Bobby Harrell - No Friend of SC Voters

This kind of action is an embarassment to the State of South Carolina. Why is Bobby Harrell opposed to letting South Carolina voters know how Representatives vote on important issues? Where do our local State Representatives stand? Did they vote to give Harrell this extraordinary power?

SC gov says House speaker's action 'cowardly'

By JIM DAVENPORTAssociated Press Writer
Posted: Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Tuesday House Speaker Bobby Harrell made a cowardly move in how he reassigned a roll call voting reformer from a key committee last week and questioned whether punishments reflect a "Soviet model."
"It was done in a way intended to not only reprimand but also to publicly humiliate," Sanford said in a telephone interview. Meanwhile, sending a lawyer to exercise the reassignments instead of doing it in person was the wrong approach, Sanford said.
"It was just in that regard cowardly," he said.

Harrell, R-Charleston, said last week he was not punishing state Rep. Nikki Haley, R-Lexington. His spokesman said Tuesday Harrell would not respond to Sanford's criticism and would let his comments from last week stand.

During the House's organizational session last week, a fight over House rules regarding roll call votes erupted months after state Haley began pushing for more on-the-record voting. She was a vocal critic of legislators passing a retirement pay increase for themselves on a voice vote last spring.

Harrell, R-Charleston, had panned Haley and Republican Sanford's efforts on that front as pandering to voters. But Harrell pushed through his own version of on the record voting at the start of the two-day session despite protests from Haley and others who said it would create useless and misleading records of voice votes.

The next day, Harrell handed out committee assignments and kept Haley on the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee. For months, Haley had campaigned to be the committee's chair, but dropped out of the race.

On Wednesday, she went to the committee's first meeting and returned to her office and found Harrell's lawyer waiting with a letter that moved her to the House Education and Public Works Committee.

"The indirect message sent was: 'Look, if you really make your voice heard on something you believe in and it's against the will at the top, you're going to be punished,'" Sanford said. "In a democratic process, that's the worst of all messages that can be sent."

Harrell said last week he moved Haley from the committee because she had vied for the chairmanship. But Harrell took no similar action in the other two open House committee chairman races.

Harrell also said he always communicates committee assignments in writing.

Debate on issues shouldn't bring repercussions, Sanford said. "To do so is a whole lot closer to the Soviet model than it is to the American model," he said.