Are SC Pols Pay To Play?

Captain Ed has the latest on the possibility that Hillary Clinton may be playing a little bagman politics in South Carolina. Check that out. Below I have come across something else which might benefit from a little look.

On Monday, I posted about the curious relationship between the Hillary Clinton campaign and Darrell Jackson, an African-American state legislator from South Carolina who had surprised some by endorsing Hillary over John Edwards and Barack Obama. Robert Ford, another black legislator in the same state, joined Jackson in dumping Edwards for Hillary, and explained that an Obama-led ticket would get killed in a general election. However, it turned out that Jackson had more mercenary motives for his endorsement of Hillary -- namely, a $10,000-per-month consulting contract....

Mack and Alexander operate offshoots of Sunrise Communication of Columbia, which is owned by influential state Sen. Darrell Jackson. The connection was first reported by The (Columbia) State in Thursday's newspapers.

The agency, Sunrise Communications of Columbia, doesn't have a very professional looking site for a PR firm, if you ask me. The leadership team includes South Carolina Senator, Darrell Jackson and a Ford Dealer, Otis Morris, Jr. What caught my eye was this project involving a large Federal grant for HAVA.

Sunrise partnered with Chernoff/Newman, a public relations and advertising agency, to provide targeted community outreach for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Our team provides voting machine demonstrations for the South Carolina Election Commission’s “Every Vote Matters/Every Vote Counts” Voter Education Tour. The Sunrise staff identifies key African-American community events, festivals, and churches in South Carolina to visit and demonstrate the use of the new iVotronic Touch Screen Voting Machines.

Additionally, Sunrise coordinates targeted media placement, media relations and community relations for the project. In 2005, the South Carolina Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (SCPRSA) recognized the campaign with a Silver Wing Award.

Chernoff/Newman is an established full service agency. Doesn't look exactly like it would need a lot of help from another agency with a state Senator as a leader. Click on Our Work at the java enabled site linked above. You'll find the HAVA project listed under Whatever It Takes. Heh! Then there's this - here in pdf. It's a federal audit of the South Carolina HAVA program - ultimately involving millions of taxpayer dollars just for South Carolina.

Findings included in the federal audit were: o Did not obtain approval to purchase bus o Counties did not keep records that sufficiently accounted for equipment purchased with HAVA funds o Miscalculated the matching funds required. o Matching funds should have been deposited into an interest bearing account o Maintenance of effort

Hmm. So we have a PR agency affiliated with a State Senator and an auto dealer. I'm not even sure such an agency should be getting work from South Carolina's Election Commission. Too many politicians involved if you ask me.

Five members, at least one of whom shall be a member of the majority political party and at least one member of whom shall be a member of the largest minority political party represented in the General Assembly, are appointed by the Governor for four year terms. The State Election Commission holds monthly meetings in which the public are invited to attend.

As a federal taxpayer whose dollars would help fund HAVA, I sure hope someone bothered to ask what it was Sunshine Communications actually did and how much they were paid regarding the HAVA program - and if a vehicle was purchased from an auto dealership potentially connected to Sunshine Communications - apparently purchased out of compliance and possibly without adequate receipts.

I'm not making any charges, just call me curious given CQ's original piece that led to my looking around. Sunshine Communications might benefit from just a wee bit more South Carolina sunlight, if you ask me.

Comments

[scarshapedstar]

Okay. And if the owner of one of Hillary's consulting firms had endorsed Obama instead, you'd have written a post titled "Rats Flee Hillary's Sinking Ship."

[templar knight]

This is just SOP all over the South, and probably in most large cities like Philadelphia and Detroit as well. Federal money from HAVA and dozens of other agencies, and even such things as Taxpayer Settlement Dollars from tobacco companies, go to these well-connected black players(I mean in a political sense).

The Democrats have been buying the votes of the black electorate by paying preachers(Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson come to mind) and other black "leaders" to get out the black vote for the Democrats. Everything from "walking around" money to giving voters money for "transportation costs" is used to buy these votes. This is nothing new, and the Republicans in Congress have gone along with this crap for years.

[Purple Avenger]

For 10G's/month I'll endorse Hillary, Obama, and the easter bunny.