Court smacks down Spartanburg power play

Our fourth-ever post on this fledgling attempt to counter the toadies of the political blogosphere involved the issues surrounding the fight on who is actually leading the Spartanburg County legislative delegation, a fight that had already been going on for a while. “Hit list” candidates like Sen. Lee Bright, Rep. Joey Millwood, Sen. Shane Martin and (in a turn, God only knows why) Sen. Glenn Reese tried to take over the group. We don’t have much respect for the intelligence of Bright or Millwood, who have to be the most ignorant people in the General Assembly, so we thought their power play would fall to the ground.

This is what we wrote on Jan. 10:

In another time, the ongoing dispute among members of the Spartanburg County legislative delegation might have been resolved via code duello. As it is, the battle between Sens. Lee Bright, Shane Martin, Glenn Reese, Rep. Joey Millwood and the rest of the delegation has been limited to the pages of The (Spartanburg) Herald-Journal.

So far, the main bone of contention has been who is really in control, and how that impacts local appointments made by the group. The break-off Group of Four insist that their votes count more, because of weighted voting based on district population.

Recent stories on the issue have made it look like there are 13 people with a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order in one hand and the S.C. Code in the other. It may, though, be just a little more interesting.

As Diddy would say, “It’s all about the judges, baby.”

Voting on judicial appointments, particularly on State Supreme Court Justice Don Beatty, has been an issue that generated more than a few attack mailers from independent groups in GOP legislative primaries and been a hot topic in the General Assembly.

Rep. Lanny Littlejohn, elected delegation chairman on Nov. 10 (though the Group of Four elected Millwood chairman on Nov. 25), expressed that the tiff between the legislators has nothing to do with who is chairman.

“I think the senators wanted to set some kind of precedent for weighted voting on all things. It’s all about electing judges, I think,” Littlejohn said.

As for importance, “trivial things, non-governmental functions, and things like electing a chairman do not fall into that category, as far as I’m concerned,” he continued.

Rep. Rita Allison, one of the other nine in the delegation, told Wolfe Reports, “I’m not going to comment on that.” But, responding to a remark by Martin about the nine being good ol’ boys, said in Jan. 4’s Herald-Journal, she said, “I guess I’m a good ol’ girl. They do have the weighted majority, and that’s not a problem with me. But nobody ran anything past me or asked me to sign off on anything.”

One of the more mystifying issues in the dispute is Reese’s status. Among the four, he is the only legislator that has experience, and the only Democrat. When asked about the row, he posited that the question should be asked to the other three.

“You probably need to talk to them — they are the ones who want to do it,” he said. “They are the ones that brought up the issue.”

Littlejohn, citing Reese’s 18 years in the General Assembly, said, “Sen. Reese should know better. He ought to be ashamed of himself. He is showing poor leadership. … I have no idea what the guy’s thinking. It’s the dumbest politics I’ve ever seen in my life.”

In Dec. 18’s Herald-Journal, Bright expected his group to come out the victor.

“We’ve got the weighted majority,” he said. “If they don’t want to work with the delegation and they want to have a rogue delegation, that’s their decision.”

Until the issue is resolved, which does not look any time soon, it’s still debatable who has “gone rogue.”

The fight made its way to the S.C. Supreme Court this week, and finally what we all knew would happen, did happen. The high court ruled unanimously for the group led by Littlejohn and Rep. Keith Kelly, which is good news to everyone that values — oh, what’s that word? Competence. Of course, Bright, true to form, did his own bit to show that his surname should be “Dim.”

Bright said in an e-mailed statement he was “disappointed although not surprised,” and called the opinion “flawed.”

Why, yes. A gentleman in the trucking business clearly knows more about law than five S.C. Supreme Court justices. Rep. Harold Mitchell, who really pushed the issue to the Court, hit back.

Mitchell said Bright’s comments reflect a “complete lack of respect” for the five justices. He said when Bright had his chance to make his case to the court in oral arguments in October, he didn’t bother to show up.

“If you’re going to start a fight, don’t pull a butter knife in a gunfight,” Mitchell said. “It’s time to stop playing these ridiculous games and start doing what’s best for Spartanburg County.”