The Horry County School District’s conduct was so egregious that the Commission was forced to set aside the election to preserve the integrity of the election process. However, this case also raises the larger issue of whether government should be using public dollars at all to engage in advocacy in favor of pet political positions, ballot measures, or candidates.
It is often necessary for governmental entities to communicate with the public on existing policies. In the context of an election, it is even sometimes necessary for the government to distribute neutral explanatory material regarding complicated ballot measures. However, it is never appropriate for a governmental entity to use public funding to campaign for a certain issue or a certain candidate. The appropriate function of government in connection with an issue placed before the electorate is to enlighten, not to proselytize.
At some threshold level, the Constitution requires that public entities must refrain from spending public funds to promote a partisan position during an election campaign. "It would be establishing a dangerous and untenable precedent to permit the government or any agency thereof, to use public funds to disseminate propaganda in favor of or against any issue or candidate. This may be done by totalitarian, dictatorial or autocratic governments but cannot be tolerated, directly or indirectly, in these democratic United States of America." Those aren’t my words; they were originally written by the Supreme Court of New York in the 1975 case Stern v. Kramarsky, and they are just as true today as they were 3 decades ago.
In the recent Horry County case, the local school district distributed propaganda pieces designed to curry public favor for the ballot measure in polling places throughout the county on Election Day. This conduct was clearly inappropriate, as the Election Commission confirmed. Nevertheless, members of the school board expressed "shock, disappointment and confusion" when they learned of the Commission’s decision, according to the Myrtle Beach Sun News.
The South Carolina Supreme Court in its 2003 decision of Douan v. Charleston County Council found that there was no logical reason that partisan campaign literature designed by a governmental entity would be allowed, but that the same literature if it were distributed by a candidate or political party would not be permissible. They stated that "Preserving the fundamental integrity of the election process requires that governmental entities with a position on or stake in an election adhere to the same rules which all private groups with a stake in an election are required to follow on election day."
If you think the Horry County case was an isolated incident, think again. For years, school districts all over South Carolina have been using public resources to wage political campaigns. In May, the superintendent for the Ware Shoals School District used a publicly owned computer to send an e-mail message to school district employees in support of a candidate, a practice which violates the Ethics Reform Act, according to the State Ethics Commission. In 2003 and 2004, Lexington School District One devoted public resources to campaigning on behalf of its position on school choice legislation. These are but two of many such examples.
The use of public resources by governmental entities to wage political campaigns and to advocate in favor of election results is simply wrong, and if left unchecked it threatens our democracy as we know it. Therefore, SCRG will continue to do everything in its power to stop government from using your tax dollars to fund its political campaigns.
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Randy Page serves as president of South Carolinians for Responsible Government, a statewide grassroots advocacy group of over 200,000 supporters advocating lower taxes, limited government and increased educational options for children all across South Carolina.
