South Carolina Democratic Chair Responds to Sanford Ethics Charges

Carol Fowler

Columbia, SC- South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler released the following statement today in response to the S.C. Ethics Commission’s charges against  Gov. Mark Sanford. The governor has been charged with 37 counts of breaking state ethics laws.

“This is another embarrassing day for South Carolina-but it’s been clear for some time that Mark Sanford doesn’t mind embarrassing the state he was elected to lead.  Democrats have said for months that if the governor cared about South Carolina he would step down.  

His lawyers say these are trivial charges.  But South Carolina’s more than 12 percent unemployment isn’t trivial.  Sending children to schools where the roofs leak and the bathrooms are broken isn’t trivial.  Being 5th in the nation for children without health insurance and for mothers without prenatal care isn’t trivial.  Mark Sanford has ignored those things for  years, and until he steps aside no one else will be dealing with them either.

Now the General Assembly will have to take up these charges.  They will spend weeks and weeks dealing with Sanford instead of attempting to solve the state’s very serious economic and other problems.  Mark Sanford has been governor for seven years without a single accomplishment, and unless he resigns now he just might add impeachment to that humiliating record.

There’s a thread running through the list of charges in today’s report-everything Governor Sanford did was for his own pleasure, comfort, and convenience.  His self-indulgence is apparently boundless.  He needs to resign and go somewhere that he can indulge himself at his own expense, not our state’s,” said Fowler.

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