Sen. Knotts rips Gov. Sanford on ESC

In last week’s “This Week in the Senate” broadcast, Sen. Jake Knotts called out Gov. Mark Sanford in what some would call a hypocritical stance when it comes to the state Employment Security Commission.

Already, Sanford has opposed, but ultimately capitulated, to receiving loans to cover the ESC unemployment benefits on at least two occasions. He responded to the situation by asking for audits of the agency, and threatening to fire ESC commissioners.

But, like a lot of things in S.C. politics, there may be more than is immediately visible. Cue Sen. Knotts:

“I’ll tell you something else, too. You look on Google, and you Google ‘Wilson Brothers USA,’” Knotts said.

“Who is that,” host and Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell asked.

“That’s a company up in Greenwood that purchased a company called ‘ESI,’ Employment Solutions Inc., I guess. But, ESI,” Knotts replied. “In 2006, whenever immigration came in and did the big raid up there, and they took all those immigrants that were working for Greenwood Packing Company, and took them away. They were illegal. Guess whose family owns ESI, or owned it at that time? John Sanford, the president. He’s been, his family’s been in the employment business for a long time. Let’s get down to the real facts here, and find out what the real fuss is about the Employment Security Commission. I think we have a good Employment Security Commission, and this governor has never visited, from what I understand, he has never visited any of the satellite offices, or any of the offices. And been invited. So, let’s fix it if it’s broke, but let’s not put the blame on somebody else.”

The fact that a close relative to the governor was subjected to a major immigration raid isn’t the last part of this puzzle. Like many things involving the Governor, it turns into a game of Six Degrees of Separation, usually ending before six.

It turns out that the attorney representing Wilson Bros. was Jim Kuyk from Charleston.

Normally, that would not raise eyebrows. But, the kicker is that Kuyk was the director of the now-defunct Carolinians for Reform, one of Sanford’s third-party groups, notorious for being the organization that was sent the surplus from the 2006 National Governors Association convention. The money had been leftover from a taxpayer-funded grant, and once exposed, Sanford returned the money.