Ned Sloan kept SC’s powerful honest — and all South Carolinians are the better for it

Constituents of all public bodies across South Carolina would be fortunate to have citizen watchdogs as dedicated and able as the late Edward “Ned” Sloan Jr., a millionaire businessman who battled for citizens to know how public officials used power and taxpayers’ money.

Sloan was a gadfly in the classic sense.

And he was proud of it.

John Monk of The State newspaper in Columbia recently profiled Sloan following his recent death at age 91. In his story here’s how Monk beautifully summed up Sloan’s life and legacy:

“A Citadel graduate and longtime Greenville businessman, Sloan’s passion for holding officials accountable led him to hire a lawyer and set up a foundation that filed lawsuits to pierce veils of government secrecy erected by some of the state’s most powerful public officials.”

Passion for transparency

The significance of Sloan’s passion for transparency and citizen access to public records was at play in October when the S.C. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional Gov. Henry McMaster’s plan to distribute $32 million in federal grant money to private schools.

Chief Justice Donald Beatty cited the S.C. Constitution prohibition of “the use of public funds for the direct benefit of private institutions.”

As Monk noted in his profile of Sloan, the S.C. Supreme Court’s 5-0 decision also noted “two Sloan-initiated lawsuits on standing and said the citizen who sued McMaster had the right to sue.”

Clearly Ned Sloan was a brave champion for openness.

“He had an amazing ability to see the difference between right and wrong, and he was a champion of the little guy,” said Joe Taylor, chairman of the S.C. Public Interest Foundation, which was founded by Sloan.

Challenged the powerful

Sloan’s foundation took on powerful entities across the state, including:

▪ Clemson University.

▪ The General Assembly.

▪ The Greenville Hospital System.

▪ Various school districts.

▪ The S.C. Department of Transportation and Budget and Control Board.

“If he saw something illegal, we would file a lawsuit,” said Jim Carpenter, a Greenville lawyer who frequently worked on legal issues with Sloan.

For example, Sloan learned how government insiders handle bond issues as a paving contractor.

And Sloan became a master at employing the S.C. Freedom of Information Act to shine a light, as Monk wrote, “into government’s darkest corners, exposing slush funds, secret government spending on politicians’ pet projects and questionable uses of power.”

A great victory

One of Sloan’s major Freedom of Information Act victories involved the Hunley Commission, which had funneled millions of state taxpayer dollars to Friends of the Hunley, a foundation and pet project of former Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell of Charleston.

The Hunley is a Confederate submarine that has been raised from Charleston Harbor, and Sloan and Carpenter sued when Friends of the Hunley refused a Freedom of Information Act request for financial records.

The records were released, but the foundation then refused to pay the court costs of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

After many appeals the foundation paid some of the expenses, and that set an important legal precedent: a public body must pay court costs if it releases records only after a citizen has to bring a Freedom of Information Act suit to force it to do so.

Jay Bender, a Columbia lawyer and a renowned expert on the Freedom of Information Act, said the Hunley case was “a great lesson” for public bodies.

“They couldn’t just ignore requests for information until they got sued,” Bender said, “(and) then turn over the information and say, `OK, you got your records, now go away.’”

And it was Ned Sloan who helped to administer that valuable and necessary lesson.

A brilliant ‘gadfly’

Webster’s defines a ‘gadfly’ as someone who among other things “annoys others ... by rousing them from complacency.”

Sloan was anything but annoying, but he certainly lived up to the spirit of the word ‘gadfly’ in his determination to rouse citizens to demand accountability from public bodies — and to keep them from becoming complacent.

Indeed it was a sign of respect for Sloan’s influence that former S.C. Chief Justice Jean Toal — upon seeing Sloan among the spectators during various court hearings — would often declare, “We’d like to welcome the court’s favorite gadfly, Mr. Sloan.”

And what an amazing and brilliant gadfly Ned Sloan was.