Nikki Haley Calls on Senate to Pass Ethics Reform

In a Statehouse press conference on Tuesday, Gov. Nikki Haley called on the Senate to pass ethics legislation approved in the House earlier this month.

Haley was joined at the press conference by the as well as Attorney General Alan Wilson.

“We have the blueprint. We need the eagerness and the will,” Haley said. The governor said that after the budget is approved she is hoping that ethics can be passed. She also is optimistic the Department of Administration legislation she’s been pushing for three years will finally become law.

Haley rejected the notion that legislature can’t do more than one big thing per session. “At what point can we do multiple things in a session,” she asked rhetorically. “There’s no reason it has to be either/or.”

Wilson said he’s spoken to both parties and talks have been productive. “My fear is that politics of other issues have bled over to stifle ethics reform.”

He said that if ethics reform did not pass, the public would interpret the failure to act as a lack of seriousness.

As Haley’s press conference ended, the Democrats’ began. Sen. Brad Hutto (D-Orangeburg) and Rep. Todd Rutherford (D-Richland) said Haley is not the person to call for ethics reform. Hutto cited Haley’s own ethics challenges and the issues that surfaced last week regarding the state plane.

Haley’s spokesperson Rob Godfrey quickly fired back via email, ”Sen. Hutto knows full well that the governor was cleared of all the trumped up claims against her. This is another example of Senate Democrats trying to say or do anything to stop major ethics reforms.”

Hutto and Rutherford agreed that ethics reform is important, but said their constituents are more concerned with infrastructure improvement and education funding.

When it was suggested that Democrats may be blocking ethics legislation so as not to give her a victory heading into her re-election campaign (which has not yet been made official), Haley said, ”If politics stops ethics reform, we’ve got a serious problem in the state of South Carolina.”

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