DOCUMENTS REVEAL SOUTH CAROLINIANS FOR TRUTH AND DISCLOSURE IN VIOLATION OF ETHICS LAW
A new third party group established to combat the half truths and lies that arise during the course of an election appears to have fallen into its own trap after records show they coordinated with campaign consultants and failed to file proper disclosure statements.
An e-mail obtained exclusively by The Palmetto Scoop contains communication between political consultant Terry Sullivan and South Carolinians for Truth and Disclosure Chairman Bill Cotty outlining the mission statement for the newly-formed group.
“The ultimate goal of the organization is to demand new laws requiring issue advocacy groups that mention an elected official by name to follow the same laws of disclosure that candidates and party organizations are required to follow,” Sullivan wrote in the e-mail (full letter posted below). “We also plan to serve as a watchdog group setting the record straight whenever these organizations misrepresent the truth.”
Ironically, that’s exactly what the group apparently failed to do, as they have been actively working for numerous clients of First Tuesday Strategies — including Cotty, who is a retiring State Representative — of which Sullivan is a founding partner.
South Carolina law prohibits coordination between campaigns and non-candidate committees such as South Carolinians for Truth and Disclosure.
The Palmetto Scoop attempted to research the group through both the State Ethics Commission and the Secretary of State’s Office, but was unable to find documentation of the group’s existence as required by state law.
While the e-mail appeared to be strike one and the lack of disclosure strike two, the third strike came as a result of a wave of robo calls launched in a hotly contested state house race in Aiken County. The calls were placed by South Carolinians for Truth and Disclosure in defense of candidate Tom Young, who has employed the services of Sullivan and First Tuesday Strategies.
FITSNews further noted that the calls were placed by Becky Fleming, an employee of First Tuesdays Strategies.
The Aiken calls might normally be chalked up to politics as usual, but in this instance marry together both the collusion between Sullivan’s work for the group and his clients and his lack of truth and disclosure.
The outline of a coordinated effort between First Tuesday Strategies and South Carolinians for Truth and Disclosure doesn’t end there though.
The group’s website appears to have been created and maintained by Under the Power Lines, which is owned by First Tuesday Strategies.
South Carolinians for Truth and Disclosure has also posted a YouTube video created under the account for the official political blog of First Tuesday Strategies, Shot Politics. That video was shot by Tim Cameron, an employee of First Tuesday Strategies, but never appeared on the Shot Politics website.
This is not the first time that First Tuesday Strategies or its consultants have engaged in less than ethical tactics. While running Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in South Carolina, the firm made national headlines when it briefly launched PhoneyFred.org, a website personally attacking former Tenn. Sen. Fred Thompson.
Developing…
Click the image below for pdf of the e-mail:
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UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from a phone call made in Senate District 23:
Hello. This is Susan from South Carolinians for Truth and Disclosure.
Over the past few weeks, you’ve received numerous mailings from out of state special interest groups promoting Katrina Shealy and attacking Senator Jake Knotts.
These mailers by lobbying groups are funded by out of state millionaires who are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns across the state. They’re trying to buy the state legislature and implement programs that will implode our state budget, waste your tax dollars and ruin our public schools.
Please don’t let the out of state lobbying groups buy our state. Stand up to the out of state special interest groups.
Visit takebacksc.com and learn more about whose doing all this mail for Katrina Shealy.
That’s www.takebacksc.com Thank you.
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UPDATE 2: FITSNews has now posted a video showing the South Carolinians for Truth and Disclosure phone calls, as well calls for the SC Senate Republican Caucus (which employs First Tuesday Strategies and whose website was created by Under the Power Lines) and calls made for Romney in January all originated from the same place:
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 11:25 am and is filed under Legislature, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Do you really expect anything but sleaze in this sstate? A Latin phrase comes to mind, something about “Who will guard the guardians” I guess Scoop has been chosen.
I don’t know him….but my guess is that Sullivan is a real tool bag. How stupid can you be? Sending that email should get him in a good ethics complaint. Could Cotty lose his law license over it?
This guys are such hypocrites. This is like a Tamney Hall political machine. Dirty politicians working to protect each other and perpetuate their power. And clearly they are willing to break the law toward that end,
does collusion between these low life political parasites really suprise you?
since SuperSmart political operative earl capps is the sole board member and executive director ot sullivan and cotty’s group do you think he get’s an ethics complaint as well?
Saddest part is we need the truth so badly.
I didn’t think someone with a day job in the private sector qualifies to be a political operative.
I’m not the only board member, and having a day job means I don’t have time to be Exec Dir of anything.
Nice job
then why are you listed as the executive director Earl, if you lay down with dogs you end up with fleas. I am sure that alot of people have copied that website. Namely, all of Sanfords groups.
I’m not listed as Exec Dir on the website, sorry. Just a board member. But if there’s some spending money in it, maybe I’ll do it on the side, as long as I don’t have to give up my day job. Since I’m a single parent who never got a red cent of child support, I won’t lie, the extra income would be nice.
I don’t care if they’ve copied it. Hell, next time I see Mark or Jenny, you want me to tell them, just in case they didn’t get the freakin’ memo? I’ll be glad to do so.
What are you trying to say? Someone’s gonna get me? Go for it. I’m not elected to anything, not running for anything, not appointed to anything, and I work in the private sector, not for campaigns and not in government.
I don’t even eat at Sticky Fingers, so they can’t punish me by giving me slow service.
Maybe it’s a strange concept for you to grasp - private citizens who know a few things about politics and care about what is going on, instead of being a politico whose job is tied into this stuff.
So you think I lay down with fleas. At least my fleas are South Carolina fleas.
Where are your fleas from?
Don’t get me wrong, I like John McCain too; he seems to be a great guy, personable, likable, a kind of guy that you could invite over to a BBQ. Yeah sure, I respect him for his military service. No it doesn’t bother me that he graduate in the bottom 5% of his class from the Naval Academy, (hey I dropped out of High school) or that he crashed 4 planes,(I crashed my car twice) or even that he was shot down on his first mission over Vietnam,(hey, I’m three time loser) or even the that he started singing like a bird when captured by the NVA, without being tortured, or that he cheated on his wife, while in office, and is trying to portray himself as the candidate for family values, hey who am I to judge, I’ve mad my fair share of mistakes and then some, so who am I to judge McCain for his.
What really gets me is that some of your readers, won’t name any names, (hint:on a 2001 car trip to Florida), spoke about how Bush was going to do this, and bush was going to do that, and how the economy was going to be better. What happened? We started out with a surplus and eight years later were going to end up with the biggest deficit by a president ever recorded in history, and McCain supported Bush 95% of the time.
Our economy has tanked, our Gas Prices have skyrocketed and everything from the cost of food to diapers has gotten insanely expensive. I won’t mention how many Americans lost their jobs, or the tax breaks to companies that ship American Jobs overseas. Maybe those of you that are well off can afford the basic necessities, or have a nest egg to carry you over until the economy gets better, but many Americans, including myself cannot.
We went to war in IRAQ on a LIE, remember WMDs, 4,146 soldiers are dead 30,182 wounded for a LIE .How did Americans get duped into agreeing to spend 12 Billion a month in Iraq for a war that shouldn’t even be? So far we spent $368 billion on military operations, $45 billion more in veterans care, diplomatic services, training with that type of money we could of rebuilt the nation’s Infrastructure, invested in alternative energy and established our own Universal Healthcare.
Come on, be honest, when “W” changed his focus from looking for Bin Laden in Afghanistan to invading Iraq, you weren’t all scratching your head thinking “why in the hell are we doing that?” Intelligent and hardworking Americans such as yourselves?, didn’t have any doubt about that decision? OK, ok, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
What about when the excuse for invading Iraq was proven to be a LIE, WMDs? How about then? Were you outraged? No. no, you just voted him back into office for another four years, with the excuse, “Well,we want him to finish what he started.” What!? Come on, wake up! If that was any other American, he would be in prison.
John McCain has been in Washington for a long time, twenty-six years and nothing’s has changed. He is out of touch with reality. He doesn’t even understand economics and even admits it himself,
“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” McCain said on December 17 in New Hampshire, http://lburl.com/idd0k
I’m astounded, How can smart, Intelligent, hardworking people want McCain for president? Don’t get me wrong, I like John McCain, even after all the crappy things he has done, even after all his flopping around on issues like a fish out of water, I like him, just not as my Next President!
I am 36, and this will be my first election that I will vote in: presidential or otherwise. It’s Time for a change in Washington.
It’s time for a president for the people, from the people, someone who has seen the same hardships that we have, made the same kind of sacrifices we made, and works hard for success, Think about that when you cast your ballot in November.