The State Ethics Commission has created a ‘Debtors’ page on its web site, posting the names of lobbyists, lobbyists’ principals, public officials and others who have failed to pay late filing penalties and enforcement fines. The commission hopes to use this publicly available consolidated listing to help ensure compliance with the registration and disclosure requirements under the campaign finance and lobbying laws of the state.

The penalties owed range from $732,400 all the way down to $10. The page includes contact information for anyone appearing in the list to arrange for payment.

Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin is pursuing the creation of a local ethics commission to replace the city’s reliance on the state. Currently, city ethics issues are resolved by South Carolina’s ethics commission. Mayor Benjamin believes reliance on a local commission with local ordinances would better serve Columbia and its city council.

The seven member commission would be made up of four residents from each of the council’s four political districts, a certified public accountant, a local business owner and an attorney. The attorney, who would serve as chairman, must not have done business with the city.

Photo of downtown Columbia by Akhenaton06 on Wikipedia.

The State Ethics Commission will not appeal South Carolina Citizens for Life, Inc. v Krawcheck, a federal court decision finding South Carolina’s statutory definition of committee unconstitutional. The commission has already voluntarily announced it will not enforce provisions of the law concerning committees making independent expenditures.

State Ethics Commission Executive Director Herb Hayden says groups can now both raise and spend unlimited amounts of money and likely will not have to report their donors. He and Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Wes Hayes say a new law is needed to govern committee contribution limits.

The State Ethics Commission will not enforce contribution limits for committees making expenditures independent of a candidate’s control or consultation. An earlier requested Attorney General’s opinion found a committee engaging exclusively in independent expenditures is not subject to annual contribution limits.

The Attorney General also confirmed the Ethics Commission did not have the power to declare S.C.C. §8-13-1322(A) unconstitutional. The Ethics Commission then issued an Advisory Opinion declaring the Commission would not enforce any contributions limits under S.C.C. §8-13-1322(A) for committees making independent expenditures.

A U.S. District Court has invalidated a South Carolina statute defining committees, including those commonly known as PACs. In South Carolina Citizens for Life, Inc. v Krawcheck, the Court found the South Carolina Ethics Act placed significant burdens on groups qualifying as committees without giving meaningful consideration of a group’s major purpose, threatening to chill their First Amendment rights. Specifically, the definition of committee in S.C.C. §8-13-1300(6) could encompass any group, without reference to the entity’s major purpose, and was unconstitutionally overbroad.

Photo of the South Carolina statehouse by Nikopoley on Wikipedia.