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(CNN) – A special House panel considering an impeachment measure against South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford decided Thursday that their review will not include most of the state ethics charges filed against the governor last month.

South Carolina state lawmakers voted to throw out 28 of the 37 civil charges filed by the state Ethics Commission, most of which involved Sanford's purchase of business class tickets with taxpayer money and his use of campaign funds.

State House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison, who is overseeing the special impeachment panel, said the ethics charges do not rise "to the level of serious misconduct or a serious offense" that would merit removing Sanford from office.

Harrison's subcommittee is still evaluating Sanford's use of state-owned aircraft along with the original impeachment resolution, which focuses on whether Sanford broke the law by secretly leaving the state in June to visit his mistress.

One of Sanford's attorneys, Ross Garber, applauded the decision.
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(CNN) – A panel of South Carolina lawmakers who gathered Tuesday to formally consider impeaching Gov. Mark Sanford voted to broaden the scope of their inquiry to include 37 new ethics charges against the Republican.

Those civil charges were revealed Monday by the South Carolina Ethics Commission, which had conducted a three-month investigation into Sanford's use of state finances. The governor and his legal team now face a hearing before the Ethics Commission to determine if Sanford broke any state laws by charging the state for first- and business-class flights, using state-owned aircraft for political travel and tapping into campaign funds for personal use.

The lawmakers, members of a special subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee that met for the first time Tuesday, decided to include the ethics charges in their review and scheduled four more meetings of the subcommittee for December.

The group will review the Ethics Commission report over Thanksgiving and decide if the charges should be included in the impeachment resolution, which accuses Sanford of "serious misconduct" for leaving the state in June to visit his Argentine mistress without leaving in place a chain of command.

The seven lawmakers - four Republicans and three Democrats - listened to sworn affadavits from key players in the scandal and entered into the record news reports from June highlighting Sanford's absence from the state.

Rep. Greg Delleney, one of the Republicans who drafted the impeachment measure, appeared to warn Sanford against fighting an impeachment effort, should the subcommittee decide to move forward.

"Impeachment is a political process, it's not a legal process," Delleney said at the meeting, which was attended by Sanford's attorneys. "There is no appeal from an impeachment process. Impeachment is final. Impeachment is solely the constitutional power, duty and responsibility of the South Carolina House of Representatives."

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(CNN) – The South Carolina Ethics Commission has charged Gov. Mark Sanford with 37 counts of violating state ethics laws, according to a complaint released by the commission on Monday.

The complaint follows a three-month investigation into Sanford's use of taxpayer money.

Sanford is accused of using tax money to purchase business-class airfare on domestic and international flights, flying on a state-owned aircraft to political gatherings or events "which involved no official business," and spending campaign funds for personal use such as purchasing a ticket to attend President Barack Obama's inauguration in January.

South Carolina law requires state officials to purchase the lowest fares available for flights, and bars the use of state aircraft for personal use.

Sanford's office did not respond to requests for comment about the charges.

The governor, once a rising star in the Republican party before he revealed an extramarital affair in June, will now face a hearing along with his legal team before a three-member ethics panel. Cathy Hazelwood, general counsel to the state Ethics Commission, told CNN that no date has been set for the hearing.

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(CNN) – A special House committee in South Carolina will formally consider an impeachment resolution against Gov. Mark Sanford for the first time next Tuesday, the Republican chairman of the committee told CNN Friday.

The resolution, filed by a handful of House Republicans earlier this week, will be examined by an ad hoc committee of seven lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

The group will meet for the first time next week, after Sanford provides the legislature with the results of a state Ethics Commission investigation into the governor's travel expenses, Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Harrison said.

The first meeting of the special committee on Tuesday will likely focus on Sanford's infamous trip to Argentina this summer, which led to revelations of an extramarital affair and calls for his resignation. Harrison said the group will then spend the Thanksgiving holiday poring over the Ethics Commission report before meeting again in December to include any additional language in the resolution.

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(CNN) – A Republican legislator in South Carolina moved to introduce a resolution of impeachment against Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday during a one-day special session of the state legislature, but his attempt was ruled "out of order" by the Speaker of the House, who said the measure must be submitted at a later date.

Speaker Bobby Harrell, also a Republican, said that state Rep. Greg Delleney will have to wait to offer his impeachment resolution during a so-called "pre-filing" period in November, when lawmakers will be allowed to submit bills in advance of the regular legislative session, which begins in January.

Harrell would then decide which House committee would handle the resolution and potentially build an impeachment case against the governor.

Delleney claimed his measure still has "significant support" among House Republicans and predicted it will get out of committee and to the House floor for a vote in January.

But removing the governor from office ultimately requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate. Delleney admitted to CNN that such a vote "is not an easy thing to come by."

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(CNN) – Before an extramarital affair came to light in June that effectively ended his future political ambitions, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said repeatedly that he was not thinking about running for president in 2012, despite clear indications that he was working to build a national profile among conservatives.

But he admitted Thursday that his once busy itinerary was distracting him from his official duties as governor.

"My life before had become stupidly busy with all of my responsibilities - fundraising, speaking engagements across the country, a book deal," Sanford said in an interview with the Florence Morning News editorial board. "I haven't been this focused on my job in a long time because I don't have all those responsibilities anymore."

"I have my family and whatever's going to happen there," he continued. "And I have my job and whatever's going to happen there. You can drive yourself crazy sitting around thinking about 'the might have beens' of life. I'm here, because I think I can still make a difference."

(CNN) – A resolution of impeachment against Gov. Mark Sanford is likely to be introduced next week during a special session of the South Carolina legislature, but lawmakers said the governor's job is safe for the time being.

Republican state Rep. Greg Delleney told CNN his resolution lists three charges against Sanford: dereliction of duty for leaving the state to visit his mistress in Argentina in June; attempting to cover-up the scandal; and bringing "disgrace and shame and ridicule" on the state.

"If that is not serious misconduct in office, I don't know what is," Delleney said of Sanford's actions.

The one-day special session was not called to address the Sanford scandal, a point stressed by GOP leadership in both chambers. Instead, lawmakers are meeting to tweak a state law that will extend unemployment benefits for thousands of South Carolinians who began losing those payments over the weekend. The state has an unemployment rate of 11.5 percent.

But most Republicans in the legislature want the governor to resign and several are ready to begin the impeachment process, even as the results of a state Ethics Commission investigation into the governor's travel expenses are still pending.

Delleney said his goal is "to get the ball rolling" on impeachment in a committee before the legislative session officially begins in January, when he hopes the resolution can be quickly brought to the floor for a vote.

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(CNN) – A resolution of impeachment against Gov. Mark Sanford is likely to be introduced next week during a special session of the South Carolina legislature, but lawmakers said the governor's job is safe for the time being.

Republican state Rep. Greg Delleney told CNN his resolution lists three charges against Sanford: dereliction of duty for leaving the state to visit his mistress in Argentina in June; attempting to cover-up the scandal; and bringing "disgrace and shame and ridicule" on the state.

"If that is not serious misconduct in office, I don't know what is," Delleney said of Sanford's actions.

The one-day special session was not called to address the Sanford scandal, a point stressed by GOP leadership in both chambers. Instead, lawmakers are meeting to tweak a state law that will extend unemployment benefits for thousands of South Carolinians who began losing those payments over the weekend. The state has an unemployment rate of 11.5 percent.

But most Republicans in the legislature want the governor to resign and several are ready to begin the impeachment process, even as the results of a state Ethics Commission investigation into the governor's travel expenses are still pending.

Delleney said his goal is "to get the ball rolling" on impeachment in a committee before the legislative session officially begins in January, when he hopes the resolution can be quickly brought to the floor for a vote.

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(CNN) – South Carolina First Lady Jenny Sanford will make her first public appearance on Saturday since separating from her scandal-plagued husband and moving out of the governor's mansion in August.

An aide to the First Lady announced Thursday that Sanford will participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, a Charleston-area 5K run/walk to benefit breast cancer research.

The first lady has kept a low profile since her husband, Gov. Mark Sanford, revealed an extramarital affair in June. She gave an interview to the Associated Press shortly after the affair and was the subject of a glowing profile in Vogue Magazine last month, but has been otherwise silent. Sanford is also writing a memoir, set to be published in May 2010.

(CNN) – South Carolina First Lady Jenny Sanford will make her first public appearance on Saturday since separating from her scandal-plagued husband and moving out of the governor's mansion in August.

An aide to the First Lady announced Thursday that Sanford will participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, a Charleston-area 5K run/walk to benefit breast cancer research.

The first lady has kept a low profile since her husband, Gov. Mark Sanford, revealed an extramarital affair in June. She gave an interview to the Associated Press shortly after the affair and was the subject of a glowing profile in Vogue Magazine last month, but has been otherwise silent. Sanford is also writing a memoir, set to be published in May 2010.

(CNN) – Jenny Sanford, the estranged wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, is writing a book.

Sanford has sold the rights to her "inspirational memoir" to Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, the publisher told CNN Tuesday. The memoir is slated for release in May 2010.

Ballantine did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. Aside from a flattering interview with Vogue magazine, Sanford has remained mostly silent since June, when her husband publicly revealed an affair with an Argentine woman. In July, she and the couple's four boys moved out of the governor's mansion.

Gov. Sanford also had a deal to write a book about fiscal conservatism before the scandal short-circuited his political career. Sentinel Publishing was planning to publish "Within Our Means" in March 2010, but the company released Sanford from the deal in July, calling it "a mutual decision."

(CNN) - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he can feel Joe Wilson's pain.

Sanford on Thursday compared the scrutiny of Wilson - the Republican congressman who was formally reprimanded by the House of Representatives for shouting at President Obama - to the ongoing political war he has faced since revealing an extramarital affair in June. Sanford called it "the same dynamic."

"The guy apologized, and then you can have a bunch of other people come back and say, 'We want you to apologize again and again and again,'" Sanford told CN2 News in Rock Hill, South Carolina. "But what do people want out of federal representation? They want somebody representing them up in Congress."

"At some point in all of life, the question is not, 'When is someone going to make a mistake?', but 'When do the rest of us move on?,'" he said. "He apologized to the president. Does he have to issue 25 more apologies before folks will leave him alone?"

"Having seen some of this process a little up close and personal, my thought is it's time to move on," he concluded.

(CNN) – Just hours after Gov. Mark Sanford held a news conference Thursday to fight back against Republican legislators seeking his ouster, the South Carolina Republican Party dealt him another blow by formally calling for his resignation.

Two-thirds of the GOP's executive committee voted to call for the governor's resignation at the end of an hour-long conference call organized by state Republican Party Chairwoman Karen Floyd.

Floyd sent a letter to Sanford after the result was announced informing him of the vote.

It is a stinging rebuke for Sanford from the grassroots wing of the party that has long been his base of support. Members of the party's executive committee are volunteers elected by their fellow political activists - the kind of Republicans who make phone calls, stuff envelopes and knock on doors during election years.

While Sanford has sparred publicly over his two terms with state GOP lawmakers, who have also called for his resignation, the state's grassroots activists have been dependably in his corner.

The vote was also a formal change of course for the state party: Floyd convened a similar conference call in July after Sanford revealed his extramarital affair, which resulted in a vote to censure Sanford for "repeated failures to act in accordance" with the party's core principles and beliefs. But at the time, the party did not ask for the governor to step down.

Sanford's spokesman Ben Fox immediately released a statement following the vote insisting "that working South Carolinians are ready to move beyond this political circus and media-driven distraction." He thanked the committee members who voted against the measure.

"We'd also thank those on the committee and others across the state who've cautioned against a rush to political judgment that would ultimately overturn an election before all the facts and indeed the 'rest of the story' is laid out," Fox said.

(CNN) - Mark Sanford, South Carolina's embattled Republican governor, said Thursday that if an ongoing ethics investigation into his travel expenses is cut short by state lawmakers seeking to oust him, then he will use "every tool in the tool box" - including possible legal action to fight an increasingly likely bid to impeach him.

After a lawyer who joined Sanford at the governor's Thursday press conference in Columbia gave a four-minute legal briefing about the ethics investigation process and the powers of the South Carolina General Assembly, Sanford took aim at his political foes in the state legislature.

"We have a real problem if members of the General Assembly are going and trying to influence and truncate an ethics committee process so that they can get the intended result that they want and then use that for impeachment," he said. Sanford did not mention that several of his allies in the legislature signed onto a Wednesday letter asking him to resign.

Sanford told reporters that apparent efforts by some South Carolina lawmakers to obtain and use a preliminary report by a state ethics panel as the basis for impeachment would create a "kangaroo court."
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(CNN) – South Carolina Republican Party Chairwoman Karen Floyd is expected to seek a party resolution calling for Mark Sanford's resignation, a source familiar with plans for the call told CNN.

Floyd is expected to make the request on on a conference call Thursday afternoon with members of the state GOP executive committee. The call is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m.

The South Carolina Republican Party convened a similar conference call in July, which resulted in a vote to censure Sanford for "repeated failures to act in accordance" with the party's core principles and beliefs - but the party did not ask for Sanford to step down. At the time, Floyd issued a statement saying, "Now is the time for healing for our great state."

Thursday's conference call comes one day after 61 Republicans in the South Carolina House of Representatives wrote to Sanford demanding his resignation. But the governor has repeatedly rejected the onslaught of calls for him to resign, instead vowing to stay in office to fight for his fiscally conservative beliefs.

(CNN) – An overwhelming majority of Republicans in the South Carolina House of Representatives called on Gov. Mark Sanford to resign Wednesday, saying in a letter hand-delivered to his office that the governor's actions "have been destructive to our state's image on a worldwide stage."

Sixty of 72 Republicans endorsed the letter that was signed by House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham on behalf of House GOP leadership.

The letter has been in the works ever since House Republicans met in Myrtle Beach last month during their annual retreat. At that meeting, not a single member of the GOP caucus spoke in support of Sanford and at least one legislator provided an outline of possible impeachment charges against the governor.

"The general sense of the Caucus is that the people of South Carolina have suffered enough as a result of your recent actions and the current allegations against you," the members wrote to the governor, referring to his disappearance from the state in June and subsequent investigations into his travel expenses.

The 60 members calling for the governor's resignation include a coalition of Sanford critics and allies, along with several legislators who would play key roles in the impeachment process if the House decides to try to remove the governor when the legislative session begins in January.

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(CNN) - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford - facing a growing impeachment threat over his secret trip to Argentina in June - said Tuesday he's not preparing for a legal battle with state legislators who want to remove him from office.

"I'm not looking for a fight," Sanford said during a radio interview in Columbia, when asked if he's ready to hire lawyers to combat possible impeachment charges.

At the same time, the embattled governor acknowledged his fate rests in the hands of the state legislature, which by many accounts is set to begin the impeachment process when it re-convenes in January, pending the outcome of a state ethics panel investigation into Sanford's travel expenses.

Asked if he believes he committed any sort of impeachable offense during his time in office, Sanford said only: "Well, that's for the General Assembly to decide."

The governor, however, suggested that actions related to his June disappearance did not rise to the level of offenses committed by other state executives who have been impeached in the past.

"There have been eight governors impeached in the history of this nation," he said, describing the actions of those governors as "heinous."

"And so I would say there is certainly a world of difference between what happened in those instances and what happened here," he added.

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(CNN) – After remaining relatively quiet on the matter for more than two months, South Carolina's Speaker of the House is now calling for Gov. Mark Sanford to resign.

The Charleston Republican delivered a letter to Sanford on Tuesday telling him that his actions "have forced unnecessary suffering on the people of South Carolina."

Harrell leads 73 members of the House GOP caucus and now becomes the second-highest ranking elected official in the state to ask Sanford to step down. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer called for the governor to resign last month - a request Sanford quickly rejected.

"The daily trickle of allegations against you has shown that there is no end in sight to the constant distractions caused by you remaining in office," he wrote. Harrell said the governor is destined to be an unnecessary distraction when the state legislature re-convenes in January.

Several Republican members of the legislature favor impeaching the governor, but Harrell said he would avoid talking about possible impeachment charges until the State Ethics Commission concludes its recently-launched investigation into Sanford's travel expenses.

The House Speaker has clashed publicly with Sanford over the years, most recently over the governor's refusal to take $700 million in federal stimulus funds.

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(CNN) – An outspoken critic of Mark Sanford is accusing the embattled South Carolina governor of orchestrating a smear campaign against Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer.

Republican State Sen. Jake Knotts wrote to fellow members of the state legislature on Wednesday accusing Sanford and his allies of spreading rumors that Bauer is gay - a claim that was reported earlier this week by a blogger who seeks to out closeted conservative politicians.

"As a former target of a false rumor started by the Sanford Camp I can tell you with absolute certainty this attack was orchestrated on behalf of Mark Sanford, either directly or indirectly, and financially subsidized by him or one of his many 'front-groups,'" Knotts wrote. The letter was first reported by "The Palmetto Scoop," a South Carolina political Web site.

Knotts, an ally of Bauer and a fierce opponent of Sanford, said there is no truth to the gay rumors that have dogged Bauer for years.

"I have known Andre since he was eight years old," Knotts told CNN. "Ain't a homosexual bone in his body. That boy is a good boy. It's a just an attempt to prevent Andre from become governor."

Bauer publicly called on Sanford to resign last week, a request that was promptly rejected by the governor. Bauer is also planning to enter the crowded race to succeed Sanford next year. If Sanford resigns or is forced from office before his term expires, Bauer would assume the governorship, a move that would allow him to run as an incumbent in 2010. Bauer said if Sanford resigns within the next month, he would bow out of the governor's race.

Bauer himself addressed the gay rumors earlier this summer, telling The State newspaper: "One word, two letters. 'No.' Let's go ahead and dispel that now."

"It's an absolute effort by Sanford's people to discredit Andre," Knotts said of the rumors. "Sanford hates Andre so bad it's pitiful."

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(CNN) – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says that the state Ethics Commission probe into his travel expenses reminds him of the flood of ethics complaints filed against Sarah Palin before she resigned the Alaska governorship.

"I think I now know what Sarah may have been feeling," Sanford told The Washington Times in an interview published Wednesday.

Sanford called the complaints filed against Palin baseless, and indeed, most of the allegations against the onetime vice presidential candidate were dismissed by the Alaska Personnel Board.

But the Ethics Commission investigation into Sanford, which officially began last week, differs in substance and circumstance from the slew of ethics allegations that badgered Palin for much of the first half of 2009.

In Alaska, any individual citizen can file an ethics complaint against the governor – a scenario that allowed political critics in the state to deluge the governor's office with accusations. But in South Carolina, the state Ethics Commission probe was called for by multiple high-ranking elected officials in Sanford's own party, and the governor has agreed to make the proceedings of the probe open to the public.

When Palin resigned in July, she cited the burden of the legal fees as one reason for stepping down. Sanford has refused to resign – even with the possibility of impeachment on the horizon – and has gone on the offensive against the media and his critics over the last week.

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