EDUCATION SUPER HAVING DIFFICULTY NOT BREAKING LAW

South Carolina’s minimally adequate Education Superintendent appears to have once again run afoul of state election laws.

According to the South Carolinians for Responsible Government, Jim Rex sent out a “propaganda- laden” mass e-mail the day before the primary elections last Tuesday.

The email sent by Rex, a sitting public official not seeking reelection this year, clearly stated that it was paid for by his campaign account and specifically advocated for the defeat of twenty-one House and Senate candidates in races throughout the state. This type of candidate-specific independent expenditure by a public official from his campaign account is a clear violation of South Carolina’s ethic laws (8-13-1340(A).

“It is disappointing to see that Rex is willing to break the law in an unapologetic defense of his failing public schools,” explained Randy Page, President of South Carolinians for Responsible Government (SCRG). “As a public official charged with running the State Department of Education, his job is to effectively administer that agency, not to lobby for political candidates or push his anti-reform status quo legislative agenda.”

Rex’s illegal attack on running candidates came just days after public school officials in Lexington School District One sent a similar political email. Using school computers and employee email addresses, Lexington One’s Communication Director Mary Beth Hill implored district staff to vote against any and all candidates receiving donations from school choice supporters and then directed readers to anonymous political blogs that attacked school choice advocates.

This, of course, comes less than two months after Rex shamelessly used taxpayer money to launch his own campaign website. That site, GoodbyeMinimallyAdequate.com, has become the poster child for all of the ways Rex has screwed up the office he was elected to in 2006.

On their blog, SCRG opined:

Are Rex’s actions that of a career educator, or of a shrewd and practiced politician? Is he using his position as a Constitutional officer to advance the educational interests’ of South Carolina’s children, or to block legislative reforms designed to improve failing schools?

Rex is certainly not a career educator. But he’s also not a shrewd and practiced politician. Perhaps a “wannabe shrewd and practiced politician would be more fitting because nothing about this guy is either shrewd or practiced.

As to the other question, well that answer is pretty obvious.