SC lawmakers may soon have to follow stricter rules to use state planes
The rules lawmakers must follow for booking the taxpayer-funded state planes may soon become more strict after apparent bipartisan support for the changes was discussed Wednesday at the State House.
The change comes after The State Media Co. first reported in March that a prominent Richland County lawmaker used the state planes to travel to conferences at luxury resorts with his-then girlfriend at taxpayers’ expense. Once there, House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, sometimes dipped into his campaign donations to cover expenses, even though event organizers had already provided food and lodging.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, on Wednesday led an effort on the Senate floor during budget discussions for law changes to prevent, what he calls, an abuse of state resources and taxpayer dollars.
“One of the things that was revealed in the newspaper report was that girlfriends, spouses were taken (on flights) and I don’t think that’s what the taxpayers expect when they have a plane that’s used as official state business,” he said.
Under the current law, lawmakers, the governor and state agencies have the discretion to book flights for anything they consider to be official state business. The S.C. Aeronautics Commission mans the aircrafts and tracks its logs, but is not responsible for policing use of the planes — something lawmakers agree is an unfair expectation.
State law also forbids bringing guests on flights unless they are on official state-related business.
“The legislator gets to determine what is official state business,” Massey said. “So what we’ve had is legislators using the plane to fly to conferences. I don’t think that’s official state business, and I want to eliminate that.”
Some of the changes discussed during Wednesday include requiring the Senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives to sign off on every legislator’s request to fly on the state plane beforehand for trips not initiated by a cabinet agency. Another change would require lawmakers’ guests to pay similar rates to a private charter flight.
Massey, chairman of the rules committee, first floated a resolution in March to sell the two state aircrafts, crediting The State’s reporting. Subsequently, Gov. Henry McMaster directed the state’s Department of Administration to conduct a cost analysis on the benefits of maintaining or selling aircraft owned by state agencies and institutions of higher education. That inquiry is ongoing and is separate from Wednesday’s proposal.
Sens. Wes Climer, R-York, and Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, both signed on as co-sponsors to Wednesday’s proposed changes, while Sens. Thomas McElveen, D-Sumter, and John Scott, D-Richland, also voiced support for making the rules more clear and strict.
“We do need to fix it,” Scott said. “We’ve had a couple of governors that had to pay money back for misuse of the plane,” referring to Nikki Haley and Mark Sanford.
But some Republicans, including Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, suggested the changes could have a negative effect on economic development initiatives. Massey said it’s fair to assume those are official business trips and that the confidential details would remain secret.
The amended proposal will go back to House for further debate in coming weeks.
This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.