SC GOP presidential primary funding source unclear

COLUMBIA -- South Carolina election officials don’t yet know where they’ll get an additional $500,000 to run next month’s first-in-the-South presidential primary, but they assure voters the contest will occur.

Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said Tuesday his agency has notified the state budget office it won’t have enough money to run the high-profile Jan. 21 contest.

“We don’t know exactly what will happen now,” Whitmire said. “How any shortfall will be made up remains to be seen.”

The state Republican Party informed the agency Monday it won’t contribute any money beyond the $180,000 it collected in filing fees from the nine candidates on the ballot. State law requires those fees to help pay for the primary, expected to cost up to $1.5 million.

The state agency will have $1 million on hand for the contest less than six weeks away, including money left over from conducting 2010 elections and the fees the GOP turned in last month, Whitmire said.

The state GOP had previously agreed to pay the balance. But that was before four counties sued over their costs. The Supreme Court ruled last month the state and counties were responsible for the contest – a decision GOP Chairman Chad Connelly called a “game changer.”

“The State GOP simply cannot be involved beyond what is written in the Supreme Court ruling, federal, and state law,” Connelly wrote in an email Tuesday to GOP executive committee members, noting the fee. “The State Party was negotiating in good faith with these four counties through the State Election Commission, yet they filed a hugely expensive lawsuit knowing that this was one of the potential outcomes.”

While the state’s high court answered questions on authority, it did not address funding.

An attorney for the counties, Lee Floyd, said the GOP incorrectly infers the ruling bars it from contributing. “If they wanted to contribute, they certainly could,” he said.

Whitmire said the commission could ask the five-member budget oversight board to let the agency operate in the red. The board, led by Gov. Nikki Haley, has let agencies run a deficit in previous years. But the first-year governor has railed against the practice.

Or legislators could vote when they return to Columbia in January to transfer money to the agency. The state’s 2010-11 fiscal year closed June 30 with a $128 million surplus.

Earlier this year, Haley argued no taxpayer money should go toward the presidential primary. But legislators overrode her budget veto in June of what was estimated at the time to be $670,000 from the state.

Haley said Tuesday the GOP response surprised her, and she’ll likely “pick up the phone and find out what happened.”

“I read it and I didn’t see that coming,” she told The Associated Press. “I have always said that I think primaries should be paid with private funds. I don’t think taxpayers should pay for it and I stand by that.”

However it’s paid for, it will be conducted no differently from previous primaries, Whitmire said.

“We do know we’re required to do it under the law,” he said. “The Supreme Court made that very clear.”

The state will reimburse counties as it does for any other statewide election, covering expenses for poll managers, polling places, postage, supplies, ballots and ballot printing. But counties argued they had other expenses that weren’t covered, such as the cost of temporary help, truck rentals to deliver machines and additional electricity.

The state GOP agreed to pay for all “legitimate expenses” related to the contest, and the state commission informed counties it would determine whether a claim was a direct cost, Whitmire said.

In a dispute over defining “legitimate,” election officials in Beaufort, Chester, Greenville and Spartanburg counties sued the state Election Commission and the state’s Republican and Democratic parties in October. They argued the primary was a private affair that the state lacked the money to handle, and said their taxpayers would end up covering part of the tab.

Some costs under dispute included a share of maintenance contracts and county employees’ salaries, Whitmire said.

The counties offered to dismiss the lawsuit if the Republican Party put $1.9 million in escrow to reimburse all 46 counties for their expenses. Their attorney, Joel Collins, said the state GOP never made a counteroffer, and officials in the Republican-dominated counties were trying to be fiscally responsible by sorting out the funding details in advance – and get it in writing.

“We were prepared to negotiate down from that number,” Collins said.

The state’s high court refused on a 3-2 vote Nov. 22 to block the primary, turning back the counties’ challenge that the state lacked the authority to hold the contest.

Collins accuses the state GOP, the party of fiscal responsibility that’s supposed to oppose unfunded mandates, of reneging on a public promise with Monday’s response and leaving taxpayers with the bill.

GOP executive director Moore said the party was negotiating with the state, rather than separate counties.

“We were in the middle of that discussion, and they filed a lawsuit,” Moore said. “They lost and will have to pay the consequences.”