The South Carolina Ethics Commission has released the details of 37 ethics charges against embattled Governor Mark Sanford. Interestingly, while nearly all of the allegations involve travel (airline upgrades at state expense, reimbursing himself with campaign funds for personal expenses), none of those trips seem to have been to Argentina.
It wasn’t so long ago, by the way, that Sanford was lauded as America’s Most Conservative Governor by the American Conservative Union. ACU was particularly struck by his vigilance in making sure that state taxpayer dollars weren’t misspent:
Like President Reagan, he made control of spending, the bureaucracy, and waste his top goals from the first. He spent half of what his predecessor did on his official transition to office, disbanded his security detail and scrapped the traditional black tie fancy ball for a Bar-B-Q picnic open to all. But his actions once in office were hardly just symbolic. He adopted the first detailed executive branch budget in the state’s history, which identified millions of dollars in possible savings, rather than leaving decisions solely to the legislature as had all earlier governors.
Turns out he spent the money on legroom. It gets really cramped back there in coach.