The debate started back up again just before the holiday with Rep. Harold Mitchell proposing that a House panel would screen potential new magistrates in the same way other judges and certain other officials are considered. The panels recommend candidates (as in, this person is qualified, this person is not), and there’s a transcript of the meeting available online. There is also a chance for public comment. As it stands now, the senator or senators for a certain county do the hiring and firing.

The issue in Spartanburg was an oft-talked about part of Sen. Lee Bright’s campaign. You don’t usually see groups of people getting together for something like magistrate appointment. We wondered what the real motivation was, and having citizen panels (?) review candidates and the governor appoint everybody doesn’t seem like much of an improvement.

There are people in the county who are not exactly pleased with how things have been going down in the past few months, and the grumblings are getting louder.

Naturally, it raised some eyebrows in the Upstate when Bright, with Sen. Glenn Reese, brought in campaign supporter Rob Chumley to fill Brian Taylor’s seat. Here’s a twist: remember how Bright and a number of other candidates in ‘08 were a part of a structured grouping of candidates, consultants and third-party groups? Bright’s primary opponent, then-Rep. Scott Talley, was targeted. Rep. Keith Kelly, who won his primary, was targeted, as well. Guess who is running against Kelly for the GOP nomination next year? Chumley’s father, Bill. And Bill Chumley is paying Bright’s consultant, Chris Sullivan. Nothing weird there, right?

Then there was the strange case of David Snow, who became a victim of this patronage experiment. As this fall’s special extended session was wrapping up, at the end of the day, Snow was relieved of his duties as he was closing up his office. From what we’ve been told, that effectively severely limited Snow’s ability to do anything relating to access to the office. Enter James West, who gave a grand to the Bright campaign last year, as well as the Reese effort. West, to the best of our knowledge, has no legal experience.

Then there’s the last one, with John Rollins being forced out in favor of Tina McMillan, wife of Jim McMillan, who is running against Rep. Rita Allison in the District 36 primary. Amid reports that Allison is being targeted by the same groups who were afoot last year, there’s this interesting fact: Sullivan is running Jim McMillan’s campaign, as well. Mind you, the couple gave $1,000 each to the Bright campaign (Tina personally, Jim through his company).

These are not simple coincidences. And officials closest to the situation aren’t buying what Bright’s been selling.

“That’s a concern, especially when [Bright] ran against cronyism,” Mitchell said. “He said he wanted to make sure this kind of thing didn’t happen.”

Bright said he couldn’t put together a screening committee unless the other senators agreed. But Sens. Harvey Peeler and Shane Martin said Bright has never approached them about the idea.

“I’ve talked to him numerous times about how we appoint magistrates, and he hasn’t said anything to me about it,” said Peeler, R-Gaffney. “He’d better be careful what he asks for or he just might get it. I think that’s the posture he’s in right now.”

For all the bluff and bluster bullshit about “good ol’ boys” during the 2008 cycle, is anyone surprised by this? It’s incredible that enough voters swallowed the line that got a few legislators like Bright in power. And the whole machinery is gearing up for another run.

The House Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday to address the impeachment or censure of Gov. Mark Sanford was classic House. There were impassioned speeches, some ill-chosen remarks and after all that noise, little actually was accomplished.

It started out with debate over the impeachment resolution, which was passed unfavorably out of subcommittee last week. It didn’t go so well in full committee, falling to an 18-6 vote. Reps. Greg Delleney, Keith Kelly, Vida Miller, Todd Rutherford, Bakari Sellers and Seth Whipper went for it. Rutherford got rather animated in his evaluation of the subcommittee’s work, saying at one point, “We really are the idiots people make us out to be.” He also chimed in with, “We care more about striped bass than we do about this.” Some of his comments rankled Rep. Jim Harrison, who asked, and received, an apology.

The committee moved on to the censure resolution, which passed unanimously. Censure comes down in the gray middle between a genuine punishment and having to have something on the books that shows members of the General Assembly do not approve of what Sanford has been up to. Rep. James Smith said in an AP story, “A vote for censure is not an endorsement for the governor’s conduct. It’s quite the contrary.”

Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell, reflecting on the censure bill moving to the full House, said in a statement, “The Committee’s ruling to honor the recommendation from the subcommittee was the right decision. Our state’s Constitution sets a very high standard for removal from office. While this process revealed the Governor’s actions to be irresponsible, misguided and hypocritical, the evidence available did not reach the Constitutional level to remove the Governor from office.

“The censure resolution — a legislative decree condemning the Governor’s actions — will now move to the House floor. I expect the full House to quickly address this censure and move on to more pressing issues facing our state.

“While the Governor’s irresponsible actions did not meet the Constitutional definition for removal, they clearly warrant an official censure by the House of Representatives. In fact, the embarrassment and continued distraction caused by these actions should have warranted the Governor’s resignation from office — an action that I and an overwhelming majority of lawmakers urged the Governor to take in the best interest of our state months ago.”

Sanford isn’t totally off the hook. His suspected ethics violations are still subject to investigation and sanctions from the State Ethics Commission. However, getting a few fines levied on him isn’t likely to provide too much pain to the Governor, who has already seen his biggest punishment — the death of his political career — happen months ago.

During the extended session, Rep. Greg Delleney attempted to introduce his resolution to impeach Gov. Mark Sanford. After extensive discussion, Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell ruled that the bill was out of order at the time but instead should be put on the table for prefiling. So, here we are.

H. 4168: A HOUSE RESOLUTION TO PROVIDE THAT PURSUANT TO ARTICLE XV, SECTION 1, OF THE CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1895, THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA, THE HONORABLE MARSHALL C. SANFORD, JR., IS IMPEACHED FOR SERIOUS MISCONDUCT IN OFFICE.

The bill officially went up today and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. The cosponsors for the bill are Reps. Mike Pitts, Keith Kelly, and Gary Simrill. As of right now, it looks like desire for impeachment is slowing after it reached a fever pitch in August and September.

Harrell released the following after the bill was filed:

As we have consistently said before, the House should not take any official action until it receives the Ethics Commission’s investigative report so that we can address this issue knowing all the facts. Since, by Court order, the investigative report will be a public document once Governor Sanford receives it, I expect the committee to have access to that report.

Unless the investigation contains new information about serious crimes or serious misconduct by the governor, in my opinion, the information we have to date does not rise to a level to remove him from office. The Ethics Commission’s investigation will be used as the basis to determine whether or not the Governor’s actions rise to that level.

The Judiciary Committee will conduct its work in a deliberative manner. It is important that we take the Governor’s actions seriously and fully investigate this issue, but it is also important that we do this in a timely manner so that our state can move forward.

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.”

Ever since Sens. Lee Bright, Shane Martin, Glenn Reese and Rep. Joey Millwood made their power play to take over the Spartanburg legislative delegation way back in the long, long ago based on weighted voting, there’s been a lot of jawing and back-and-forth. Rep. Harold Mitchell wanted the S.C. Supreme Court to make a ruling on the matter and settle it permanently, and he got his day in court on Wednesday.

Other delegation members — Mitchell, Reps. Derham Cole, Rita Allison, Mike Forrester, Keith Kelly, Lanny Littlejohn and Steve Parker — were represented before the justices and their case was made. Interestingly, Bright, Martin, Reese and Millwood chose to not have counsel at at the hearing.

“I wasn’t even concerned with being represented,” Martin said in The Herald-Journal. “Once I made an agreement with people in March to work out a compromise, it was over.”

Attorney Charlie Hodge, who is representing Mitchell specifically, said, “The chairman sets the agenda and calls the meetings. Those are internal, administrative functions, not governmental functions. … You have the opportunity to write an opinion that says a simple majority vote worked for 100 years, and there’s no reason it can’t work now.”

According to a story in Sunday’s The Herald-Journal, the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office could have some problems with a recent number of arrests from Operation Rolling Thunder. The multi-jurisdictional effort was a stepped-up attempt at cracking down on crime in the county.

The fourth installment of Operation Rolling Thunder along interstates 85 and 26 involved about 70 officers from about 15 agencies. It resulted in the seizure of 13 weapons, three pounds of marijuana, counterfeit goods and more than $114,000. Officers handled 1,650 traffic cases and took 49 people to jail — including a suspect in a Fayetteville, N.C., murder who also is listed on the FBI’s Terrorism Screening Database.

According to Rep. Keith Kelly, who says he is backed up by a 2003 attorney general ruling, some searches and seizures were unconstitutional because the law mandated that the county council nail down agreements between the agencies to cooperate, not the sheriff’s office. If the agreement is ruled to conflict with the law, people who would otherwise be most likely headed to the hoosegow would be turned loose because of law enforcement not following policy.

Sheriff Chuck Wright believes he is on solid ground, saying, “We made sure there would be no evidentiary problems.” Seventh Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy chimed in, adding that the attorney general opinion doesn’t have the force of law, but that the differentiation would probably have to be settled in court.