Upstate legislator under fire for paving of road that leads to his home

State Rep. Steve Moss, R-Cherokee, has come under criticism for a newly paved road that leads to his home.

Cherokee County approved spending $51,714 to pave the road with money from the county’s transportation committee, according to acting county administrator Holland Belue.

Moss said he went through the normal county process to get a road paved and “asked for no special favors.”

“I made sure that I went by the book,” said Moss, adding he spent his own money to get the road up to standards for it to qualify for the county to take it over. The county took responsibility for the road in 2014, according to The Gaffney Ledger, an Upstate newspaper.

Currently, three taxpayers own property along the road, Moss said. However, paving the road opens up the area for future development, he added.

Moss said he will disclose the road paving on his state-required Statement of Economic Interest, where legislators disclose any gifts they receive and “any public improvements of more than $200.00 on or adjacent to (their) real property.”

The money to pay for the road-paving project came from the Cherokee County transportation committee. Most county transportation committees are appointed by legislative delegations. But Cherokee County’s County Council also is that county’s transportation committee.

Typically, county transportation committees get money from the state’s 16.75-cent-a-gallon gas tax, collecting 2.66 cents from every gallon sold.

However, in the state’s 2015-16 budget, lawmakers approved sending $216 million in state money to county transportation committees to repair roads. In the 2016-17 budget that took effect July 1, those committees received an extra $50 million in state money.

As a legislator, Moss votes on state spending – including sending state money to county transportation committees. But, Moss added, he is not a member of the House panel that writes the state budget.

Moss is not the first legislator to be scrutinized in connection with state road spending.

In 2015, the S.C. Transportation Infrastructure Bank, whose members include Senate President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, agreed to spend $340 million in state money to help pay for Florence County road projects.

“We have a really chaotic system in South Carolina of jurisdiction over roads, and who’s responsible for building them and maintaining them,” said government watchdog John Crangle.

It would be better if the state had one entity in charge of determining how road money is spent, Crangle said. “This has been the problem for a long time – the political determination of how road money is spent.”

Dems take swipe at Mulvaney

U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, predictably took heat from S.C. Democratic Coordinated Campaign last week.

Campaign co-chair James Smith, a state representative from Richland County, criticized Mulvaney for, among other things, his votes in favor of “turning Social Security over to Wall Street” and against the Export-Import Bank, which finances and guarantees loans by foreign companies to buy U.S. goods, including made-in-North-Charleston Boeing jets.

Fiscal hawks, including Mulvaney, contend the Ex-Im Bank is just another example of the government deciding economic winners and losers, adding big businesses like Boeing can afford to buy loan insurance in the private sector.

“These may be Mick Mulvaney’s ‘principles,’ but to voters of the 5th District, they are nothing but a harmful extremist ideology,” Smith said, noting Boeing is a major S.C. employer.

Of course, the Democratic state representative is backing Mulvaney’s Nov. 8 Democratic challenger, former Biden aide Fran Person.

Buzz bites

▪  Columbia Attorney Butch Bowers is representing N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory in the legal battle over North Carolina’s controversial HB2 law, which bans transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice.

It’s nothing new for Bowers, who has represented S.C. Republicans in their legal and ethics skirmishes, including Gov. Nikki Haley and Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster.

▪  The S.C. Democratic Party will hold its Jefferson-Jackson dinner Friday, Sept. 30, in Columbia.

The annual fundraising dinner is named for two early leaders of the Democratic Party – former Presidents Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and Andrew Jackson, author of the Trail of Tears.

Both, as critics have noted, were slaveholders. Citing Jackson’s treatment of Native Americans, activists also have pressed Democratic parties in other states to drop his name from their annual fundraising dinners.

That will be a tougher sell in South Carolina, which claims Jackson as a native son, a claim disputed by that other Carolina.

▪  Come Clinton or high water: The S.C. Presidential Inaugural Ball will be held on Jan. 19 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, the South Carolina State Society said last week.

This story was originally published August 6, 2016 at 8:13 PM with the headline "Upstate legislator under fire for paving of road that leads to his home."