members of Columbia City Council by city contractors, the complaint was contained to just those contractors that won business from the city without price competition, leaving alone city contractors that won city business “through competitive bidding practices,” as the law puts it.

As The Columbia Star

reported on April 7, 2006: The most concentrated

occurrence for illegal contributions

happened in the

course of the city’s botched

efforts to develop the $73

million city–funded convention

center headquarters

Hilton Hotel, now in

private hands and getting

done for about $32 million.

Just counting two of Mayor

Bob Coble’s campaign contribution

reports, January

10 and March 20 of this

year, the city–funded hotel

development team kicked

in about $16,500. That

doesn’t count the same

group’s contributions to the

other members of city council,

and to that should be

added a computation taken

from Coble’s previous

reports.

The Ethics Commission tossed out the complaint and its tens of thousands of dollars contributed to city council campaigns by contractors paid by the city for deals won without price competition, work awarded for qualifications and relationships but not for winning competitive bids. Only the money paid by the contractors was listed, never the funds given by individuals working for the contractors. It’s perfectly OK with the Ethics Commission, for instance, that Bobby Lyles wrote checks on his personal bank account for Mayor Coble’s re-election campaign, even though he was CEO of Stevens & Wilkinson, the contractor for more than $2.2 million in fees on the city’s hotel deal when the eventual privately developed hotel project paid less than $400,000 for essentially the same package of architectural and engineering services. But the contributions to the mayor’s war chest from S&W, the firm, run counter to Section 8–13–1342.

To further illustrate how it works between a firm which is a city contractor and a member of the firm, an individual citizen, a look at the history of city council member Belinda Gergel’s contributions to Mayor Coble, her husband’s contributions, and her husband’s law firms’ contributions. For most of Mayor Coble’s term, almost 20 years, lawyer Gergel was the city’s paid labor law contractor. In December 2004, “Mr. & Mrs. Richard Gergel” gave $2,000 to Coble’s campaign, and “W. Allen Nickels, III” gave $500. In both instances the contributions came from individual citizens. But on March 23, 2006, “Gergel, Nickles, & Solomon, PA” gave $1,000. The spelling might be a bit off, but the dollar amounts must be accurate and thereby in question – illegal, in fact. But the Ethics Commission let it go.

The Ethics Commission said the complaint in April 2006 failed to allege whether the campaign funds came by way of solicitations or through unsolicited contributions. When work for a city–funded and city–developed and city–managed hotel is for sale, what difference does it make whether the money came after a solicitation from the elected official or not? The point is, by all appearances the money paid by city contractors was connected to the city contracts. The contributions in this case were all presumably illegal, according to a fair interpretation of Section 8–13– 1342. But the Ethics Commission let it go.

Now comes an Ethics Commission call on the matter of contributions to Henry Dargan McMaster’s campaign for governor. McMaster hired two lawyers, John B. White of Spartanburg and John S. Simmons of Columbia, to help the state with a lawsuit against Eli Lilly. The lawyers then contributed to McMaster’s campaign collections. According to the Ethics Commission’s Web site, Simmons gave $3,500 in June 2007 , and White gave $2,000 in November the same year. And according to the Associated Press – the commission’s Web site failed to show more recent contributions – Simmons gave McMaster another $3,500 in September 2008, while White gave $1,500 this past March.

Cathy Hazelwood, deputy director and general counsel for the Ethics Commission, was quoted recently in The State newspaper: “McMaster should probably start tallying up that kind of money and see how he’s going to give it all back. When you figure it out, you make the correction.” What needs further investigation is who or what was the contractor? The firms or the individuals? And then who or what sent in the money, the firms or the individuals?

Hazelwood says nothing at all about whether the contributions came through solicitations or not. Somehow it appears Coble was given the benefit of the doubt without any investigation by the Ethics Commission. McMaster, on the other hand, is getting grilled, and maybe he should take the heat if a fair interpretation of Section 8–13–1342 bears it out.

Maybe it’s time to hear from the top at the Ethics Commission, from the chair herself, attorney Susi McWilliams. McWilliams is a partner with Nexsen Pruet, where Mayor Bob Coble is a partner. Nexsen Pruet as a firm contributed to Mayor Coble’s re–election campaign, as did many of the firm’s partners as individual citizens. Nexsen Pruet won the contract without competitive bidding for the legal work on the city’s $40 million convention center, possibly another extension of the Ethics Commission’s benefit of the doubt.