SC Sen. Harpootlian asks governor, state watchdog to investigate ‘hidden earmarks’
A South Carolina senator has asked the state Inspector General’s Office to audit millions of dollars in taxpayer spending that flow secretly through the state’s annual budget for projects in lawmakers’ districts.
In a letter Thursday to Inspector General Brian Lamkin, state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, requested a state investigation into the “hidden earmarks” no matter whether the person who gets the money represents a nonprofit, charity or private organization.
Harpootlian went even further, asking that Republican Gov. Henry McMaster issue an executive order that would stop the Legislature from appropriating money through earmarks in the state’s upcoming $10.2 billion spending plan unless legislators can specifically explain in the budget how the money is being spent.
“My ultimate goal is to have a budget document that will tell us where every penny is going, and then we can have a meaningful discussion, debate about, ‘Is that somewhere where we ought to be putting our money?’” Harpootlian told reporters Friday at his Columbia law office.
The Inspector General’s Office did not respond by press time.
Harpootlian’s requests Friday follow The State newspaper’s exclusive reporting on at least $20 million in earmarks directed to projects in legislators’ districts often bundled in broad line items and described in vague language, if at all, in the state budget. The process has been criticized by State House leaders, including McMaster, who say any expense through the state budget should be its own separate line item so that lawmakers and the public know what the General Assembly is voting on.
But proponents of the projects say that in many cases the earmarks are the only way to help constituents back home meet certain needs. For example, rural counties without a large tax base can get money through the state budget for projects that are necessary to the people who live in those districts.
“You can call them local grants. You can call them earmarks. You can call them whatever you want,” House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, told reporters Thursday. “The bottom line is that all of us are accountable to our constituents.”
On Monday, McMaster will unveil his executive budget for the new year, which will include a request that lawmakers charge each agency with developing a process through which local governments and nonprofits would apply for grant money. The directors of each agency would be responsible with approving who gets the grants and publishing online and submitting a report to the governor, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee by June 30, 2021.
“The governor’s executive budget will disclose each and every appropriation, amount and destination,” the governor’s office said. “He will request that the General Assembly do the same or consider establishing a transparent and accountable merit-based grant process at these state agencies.”
That comes on top of an effort from Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, who plans to fast-track a proposal through his Senate Rules Committee that would require spending on those projects to be transparent. At least four other senators have said they support the plan. Meanwhile, House budget chairman Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, told reporters he supports more transparency and oversight.
Harpootlian’s interest in earmarks started by accident last year, his first year in office.
For several years, Harpootlian and his wife, Jamie Harpootlian, as well as numerous people who live in his part of Columbia, had been bothered by loud sirens from frequent trains approaching unprotected railroad crossings. His wife served in an unpaid position on a city 13-member noise abatement advisory committee, and she resigned that position last May, two months before the budget passed, Harpootlian said.
Irked by train noise, Harpootlian last year blocked a port bill, which he said would increase cargo carried along railroads. The bill was favored by powerful Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, who is chair of the Senate Finance Committee. When Leatherman asked Harpootlian to take his hold off the bill, Harpootlian said he agreed.
After that, Leatherman volunteered to help Harpootlian with getting money to upgrade railroad crossings in Columbia and brought top executives from Norfolk Southern, a major railroad company whose trains come through Columbia daily, Harpootlian said.
When those executives refused to spend any money to upgrade Columbia crossings, Leatherman told Harpootlian not to worry, “We’ll get you $400,000,” Harpootlian told reporters Friday.
In September, Harpootlian said he was surprised to get a call telling him he had $400,000 for the railroad crossings. The money was contained in a check written to the City of Columbia from the account of the S.C. Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Highway Patrol — and the expense did not appear anywhere in the state budget, Harpootlian said.
That experience led Harpootlian to send multiple requests for public records to various state agencies to see how much money was being secretly routed, well out of public view and scrutiny, to various state agencies.
Asked whether he thought he was being rewarded by Leatherman for removing his name from a bill — effectively blocking it — that Leatherman had sponsored, Harpootlian said then he did not.
However, Harpootlian said when he spoke to his Senate colleagues about his experience, they said, ‘Well, that’s the way it works,’ “ Harpootlian recalled.
“Did I intend it to be a quid pro quo? No,” Harpootlian said Friday. “Did it end up being a quid pro quo? Probably.”
In response to Harpootlian, Leatherman told The State: “If Sen. Harpootlian acknowledges that he has committed a crime, then he should immediately turn himself in to the solicitor’s office. After all, only he knows what was in his mind when he did what he claims to have done.”
In response to Leatherman, Harpootlian replied: “I have not accused anyone of committing a crime. I would hope that Sen. Leatherman could discuss this matter in a serious and responsible manner.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 12:01 PM with the headline "SC Sen. Harpootlian asks governor, state watchdog to investigate ‘hidden earmarks’."
