SC lawmaker took his girlfriend on state plane paid for by taxpayers. Is it legal?
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include Sen. Shane Massey’s latest proposal to sell the state airplanes following The State Media Co.’s coverage.
A prominent Richland County lawmaker traveled on the state plane to conferences at luxury resorts with his then-girlfriend, while taxpayers picked up the tab for their flights.
Once at the conferences, Rep. Todd Rutherford, a Columbia attorney and a top House Democrat, sometimes spent his campaign donations to cover expenses, even though organizers provided food and lodging.
Rutherford defends both the legality and ethics of the flights, saying he was invited to the conferences because he is a legislator and he spoke on legislative matters. He brought along Megan Pinckney Rutherford, his girlfriend who has since become his wife, as allowed by law, he said. And he spent campaign dollars in accordance with state rules too.
But some government watchdogs and ethicists consulted by The State Media Co. and The Island Packet dispute the lawmaker’s interpretation of the state plane law. All state plane passengers must be on state business, not just the public officials who procure the plane, insisted some.
“Sometimes, people have to travel for their work and they’re going to places that their spouse would like to go,” said Daniel Wueste, a Clemson University professor who studies professional ethics. “But their spouse isn’t doing the work, so they can’t go. Why should it be different for a legislator?”
Since the publishing of this article, Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, has proposed selling the two state-owned aircrafts, citing abuse from lawmakers and crediting the newspapers’ coverage.
Watchdogs also raised concerns about Rutherford’s recent unsuccessful efforts to help Pinckney Rutherford become a magistrate judge. The 2013 Miss South Carolina USA got engaged to Rutherford on the Greek island of Santorini following one of the lawmaker’s legislative trips to Athens. The two married in December.
Rutherford acknowledged talking to a state senator about nominating his wife for an open magistrate judge position in recent months, but he says he has no official say in the decision.
The lawmaker framed his travel and use of campaign dollars as just another part of his job as a high-ranking public servant.
“Nothing’s hidden, nothing’s illegal, nothing’s unethical,” said Rutherford, a State House veteran who, since 2013, has been elected to lead his fellow House Democrats as House Minority Leader.
Good government advocates interviewed by the newspapers say state law should be tightened to more specifically outline the ways campaign donations can be spent.
“Historically, public officials have regarded every breath they take ... as officially official business,” said John Crangle, a long-time S.C. ethics watchdog. “It’s such an open invitation to abuse ... that new legislation is needed to say you can use campaign funds for one purpose only: that is your campaign. You cannot use them for anything else.”
And Columbia residents like Katherine Trimnal say state plane rules need to be changed as well.
“I think it’s wrong to be taking your friends and girlfriends on flights,” said Trimnal, who lives in Rutherford’s district. If the law is unclear, she said, it should be re-written to clarify that all fliers must be on state business.
Reporters examined Rutherford’s flight records and campaign spending after discovering questionable but legal earmarks he secured. In a story published earlier this week, the newspapers outlined how Rutherford steered $570,000 in taxpayer dollars to organizations tied to Pinckney Rutherford and others close to him.
Couple takes to sky in state’s plane
Since they started dating, Pinckney Rutherford has accompanied the lawmaker on six flights on the state plane, including trips to a beachfront resort in Florida and a mountain lodge in North Carolina. Each was a venue for a conference that Rutherford said he attended in his role as a lawmaker.
Before each flight, public officials and their invitees must sign a “flight manifest,” swearing they are traveling for official state business, said James Stephens, executive director of the S.C. Aeronautics Commission.
The requirement is also outlined in state law, allowing public officials “and their invitees” to fly on the S.C. Aeronautics Division aircraft “for official business only.”
Rutherford interprets the law to mean that only public officials must be on official business, not their invitees.
But two S.C. legal experts consulted by the newspapers said Rutherford’s flights point to an untested area in the law. Four others said the travel appears to violate the rules. That includes John Freeman, ethics professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina School of Law.
“These are state assets, and state assets should be used for state purposes,” he said. “(The plane) is there for the efficiency of state business.”
Rutherford could provide no official reason for Pinckney Rutherford accompanying him on the trips, beyond her connection to him.
Pinckney Rutherford, a social media manager and model, also defended the travel.
“The state plane is not being gassed up for me to go anywhere,” she said, comparing her state plane use to that of First Lady Peggy McMaster, who has frequently joined S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster on official trips.
Among the 170 members of the General Assembly, only a handful regularly use South Carolina’s two state airplanes, billed to taxpayers at up to $1,500 per hour of air time. Topping that shortlist is Rutherford, who has flown 34 times in eight years, according to flight logs reviewed by the newspapers.
Just two other lawmakers have flown more than 10 times during the same period.
“I would be disappointed if I was not (using the plane more than others),” said Rutherford, adding he has a duty to offer the state’s Democratic perspective by accepting invitations to speak at conferences and events. He only takes the plane “when there is absolutely no other way to do it,” he said.
Campaign donations used at luxury hotels
Some of those trips have taken the couple to out-of-state luxury hotels where the lawmaker reimbursed himself from campaign funds — even though he was also reimbursed by organizers of the events.
Take, for example, their trip to Asheville, N.C. in November 2018.
There, Pinckney Rutherford shared an Instagram story of herself at sunset, standing in front of the pools at the spa of the Omni Grove Park Inn, a four-star lodge in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“Give me this view any day,” she wrote to thousands of her Instagram followers.
The same weekend, Rutherford accepted about $900 for a room at the lodge and food and drinks from the Injured Workers’ Advocates, ethics filings show. The organization, comprised of S.C. workers compensation lawyers, had invited Rutherford and a gaggle of other lawmakers — the vast majority attorneys — to speak at its annual conference, held at the inn.
The ultimate tab for the weekend must have been higher because two months after the trip, Rutherford directed a roughly $3,000 reimbursement — pulled from his campaign donations — to an American Express card. The payment was to recoup unspecified expenses from the “Workers Compensation conference in [Asheville],” Election Day donuts for poll workers and another conference, according to an ethics disclosure.
Just one of the other 19 S.C. lawmakers who attended the weekend event in Asheville drew money from their campaign coffers. Spending by Rep. Bill Sandifer, R-Oconee, totaled just $146.60, according to filings. None of the S.C. lawmakers traveled to North Carolina on state-owned aircraft, other than Rutherford.
Rutherford didn’t recall exactly what the campaign expenses were, but gave the hypothetical examples of a dinner with other lawmakers to discuss legislation, or purchasing a meal if he missed one provided by the conference.
State ethics law allows lawmakers to spend their campaign donations on expenses related to their office and “reasonable and necessary travel expenses” for “political event(s),” which House lawmakers have interpreted to include conferences.
Since 2015, Rutherford has put the law to use, spending campaign donations on at least six occasions where he also appears to have been reimbursed for expenses by event organizers, according to the newspapers’ review.
“I’m not broke. I’m a very well-off lawyer. I don’t need campaign money,” Rutherford said, adding that his spending follows the law and is all related to his government service.
Flight logs show the couple weren’t done traveling that week.
That Saturday, they took the state plane from Asheville to Atlanta, failing to list the purpose of their travel on flight manifests. Rutherford clarified to the newspapers the trip was to catch another flight — this time to Scottsdale, Arizona for the State Government Affairs Council’s Leaders’ Policy Conference, held at a five-star hotel.
The state-owned Beechcraft King Air C90 returned to Columbia empty. The final bill for the weekend’s four flights totaled $3,400.
Other manifests show the couple flew on taxpayer’s dime to a conference at The Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Florida in 2017 and to a speaking engagement in Charleston with Rutherford’s campaign manager last year.
The newspapers reviewed nine years of flight manifests and found only three instances where a lawmaker traveled with a significant other on the state plane. In 2012 and 2014, Rep. Carl Anderson, D-Georgetown, flew to two separate conferences with his wife.
The only other example came in 2013. That year, Rutherford traveled to the White House with his then-wife, Naida Rutherford.
Controversies over state plane use go back decades and some officials have been required to pay back money. In 2012, for example, then Gov. Nikki Haley repaid the state nearly $10,000 after taking the aircraft to press conferences and bill signings in violation of state rules.
Legislative work takes couple to Europe, the Middle East
The Rutherfords have taken commercial flights, not paid for by taxpayers, to other countries where Todd Rutherford attended conferences. Again, money was pulled from campaign donations to help pay for some trip expenses.
The year 2019 stands out as a whirlwind of travel for the couple with visits to Italy, Egypt and Greece — many detailed on Rutherford’s campaign disclosures as well as on Pinckney Rutherford’s Instagram account, named shadesofpinck.
At least $18,000 in campaign donations have paid for international trips since 2014, according to Rutherford’s filings. The lawmaker said no campaign money covered the personal or travel expenses of Pinckney Rutherford, who was his girlfriend at the time.
Campaign-financed junkets aren’t uncommon in the General Assembly. The House Ethics Committee, comprised of a group of lawmakers including Rutherford, has given its blessing to overseas trips with some legislative interest associated with them.
“I think you expect your state legislator to do his job, and that’s part of the job,” Rutherford said of the trips. “When I’m in Egypt and I get to meet with the president of Egypt, I would say that furthers South Carolina’s interests, wouldn’t you?”
Rutherford helps with wife’s judge ambitions
Rutherford’s efforts to help his wife in Columbia have also raised questions. He recently spoke to Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, about nominating Pinckney Rutherford for a magistrate judge position in Richland County, the two lawmakers acknowledged.
Pinckney Rutherford, a University of South Carolina graduate with a degree in retailing, passed two written tests to become a magistrate in January, according to a document obtained by the newspapers. That cleared the way for her potential appointment to the bench in the state’s lowest court if nominated by a Richland County senator and approved by the governor and the county’s other senators.
“It’s strangely a very easy process,” Pinckney Rutherford said when contacted by the newspapers. “You just have to take two tests that certify your awareness of making decisions. I don’t necessarily agree that that’s all that it should take to be a judge, but someone way before my time decided that was all that was required.”
Magistrates are not required to have a law degree in South Carolina. They must only pass the two tests, be at least 21 years old, have lived in the state for five years and hold a four-year college degree.
But Pinckney Rutherford’s potential pick was opposed by some Richland County lawmakers.
“I don’t appoint a legislator’s family member,” said Sen. John Scott, D-Richland, who added he had other candidates with law degrees he sought to appoint. “I don’t do that. That’s a little too close.”
Ultimately, Pinckney Rutherford’s name was not submitted to the governor’s office for approval, Jackson said.
Pinckney Rutherford said it was the summer’s social unrest, including the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the Black Lives Matter movement, that inspired her judicial pursuit and stoked a desire to aid underrepresented communities.
“It was just a lot to see how law dictates our communities and how many Black men are locked up,” she said. “I just felt like I wanted to do my part.”
Spouses of S.C. lawmakers seeking judicial appointments is not uncharted territory.
In a controversial 2015 decision, the General Assembly elected Bill Funderburk, husband of then-Rep. Laurie Funderburk, D-Kershaw, as an administrative law court judge. Additionally, Rutherford pointed out Circuit Judge Jennifer Blanchard McCoy is married to former U.S. Attorney Peter McCoy. She was appointed when he was a Republican House member. And Circuit Judge Maite Murphy’s spouse is House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Chris Murphy, R-Dorchester, Rutherford added.
But unlike magistrates, circuit judges must have law degrees. Their appointments are also much more transparent, with votes taken on the floor of both the House and Senate.
“There’s an awful lot of systemic problems that need reform and the magistrate system is one of them,” said Lynn Teague, vice president of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. “It shouldn’t be who you know so much.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
