Sanford Criticizes Lawmakers For Wanting More Security For Themselves

Columbia, SC—The ongoing budget fight between Gov. Mark Sanford and state lawmakers took on a new focus Monday: security. Standing outside an empty guard post on the edge of the Statehouse grounds, Gov. Sanford said Statehouse security spending in the Senate budget is just one example of inefficiency and waste.

The Senate budget would move $500,000 out of the Department of Public Safety, which is a cabinet agency controlled by the governor, and use it to create a brand new Capitol Police Force, controlled by the legislature.

“There is something wrong with significant cuts to SLED, significant cuts to Highway Patrol, significant cuts to a lot of different arms of law enforcement while at the same time $500,000 being carved out to create its own Capitol Police Force,“ Sanford told reporters.

The fight over Statehouse security goes back to last year. After recommendations from the FBI and Homeland Security that the state improve security at the Statehouse, the legislature included in this year’s budget $6.4 million worth of new security equipment. The governor vetoed it, saying that money could be better spent elsewhere, but the legislature overrode that veto.

The security system includes new guard shacks at several places around the Capitol complex and new concrete barriers at entrances to the underground parking garage. Security experts worry that the state is vulnerable to having a car or truck full of explosives driven into the garage, which runs beneath the House and Senate office buildings and several others. The new system requires special ID cards, which include a radio frequency transmitter, to allow someone into the garage.

But once the new system was installed over the governor’s objections, he was able to shut it down, since the guard posts were to be manned by officers from the Bureau of Protective Services. BPS is part of the Department of Public Safety, which the governor controls.

That’s why lawmakers now want to create a new Capitol Police Force, under their control, to run security at the Statehouse. Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, is the main sponsor of a separate bill to create the new force. He says the Senate budget does not increase lawmakers’ security at the expense of the public’s.

“No, it’s not our security. It’s over 100,000 people come to that complex. Two thousand employees work on top of that complex and park inside of that complex. We’re only there five months out of the year, two-and-a-half days (during the week). That system is primarily for the protection of the public and the employees that work there,“ he says.

Lawmakers expect to work out a final version of the budget and have it on the governor’s desk this week. That budget is likely to include spending $350 million in federal stimulus money the governor has also opposed. When asked if he might veto the entire budget, which he’s done before, he said no options are off the table.