When the South Carolina General Assembly meets again next week for the first time in six months, the first order of business may very well be the censure of Governor Mark Sanford. The House’s censure resolution will likely pass very quickly, according to House leaders and be passed onto the Senate.

But what will happen then is uncertain.

A House committee voted at the end of last year not to impeach Sanford but to censure him instead. If they had voted for impeachment and that were to be approved by the full House, then the Senate would have conducted Sanford’s trial. As it is, the Senate will only have the censure to deal with.

Senator Glenn McConnell meets the press before session begins

Censure was a hot item of discussion when a select panel of lawmakers gathered on the Statehouse grounds Thursday to brief members of the press on upcoming legislative issues.

Senate President Pro Temp Glenn McConnell says the senate dealing with the resolution would be a waste of time, if it takes much time.  “We’ve got substantive legislation to deal with,” said McConnell.  “Unless we can deal with it very quickly, to me, it’s just a waste of time.  “Whether you pass it or not, it doesn’t change anything.  It doesn’t do anything other than express an opinion. To get the Senate bogged down in it would be a waste of public resources.”  [Read more...]

Lexington County Senator Jake Knotts, a lifetime member of the Lexington County Republican Party, says there’s “something fishy” about the 13 local party members who voted to censure Senator Lindsey Graham. He says his experience with local constituents is that they were very pleased with Graham, who he referred to a very communicative member of the delegation, whose office was always helpful to him and members of his district.

He asserts that the fast censure has not been the way of dealing with issues for people connected with the GOP who are Lexington County residents.  “The way we do it is to sit down and wash the allegations against a Republican senator in a room, and not using a public attack.  He is a great senator, and I’ve never had a problem with his constituent service.”    [Read more...]