Harpootlian’s questions about staff competence trigger lawmaker shouting match

State Sen. Dick Harpootlian and Rep. Todd Rutherford shouted at each other Thursday about whether Harpootlian had treated the Richland County delegation’s staff too harshly when he went to the staff offices last month to complain about their alleged ”pattern of incompetence and failure to do the job.”

After his shouting match with Rutherford, Harpootlian offered an apology of sorts for the manner in which he spoke last month to the delegation’s longtime executive director James Brown, but Harpootlian added it was “not for what I said.”

Harpootlian also apologized for being “somewhat scatological” in his profane remarks in his meeting with Brown for using the four letter “F” word. “Scatological” means using offensive language.

Harpootlian added, “But what’s more profane, is what we’re not doing to correct health care in this state: we have more elder abuse than any other state in the country!”

At that, Rep. Wendy Brawley interrupted Harpootlian, telling him he was off the subject.

“Let me finish, let me finish, let me finish — don’t be rude — how about some manners,” snapped Harpootlian.

“Point of order, Mr. Chairman,” said Brawley, looking past Harpootlian to Rep. Jimmy Bales, who was chairing the meeting. Brawley hoped Bales would rein Harpootlian in from what Brawley called a “tirade.”

Barbed exchanges and insults were all part of the action Thursday during a fraught once-a-year meeting of the Richland County Legislative Delegation, a group of five state senators and 12 state representatives who represent portions of the county in the General Assembly.

The rancor was sparked, everyone agreed, by a private meeting that Harpootlian had with Brown last month during which Harpootlian upbraided Brown for overseeing an incompetent staff.

At that meeting, Harpootlian — who has been in office approximately a year — acknowledged using the “F-word” repeatedly to Brown, a 75-year-old ex-Vietnam paratrooper, and other delegation members said that showed disrespect.

Harpootlian’s main point was that the delegation pays Brown and his small staff a total of $250,000 to run the delegation office and do clerical and other work.

But, Harpootlian said, Brown and his staff aren’t responsive. And meanwhile, the delegation, which is responsible for naming people to some 10 local boards and commissions, has several hundred applications for vacancies to consider.

By the meeting’s end, due to compromises offered by peacemakers on the delegation, such as Rep. Kirkman Finlay and Sen. Darrell Jackson, some degree of harmony was restored.

By the meeting’s end, delegation members agreed to start to meet quarterly instead of just once a year and to set up a committee to draft rules in how to run future meetings. They also agreed to speed up the process of appointing people to boards and commissions.