We were dismayed but not surprised that the recent Charleston mayoral election involved secretive spending that sparked controversy. And while it’s unlikely that dark-money spending played a determinative role in the Nov. 7 outcome — which has challenger William Cogswell and incumbent John Tecklenburg headed toward a Nov. 21 runoff — we repeat our call to state lawmakers to change our laws so this sort of political influencing can’t be done in the dark.
The ability of secretive groups to spread their messages without voters knowing who is speaking and what their motives are only increases the distaste and cynicism many associate with modern politics.
Mr. Cogswell accused Mr. Tecklenburg of being involved in third-party ads paid for by The Coalition for a Better Charleston that paint Mr. Cogswell as a far-right candidate backed by the controversial Moms for Liberty group. Mr. Cogswell bills himself as a moderate and notes that those digital and television ads were paid for by two separate limited liability corporations that are tied to a lawyer who previously provided legal services to Mr. Tecklenburg’s campaign. Meanwhile, Mr. Tecklenburg’s campaign notes that recent flyers by a group with a similar name have been pro-Cogswell and do not mention Moms for Liberty. Moms for Liberty executive director Tara Wood has told The Post and Courier’s Emma Whalen that the organization is not campaigning for any mayoral candidates.
This episode is only the most recent example of dark-money efforts that have no place in our state’s politics. Three years ago in Horry County, anonymous donors spent more than $700,000 in a GOP primary runoff painting state Sen. Luke Rankin as an anti-gun, pro-abortion, pro-illegal immigrant liberal. The senator believed (but could not prove) the attacks were funded by NextEra, which considered Mr. Rankin an obstacle to its purchase of Santee Cooper.
Or an earlier instance in Pickens County, where a long-time Republican senator was criticized by a dark-money group as an anti-gun liberal and lost his reelection bid, only later to learn the group was actually financed by trial lawyers who were unhappy with his efforts to cap jury payouts (a fact that emerged only later during an unrelated court proceeding).
These sorts of shenanigans began cropping up more than a decade ago, shortly after court rulings opened the door for them. In 2011, when Joe Riley ran for reelection one last time, he was attacked by a group called “Citizens for a Better Charleston” that distributed flyers bashing him. “This is just a supreme act of political cowardice,” Mr. Riley’s campaign manager said at the time, while his opponent disavowed any knowledge of the group.
Unlike nearly all other states, however, South Carolina doesn’t require outside groups that spend money to influence our votes to tell us anything about who they are or what they’re doing. The House has passed legislation to require some groups to report their spending and the names of their largest donors, but it’s died in the Senate.
The Legislature needs to act on this. It also should consider raising contribution limits for local candidates to address this reality: Mayoral hopefuls in the state’s largest cities must work to reach far more voters than candidates for legislative seats, but they’re limited to the same $1,000 per donation; there might be a reasonable middle ground for big-city mayors between that and the $3,500 limit for statewide candidates.
The U.S. Supreme Court believes that money essentially is the same as speech, so we aren’t allowed to limit how much non-candidates spend on political campaigns, but we can and should make sure we know who is spending what, and allowing local candidates to receive more might reduce the influence of dark money. But ultimately, the Legislature needs to require people to report their spending and stand behind their political speech. Because we know when it comes to politics, it’s not merely the words that matter but who is uttering them and why.