COLUMBIA, S.C. — Democrats called Thursday for the immediate resignation of Lt. Gov. Ken Ard as his ethics case heads to a state grand jury and asked Republicans to stop working on backroom deals to replace him.
Three weeks ago, Ard paid the state Ethics Commission a $48,000 fine after being hit with 107 civil counts of using campaign cash for personal expenses. Authorities say those included a family vacation, iPads, a flat-screen television, clothes, meals and a trip to the SEC championship game last fall. He also had to pay $12,500 to cover the costs of the state ethics investigation and had to reimburse his campaign $12,000.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Alan Wilson referred questions about the ethics investigation to the state grand jury. The developments prompted calls from South Carolina's Democratic leadership for Ard to step down.
The grand jury inquiry will distract Ard from his duties, state Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said.
"It's time to give the people of South Carolina a break from this ongoing controversy," Harpootlian said. "Quit. Go back to Florence. Get a lawyer. Deal with your legal problems. But let the state of South Carolina and the people of South Carolina move forward."
Ard "already admitted he did things wrong," Harpootlian said. "The only question now is whether those are criminal or not."
Republicans said Democrats are trying to score political points.
"While Dick Harpootlian spends every waking hour grandstanding for political purposes, our party recognizes the seriousness of these allegations and refuses to politically influence the investigation with Harpootlian-style theatric," said Matt Moore, the state Republican Party's executive director.
There were no signs Thursday that Ard was ready to resign and his spokeswoman and lawyer did not immediately respond to questions.
On Wednesday, Ard said in a statement he would cooperate with the investigation. He also said he had requested that Wilson "refer my case for a full and complete investigation so that all of the facts in this matter can be determined."
But a spokesman for the attorney general's office said Ard's request was for a State Law Enforcement Division investigation and it came only after Ard's lawyer was told the case was heading to the grand jury.
An independent SLED investigation, however, would have delayed the grand jury taking up the case and those investigators would have worked without subpoena power. The grand jury would have SLED investigators using subpoena power as they handled the case.
Harpootlian is a former prosecutor and said Ard's statement is another example of Ard not telling the truth. "He's continuing to lie," Harpootlian said.
The grand jury meets secretly and doesn't announce when or where. It could take weeks or months to decide whether to issue a criminal indictment.
A criminal indictment could bring a suspension from office provided Gov. Nikki Haley gives an OK for that, according to state law. Ard's ethics violations are considered misdemeanors that can bring up to a $5,000 fine and a year in prison. If he is suspended, Ard would not draw the $46,545 annual salary his part-time position pays and would lose state benefits. Ard presides over the state Senate, casts deciding votes in ties and also runs the state Office on Aging.
An Ard resignation or suspension also would create a leadership scramble in the Senate. Harpootlian said Republicans are cutting backroom deals to pick an interim lieutenant governor and help Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell avoid giving up his state Senate seat to take over. That also could touch off a Senate seat race.
Senators last mulled how that might play out in 2009, when Republican Gov. Mark Sanford faced calls for resignation, an ethics investigation and impeachment hearings after he revealed an extramarital affair with a woman from Argentina. McConnell drafted a letter then to resign the Senate's top position in case Sanford resigned or was removed so he could keep his seat and avoid becoming lieutenant governor. Rumblings ensued about who might serve as lieutenant governor.
Harpootlian sees a replay in the works.
"It's the worst case of political music chairs I've ever seen," Harpootlian said, with McConnell, a civil war re-enactor trying to save his seat.
"I assumed, wrongly I guess, that Glenn would be wanting to iron his Confederate uniform to get sworn in," Harpootlian said.
McConnell said he long ago tore up that 2009 letter and said Harpootlian's criticism was just politics. He's now researching what would be required if Ard quits or is convicted.
There is no backroom deal-making despite rampant rumors and fictionalizing in and out of the Statehouse, McConnell said. "There's more imagination going on than there was in the writing of Start Wars," he said.
McConnell said all of the talk is premature on Ard's fate. "He's entitled — like anyone else — to his day in court," McConnell said.
If Ard is suspended pending a trial, that wouldn't trigger the succession required in the constitution only the routine replacement that happens almost weekly when the lieutenant governor can't preside over the session for a couple of hours or a day, McConnell said.
And if Ard leaves the office permanently by resigning or as a result of conviction, McConnell said he will do "what's appropriate based on what the constitution requires. I will abide by my oath. ... If it's something that I am supposed to do, then I'll do it."
Meanwhile, John Crangle, the state director of the watchdog group Common Cause, argues South Carolina should be the first state in the nation to eliminate the lieutenant governor's position altogether. The state spends a $1 million a year on a position with duties senators can fulfill, he said.
"We don't need a lieutenant governor," Crangle said.
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