Rick Brundette, of The Nerve, reported on the cancellation of last Friday’s local Horry Delegation meeting. The meeting was scheduled to take a vote on endorsing a candidate for a Horry County Master In Equity Judgeship.
As the Nerve reported:
As expected, the Horry County legislative delegation last week nominated former House member Alan Clemmons as the county’s master-in-equity judge.
But House and Senate members who make up the delegation didn’t nominate Clemmons – who had been a longtime delegation member – during a public meeting in Horry County as initially scheduled. Instead, they did it secretly while in session in Columbia, with most of them signing a circulated letter that was sent to Gov. Henry McMaster, who will decide whether to appoint Clemmons to the six-year, six-figure seat.
Clemmons’ predecessor made $188,873 annually.
Whether Clemmons’ nomination letter complied with state law is questionable. The S.C. Supreme Court in a 1996 ruling indicated that a county legislative delegation is a public body under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which requires that votes on official business be done in open meetings. The state’s top court said then that voting by circulating a nomination letter among delegation members could be done only during an open meeting, with the public “able to glean the results and how each member voted.”
Besides that, according to a 2007 written opinion when McMaster was the state attorney general, the Attorney General’s Office in a different delegation matter said the state law that applied in the case didn’t permit the “circulation of a letter or petition as a ‘vote’ (and) as a substitute for a physical meeting.”
Common Thread
A key component each of the key endorsers have in common are their close ties to the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and its four local PACS. Clemmons is the author of the legislation that allows the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber to collect over $24 million annually in tax gifts for out of market advertising.
CONVENIENT FOR WHOM?
Senator Hembree reached out to us yesterday at 7:15 a.m. stating he chose to cancel the meeting. He also expressed to our news organization that the letter was passed around as a matter of convenience.
I personally explained to him that I believed an open forum was necessary. I planned to attend the meeting.
I also planned to ask Senator Rankin, Representative Heather Ammons Crawford, Representative Case Brittain, and U.S. Congressional Candidate Russell Fry why they believed Clemmons was the most qualified candidate.
Clemmons’ practice specialized in Timeshare Closures. This type of legal work requires little time spent in a courtroom.
Charles Jordan Jr. was deemed the most qualified person for the job by the S.C. Merit Selection Committee. Jordan was born in Conway. He has 25 years of legal experience operating inside the courtroom. Why was the candidate with very little courtroom experience chosen over the JMSC’s top pick?
ALSO – ETHICALLY RECUSING YOURSELF
I also asked Senator Hembree why Senator Luke Rankin would not recuse himself. Clemmons worked both tirelessly and unethically on the Rankin campaign in 2020.
Clemmons’ law firm held up the sale of the home of Rankin’s opponent for more than 90 days in the Spring of 2020. John Gallman planned on moving the proceeds from that sale into his campaign account. Clemmons fictitiously claimed that escrow monies were being held on the home as the closing date continued to shift from one date to a later date and then another. Records show that NO ESCROW FUNDS were ever deposited by the Clemmons law firm. We asked back then, as we ask now, should Clemmons not have been disbarred?
SHOULD CLEMMONS HAVE BEEN DISBARRED?
According to NYSBA: (LINK HERE) The closing attorney could be and should be disbarred for misrepresenting the existence of escrow funds that were never deposited. That is exactly what Alan Clemmons did as we published here on August 26, 2021. Questions remain as to why Alan Clemmons was never disbarred.
OTHER RECUSALS
It can be argued that Representative Case Brittain would not have his current office without the support and help from his predecessor Representative Alan Clemmons. Should Case Brittain recuse himself on this endorsement?
Heather Ammons Crawford has been paid as an on staff campaign advisor to Alan Clemmons for years. Should she not have recused herself?
U.S. Congressional Fry is in the political consulting business with Heather Ammons Crawford. Should Fry have not recused himself as well?
These were questions MyrtleBeachSC News would have asked individually of each of these elected officials had we been given an opportunity to be present at an open forum. The politicians would likely have not opened the meeting to questions from the press. However, we would have certainly asked each after the open forum ended.
What do all of these politicians have in common? Each takes monies from the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce PACs. The very Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce Clemmons wrote the tourist tax law for in 2008.