‘Nothing to hide’: SC senators grill DHEC nominee

Democratic state senators repeatedly asked Thursday how a close friend and campaign donor to Republican Gov. Nikki Haley ended up the sole candidate to run the state’s health and environmental agency.

For four hours, Eleanor Kitzman, that friend and donor, responded to those questions and others, including inquiries into financial and legal dust-ups, her lack of expertise in health and environmental issues, the circumstances behind her leaving jobs working for two governors and why she had to change answers on a questionnaire about her personal and work history.

The hearing, which will resume Tuesday at 4 p.m., was Kitzman’s first public appearance before the Senate Medical Affairs Committee.

That body will decide whether to recommend that the full Senate confirm Kitzman to lead the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, a $154,879-a-year job.

Democratic senators repeatedly questioned Haley’s role in Kitzman’s appointment to be DHEC’s next chief. Haley recommended Kitzman for the job in December, after learning the Texas native was returning to South Carolina and looking for a job with law and consulting firms.

DHEC’s board, whose members are appointed by the governor, offered the job to Kitzman after an interview process that included no other candidates, irking some senators. Kitzman said Thursday she spoke with the chairman of the agency’s board twice and met with agency board members for two hours. She said she gave the agency her resume, but board members never asked for references.

In the past, the agency’s board has conducted an executive search when it wanted to hire a new director, although that is not required by state law. For example, the board hired former director Catherine Templeton from 250 candidates.

Despite her friendship with Haley and unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination for S.C. lieutenant governor in 2010, Kitzman told senators she would leave politics out of her decision-making. Instead, she said she would listen to agency employees with expertise in making decisions.

The agency’s director, she said, “should not be partisan, should not allow personal, political views to interfere with the proper administration of the law an enacted by the General Assembly.”

Kitzman also responded to questions about legal and financial dust-ups.

Kitzman said she had defaulted on a student loan that she since has paid off and paid a $250 late penalty related to a professional license. She also said she had been sued for outstanding debt tied to her 2010 campaign, paying $50,000 to settle two lawsuits.

Senators also asked Kitzman about changes she made in a questionnaire from the Senate committee that is vetting her nomination.

In her first written response to the committee, Kitzman said she had never been arrested or charged. She later revised that response to reflect a $133 traffic fine and a three-decade-old, bad-check charge in Texas. She also initially left out that she had made campaign contributions to Haley. Kitzman said that was an unintended oversight, blaming it on incorrectly reading the question asked.

“I have nothing to hide,” she said, adding she never intended to deceive or mislead the committee.

Kitzman gave $4,750 to fellow Republican Haley’s 2010 and 2014 campaigns, and co-hosted a fundraiser for her at Wild Dunes.

Republican senators read letters of recommendation for Kitzman that the committee has received, adding her qualifications were evident in her resume and questionnaire.

State Sen. Ray Cleary, R-Georgetown, said Kitzman’s management skills are “pretty well spelled out,” urging committee members to focus their questions on her qualifications.

Kitzman has been a presence at the State House for almost two decades.

In 1997, she worked as a registered lobbyist for a North Carolina insurance company, lobbying on behalf of auto-insurance reforms that passed that year.

Two years later, Kitzman founded Driver’s Choice Insurance in Columbia, an insurer formed in response to the state’s deregulation of automobile insurance.

Kitzman also was S.C. insurance commissioner under Gov. Mark Sanford. She resigned from that post in 2007, saying Thursday that she and Sanford could no longer “agree to disagree” over insurance issues affecting coastal property owners.

In 2011, the then-newly elected Haley picked Kitzman to run the S.C. Budget and Control Board, a post she held for less than a year before Texas Gov. Rick Perry tapped her to run his state’s insurance department.

However, Kitzman was not reappointed to that post by the Texas legislature.

She said Thursday that setback came after she made “some tough decisions that not everyone was happy with all the time,” adding, “I believe I had (Perry’s) full support, but he was not able to help me with the Legislature.”

Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, said Thursday he had received a letter from the former Texas governor, a possible GOP candidate for president in 2016, in support of Kitzman’s confirmation.

This story was originally published February 19, 2015 at 11:53 AM with the headline "‘Nothing to hide’: SC senators grill DHEC nominee."