Hayes happy with new job – ‘former senator from York County’

Just days after he narrowly lost his run for a seventh consecutive term in the S.C. Senate by 350 votes, Wes Hayes seems placid. Sitting in his Rock Hill law office, Hayes talks about how, after three decades in Columbia, he looks forward to practicing law “full time,” practicing alongside his son and looking forward to the birth of his first grandchild.

As much as he enjoyed being one of the most senior members of the Legislature, he says he has what he considers the “best job” now.

“It’s not such a bad thing to be the former senator from York County either,” Hayes said with a smile.

Hayes had just returned from a short “sine die” session at the Statehouse to finalize the state’s budget, convened the day after his primary loss. It was likely the last time Hayes will set foot in the chamber as a member, and his colleagues gave him a heartfelt sendoff.

“There were a number of speeches given to recognize him,” said Sen. Chauncey “Greg” Gregory, R-Lancaster, on what he called a “sad day” for the S.C. Senate. “He was always known to work hard for his constituents. A scroll a hundred yards long couldn’t hold what he’s done for York County.”

In that same shortened session, Hayes was on hand to see the Legislature pass long-stalled ethics reform measures that Hayes had long championed.

“On ethics, he set the bar,” said state Rep. Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill. “He said, ‘If you want to do something for me, pass ethics reform.’ ”

“It was a good way to go out,” Hayes said. “You hate to leave something you’ve worked on for so long undone, so to see it through to completion is a good feeling.”

It was a bittersweet moment at the same time, coming after a campaign in which the Senate’s consistent failure to pass an ethics bill was a talking point used against longtime members like Hayes. But the soon-to-be former senator waves off any disappointment in his belated achievement.

“Sometimes people lose sight,” he said. “It’s not about me, it’s about what’s best for York County and South Carolina.”

Operation Lost Trust and dark money

Hayes has a long history of working on ethics measures in Columbia. While still a member of the House, he became chairman of the ethics committee in the aftermath of 1990s Operation Lost Trust, a federal sting that resulted in corruption indictments against numerous legislators. At the time, Hayes had been a representative since 1985, and he was soon elevated to the Senate in a 1991 special election, where he helped pass the post-Lost Trust ethics reforms.

“We came up with probably the toughest ethics law in the country,” Hayes said, empowering the House and Senate ethics committees to initiate action against members on their own without an outside complaint being filed.

“Almost all the actions in the Senate are initiated by the ethics committee themselves,” he said, citing the cases of two senators who wound up in hot water. “Jake Knotts and Robert Ford, those wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t changed the rules.”

The new legislation will allow an independent ethics commission to investigate unethical members, while still referring cases to their respective chamber’s ethics committee. Another bill requires legislators to disclose the sources of their personal income for the first time.

But next year, Hayes hopes the Legislature will take up “the third leg of the stool” of ethics reform, and require outside spending groups to report the sources of “dark money” used to influence the state’s election campaigns.

“I think the battle will begin in January on that,” he said, “and hopefully next year they will be able to tighten controls on what are called ‘committees’ under the law.”

Hayes thought South Carolina had dealt with the issue when he first starting looking into ethics reform, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision expanded the range of spending allowed by outside groups.

“After Operation Lost Trust, we had it where committees had to report where they got their money, how they spent their money, etc.,” he said. “But the federal decision basically made that unconstitutional.”

During the campaign, Hayes found himself the target of advertising paid for by similar political action committees, such as the Great Day SC PAC affiliated with Gov. Nikki Haley and the Club for Growth.

Since Citizens United, most other states have found ways to monitor election spending within the bounds of the Supreme Court ruling, Hayes said. “So I think we know what needs to be done.”

Develop that kind of knowledge

Ethics was only one of a long list of items Hayes fondly recalls working to solve in the Legislature. As the senator for the Catawba Indian Nation, he helped resolve a long-standing land claim the tribe was pursuing against the state and the U.S. government in the early 1990s.

“We ended up with them being the only federally recognized tribe in South Carolina,” Hayes says of the Catawba Indian Nation, “but also allowed growth to continue in this area. Most of my Senate district is in the claim area, and a lot of people were unable to get title insurance and were getting ready to have a lawsuit hanging over their heads.”

Hayes also pushed to allow counties to adopt their own sales tax to address local infrastructure needs, which eventually led to York County’s long-running “Pennies for Progress” program.

“He initiated that. It was a completely new concept, and he convinced the Legislature to go along,” Gregory said. “That’s why York County has some of the best roads of any county in the state.”

“We were the first to do it, and now there’s 15 counties in the state that have that,” Hayes said. “I think it’s helped us with our roads and infrastructure in York County, and that’s one reason we’ve seen the growth and the jobs to support it.”

One item Hayes feels he’s left undone is education reform stemming from the S.C. Supreme Court’s decision that the state hasn’t adequately funded poorer school districts. Hayes had chaired a Senate committee studying the issue, and says the Legislature has taken action to address the problem.

“We’ve tried to improve the quality of teachers with rural teacher incentives,” he said. “A lot of those districts just don’t have the tax base to deal with buildings and infrastructure that they need. They get help from the state with operations, but they have to look to the local tax base to pay for their buildings, so we’re trying to set up a new statewide infrastructure program to help those poor districts.”

“Education was always at the top of his list,” said Norman, who jokes that his alliance with Hayes goes back to when they were in fourth grade together. “That was his focus even when he chaired banking and finance.”

Colleagues say Hayes’ experience and knowledge of the state’s problems will be sorely missed.

“He was the moral compass of the Senate,” said Sen. Creighton Coleman, D-Winnsboro, a classmate of Hayes at USC Law School. “He always does the right thing. He has a very level mind, doesn’t get emotional, even when people disagree with him.

“You can’t fill his shoes, because it takes time to develop that kind of knowledge,” said Coleman, who faces a June 28 primary runoff for re-election in District 17. “I hope the state isn’t hurt by it.”

While voters may have felt Hayes had been in Columbia too long, local legislators counted his connections there as an asset.

“He’s gotten a lot of criticism for his relationship with Hugh Leatherman, the chairman of the finance committee,” Gregory said. “But I don’t hear Winthrop complaining about it. There hasn’t been anything done on that campus in two decades that he didn’t have a hand in.”

While his political career didn’t end the way he wanted it to, Hayes said it doesn’t discourage him when considering the benefits that political service can bring.

“We need to do everything we can to get good people to run for office,” Hayes said. “It’s a tough thing to do. It’s tough on your family, so I have all the admiration in the world for people who put themselves forward.

“It is difficult to get things done. It’s a glacial pace in Columbia, and Washington for that matter. But at least for me, enough good happens to keep me coming back.”

This story was originally published June 18, 2016 at 9:59 PM with the headline "Hayes happy with new job – ‘former senator from York County’."