"The interview provided some interesting moments," they write.
Among them:
- Rich is in South Carolina for the long haul.
- He sees the state as a "model" for what he hopes will start the dominoes tumbling in other states.
- There is a Southeastern Strategy built around South Carolina, Florida and Georgia.
- Rich speaks of South Carolina as "we," sort of like a Clemson fan would when talking about the Tigers.
- He's currently operating in eight states that he identifies, plus others he doesn't.
Oh, he admires the state's leading school vouchers-tax credits cheerleader, Gov. Mark Sanford. He even dressed in the Sanford uniform for the interview: navy blazer, light blue shirt open at the neck, khaki trousers and casual brown shoes.
Why South Carolina? Dawson asks. Rich says it's because the state is 49th and 50th in SAT scores and dropout rates, despite $11,000 per pupil spending, that he believes "parents should have the opportunity to decide how their children get educated and they just don't have it in South Carolina." State Education Department officials say Rich was cherry-picking statistics and coming to a "misleading" conclusion.
He makes it plain that choices should run the gamut: public, private, religious, whatever.
"I believe in something very strongly and I want to make it happen," Rich says. "Government programs," of which education is one, "don't work and need competition," he adds.
He's been operating, that is, dropping gobs of money, in South Carolina for five years and isn't going away any time soon. That Sanford leaves office in January 2010 with nary a voucher ally in sight to replace him, is no barrier for Rich.
"We're going to stay until parents are empowered," he told Dawson.
What does Rich actually get out of it, assuming the change he seeks actually comes about?
"Great satisfaction."
And not one nickel.
"I don't own any businesses down here."
What motivates a man of Howie Rich's wealth, who lives in New York, to push his agenda on people in states so far away, and literally across the country? It's a curiosity to me, but Katon Dawson didn't ask that question.
I thought this part was Clintonian, if you want to call it that, and not in a good way:
When Dawson asks if he's "manipulating" the state's campaign finance reporting laws, as some critics contend, Rich says he's using "money I earned honestly. I can do with it as I choose. Everything I've done is 100 percent legal."
State law, enacted in 1991 after the Lost Trust scandal, limits donations to legislative candidates to $1,000 from an individual or business for primary, runoff and general election campaigns, essentially a $3,000 maximum. Campaign reports show that business entities linked to Rich have combined for $15,000 to $30,000 to some 2008 candidates.
So long as he contributes his money through a lot of different filters and never exceeds the legal limit from any single filter, then he's not breaking the law.
Is that right?
The News quoted the head of Common Cause in South Carolina saying, "I don't know that it's legal. He's using these corporate conduits to avoid the legal limits." And Attorney General Henry McMaster said he would launch a preliminary review. At least one Republican Senator, Larry Martin, said that Rich is "basically circumventing" the law's intent. But that sounds like saying that Rich broke the law.
"The problem is, you don't know who controls the businesses," he said, but expressed doubt that anyone creates business entities merely as vehicles for political donations. Martin and others say there is little legislative sentiment for banning corporate donations as North Carolina and other states have done.
The head of Common Cause said that he asked for a ban on corporate contributions when the law was changed in 1990, "but Republicans opposed it 'because it was such a large proportion of their funds'."
...
House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said, "Yes, obviously," he has concerns about the totality of Rich's donations, "but it's the kind of thing that's incredibly hard to fix because someone like Howie Rich could probably come up with a dozen, 25 different addresses for different company names fairly easily.
"It's something we ought to look at and try to figure out if there's a way to deal with it, but there is no easy fix. There are a lot of Republicans concerned about what Howard Rich is doing," those on the other side of the donations, Harrell said.
Rich says he's in S.C. for long haul
Greenville News, The (SC) - August 10, 2008
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