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News Stating the Obvious Stating The Obvious SC Atty. Gen. Alan Wilson Speaks to C4L
News Stating the Obvious Stating The Obvious SC Atty. Gen. Alan Wilson Speaks to C4L
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09 November 2011
At the Campaign for Liberty meeting at The Office Place on Tuesday, November 8, 2011, SC Attorney General was the second to speak. Careful to the point of setting his phone alarm to beep when his time was up, Wilson began his talk with a declaration that clearly took into account his audience. Wilson told the crowd that he will work to find a compromise on issues when he disagrees on issues with the tea party, Constitutionalists, and libertarian leaning Republicans. He seemed intent on making sure that we knew he would sit down and talk to us and try to reach some agreement if possible.
When there are issues where there is a sharp disagreement and compromise can not or does not happen, Wilson told us that he'll put the issue "on the shelf" and then look to the legislature and courts to see what the resolution is. It seemed the intent of Wilson to impress upon us that he is not seeking to pick fights with us, even where he may fundamentally disagree on tactics or specific political issues. He seems to understand the importance of our the reform movement and was, in general, a very agreeable and friendly speaker.
Wilson started with the issues we can all agree on. He referred to his fight against Obamacare in the federal court system, once calling it an "Obamanation" instead of an "abomination." He believes in fighting for our rights as enumerated in the US Constitution and specifically mentioned the 9th and 10th Amendments as being necessary to that end. So far, so good.
Wilson explained that his main legal argument against Obama's socialized medicine plan is the fact that people are forced to enter into a private contract with a company in order to get insurance. "There's nowhere to draw the line" if that is allowed and individuals can be forced to buy anything. That individual mandate, he states, is the deal breaker and makes the whole plan unconstitutional. He notes that the courts have refused to strike down the whole bill despite the lack of a severability clause but insists that once the individual mandate is gone, the bill will lack teeth and be defunded to the point that it is unenforceable. He believes the decision at the US Supreme Court will be a 5-4 decision and that Justice Kennedy will be the swing vote. Wilson doesn't expect an answer on this issue before the presidential elections in the fall of 2012.
Wilson then moved on to his fight with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and their outrageous attempts to force Boeing to close down its South Carolina location. He indicated that he'd gone from not knowing what the NLRB was last year to having to fight it tooth and nail on what is clearly an unconstitutional power grab. This is another long term fight, he predicted. He expects that it will be another two to three years before it is resolved.
Wilson is also moving to intervene and actively defend the FOIA request of Rocky Dee who has attempted to discover the sources of funding for the attack ads unleashed on Gov. Mark Sanford by the S.C. Association of School Administrators which claims immunity from the requests and has won a lower court ruling though an appeal is in the works.
Yucca Mountain was the next topic. Wilson considers the storage facility to be the most satisfactory answer to the disposal of our nuclear waste. He specifically mentioned the security problem of defending several different locations vs. one well maintained site. However, since the state has been denied use of it, he at least wants to get the state's money back. That would be 1.2 billion dollars that have been paid for impact studies and storage facility construction. Harry Reid, in his bid to get re-elected, shut the project down last year.
Alan Wilson wants us out of the punitive Federal Voting Rights Act. "We're not toddlers" that have to ask permission from the Justice Department, he said.
A limited budget and time due to other federal lawsuits regarding states rights has so far kept him from too heavily pursuing defense of the voter ID law but that will be another issue he intends to fight the federal government on as will the recent attacks by the federals on the state's recently passed immigration law.
While discussing the NLRB, Wilson mentioned that he objected to the mixing of executive and judicial functions within the makeup of the board. That prompted Cory Norris to question that, if he recognized the monopoly on the power of the NLRB, then why would he go through the trouble of seeking a resolution through the federal court system that is, of course, controlled by the federal level of government. Wilson was a obviously befuddled at the question and seemed to have difficulty thinking outside of the box on this question.
Norris was bringing up the issue of nullification. Wilson, however, was sticking strictly to his role as attorney general in his responses and didn't seem willing to issue a personal judgement on nullification as being a simpler, less expensive, and more effective way to declare that a federal law that is clearly unconstitutional is null and void in the State of South Carolina.
It is the hope of many proponents that such an action, at least in one hypothetical scenario, could be initiated by the governor with opinions from the attorney general in the executive branch and the state supreme court in the judicial branch and then followed up with a bill from the legislative branch signed by the governor resulting in nullification of illegal orders from the federal government. Nullification could also originate from the general assembly in our state and, it is hoped, one day also be brought up as a referendum by the people.
It was later brought up that there was an apparent conflict of interest regarding federal money and the attorney general's office. Wilson confirmed that he was receiving a large part of his budget from the federal government grants in order to be able to pay for various prosecutions. He stated that he only gets 3.5 million dollars of the 16 million dollars it takes to run his office every year from the general assembly. The rest comes from fines and fees and federal money. It was suggested that the attorney general should have to go to the general assembly for all his budget in order to ensure that he is always arguing for the side of the state and that the office is not perverted into an arm of the federal government.
Wilson later discussed with this writer his intent to fulfill the duties of his office even on matters where he did not politically or philosophically agree with the law involved if there was no room for discretion on his part according to the rule of law. On other matters, it is clear that there is discretion and he will have room to take the initiative--or not as the case may be. Wilson believes that the attorney general should remain an elected position in order to make it possible to prosecute political figures.
On some personal matters, Wilson acknowledged that the election last year got nasty resulting in some hurt feelings at the time on his part and on the part of others. He has since made the effort to reach out to his opponents in the race and believes that things are better now. Wilson acknowledged that in many races one is likely to be running against friends or acquaintances in the party and that it is best to try to get along:
"There were some hurtful things said in the campaign . . . I was very angry but once I sat down and talked to them, I'm like, you know what, I can waste my energy being mad or I can just get on with my life . . . I think I have the ability to just let things fall off me . . . There are a lot of people out there that get angry at me and they cuss me out and say, 'You're wrong!' and 'I hate you!' and a month later they come and say, 'I need help' and I have no reservations about helping because I recognize that people upset and they get mad and say things they don't mean. I could spend my whole life feeling bitter about people hurting my feelings or I can get over it and just do my job."