Sheheen continues to hammer Haley over S.C. data breach, DSS deaths

On a campaign stop in Rock Hill on Wednesday, the Democratic candidate for South Carolina governor, Vincent Sheheen, continued to hammer on what he calls leadership and integrity problems with Republican Gov. Nikki Haley.

Sheheen, a state senator from Camden, is challenging Haley in next week’s election. Most recent political polls show the governor has a comfortable lead among likely voters. Haley narrowly beat Sheheen in 2010 during their first gubernatorial run.

This time, Sheheen claims South Carolina voters have witnessed major shortfalls in Haley’s leadership as governor. He points to recent scrutiny of the management of child welfare programs by the state’s Department of Social Services –– a department that reports directly to South Carolina’s governor.

Sheheen has accused Haley of lying about the number of child deaths in the state to cover up problems with DSS. The department was under investigation earlier this year after several children who were supposed to be under social services care were killed.

He also called on Haley’s office to release a report that the state paid for that reviews what happened during a 2012 security breach at the S.C. Department of Revenue. Millions of people saw their personal financial information compromised.

“Every day that she continues to refuse to release that report is a day that she refuses to be open and honest with us,” Sheheen said of Haley.

Sheheen and others have criticized Haley for not telling the public about the data breach until two weeks after it happened. The security issue exposed Social Security numbers and other taxpayer information held by the state.

“People are really fed up with broken government, with corrupt government in South Carolina, with a governor’s office that hasn’t been honest with us,” Sheheen said. “And they want a vision for the future.”

Haley is following the advice of South Carolina’s top law enforcement division and federal agents by not releasing the data breach report, said Chaney Adams, a spokesperson for the governor’s re-election campaign.

“As Election Day draws near,” Adams said, “Vince Sheheen gets more and more desperate. ... Vince never paid any attention to cybersecurity in his long political career before our state was attacked.”

Haley’s campaign says the governor has made strides to improve DSS. One measure includes the office’s response to the death of a 5-month-old boy in Richland County this year. There, some staffing and case load changes were made at the county DSS office.

The DSS issues are what motivated Republican Tom Ervin to run as an independent candidate for governor earlier this year. On Wednesday in Rock Hill, Ervin was at Sheheen’s side, a day after he called off his campaign and endorsed the Democrat.

Recent polls showed that Ervin would likely come in a distant third on Tuesday.

A self-described “independent Republican,” Ervin also took aim Wednesday at Haley’s leadership over the past four years, saying that Sheheen “will tell us the truth. Gov. Haley has not.”

Supporting a Democrat publicly for governor was not an easy decision, Ervin said. “I’ve been a Republican for many years ... and yet, I feel South Carolina is desperate for a leader with integrity and honesty.”

Also on Wednesday, Sheheen again defended himself against claims that he referred to Haley as a “whore” during a recent campaign speech in Florence. Sheheen said the uproar over his speech is a misunderstanding.

During the speech, Sheheen referred to escorting Haley “out the door” after the election. It appears that the senator meant to say “her” instead of “whore.” He quickly corrected his statement by saying more clearly, “We are going to escort her out the door.”

At the Rock Hill/York County Airport in Rock Hill, Sheheen apologized that his words were garbled and that some people misheard what he said.

“In the context of the sentence, it’s pretty clear that I said the word ‘her’ ... So, it’s a little bit strange to hear kind of this false outrage that Gov. Haley and her allies have ginned up because the truth is, if we’re going to be outraged about something, it should be kids being murdered at her Department of Social Services while they were covering it up. Where’s the outrage for that?”