Small group rallies for Sanford’s resignation, impeachment

COLUMBIA — A small but vocal and adamant group of protesters rallied at the Statehouse on Thursday night calling for Gov. Mark Sanford to resign or for state lawmakers to impeach him.

“You crossed the line! Now resign!” they chanted, while holding posters with slogans like “Sanford Abandoned SC” and “Don’t quote the Bible if you won’t live by it!”

There were fewer than 50 protesters and almost that many members of the media covering them, but Phil Noble, president of South Carolina New Democrats, said the protest was a matter of principle.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican, if you’re a president or governor or dog catcher,” Noble said. “When you violate that integrity and those bonds that make a democracy work, you should resign.”

A recent Survey USA poll found that 60 percent of South Carolinians think Sanford should resign. His spokesman, however, has made it clear Sanford has no plans to step down, saying the governor will continue to work to rebuild the trust of the people of the state.

“I think he’s really weathered the worst of it,” University of South Carolina political scientist Robert Oldendick said of Sanford.

After Sanford gave an interview to the Associated Press last week in which he admitted to more meetings with his mistress and to “crossing lines” with other women, more and more state lawmakers were calling for the governor to resign.

But then the State Law Enforcement Division released its findings into whether the governor misused any state money to meet his mistress.

“We have found no improper use of public funds,” SLED Chief Reggie Lloyd announced July 2.

Whether there was an illegal activity was the key question for a lot of people, Oldendick said.

“And when the SLED investigation really determined that there was no misuse of public funds, no other illegal activity on his part, then — given his determination and his inclination from the beginning to want to stay on and press his agenda — that was the key point, I think, in this whole story,” he said.

So with Sanford refusing to resign, that leaves impeachment as the only way his opponents can get him out of office.

But state lawmakers said impeachment would be extremely difficult. Calling a special session to deal with it would cost money the state doesn’t have, and it’s unlikely two-thirds of the House would vote to impeach Sanford and then two-thirds of the Senate would vote to convict.

And, if they wait until they go back into regular session in January, the story will be six months old and lawmakers will be focused on issues like unemployment and the budget, Oldendick said.

“I really think that any impeachment proceedings are very, very unlikely. Which then puts it back to, well, resign. He’s resisted the pressure from within his own party,” he said of the governor. “I don’t think that, unless, again, some new revelation comes out, that any kind of public pressure is going to change his mind.”

“He’s not going to resign and clearly he’s not going to be impeached,” Noble said before Thursday night’s rally. “But that’s really not the issue. The issue is that principle, you know, that we in a democracy say, ‘You can lie to us. That’s OK. You can repeatedly lie to us. That’s OK. We don’t care.’ Then you’ve done something fundamentally damaging to democratic institutions.”