High School Student Sues Governor Over Stimulus Money
I found this bit of news quite interesting.
At this point, most 18-year olds would be coasting through their last weeks in high school.
But Casey Edwards is taking Governor Mark Sanford all the way to the state Supreme Court over the governor’s refusal to accept federal stimulus money – some $700 million in aid for South Carolina’s schools.
“The fact that we’re going to turn down money when we desperately need it, really bothered me,” Edwards said.
Over the past year, Edwards and her friends have been working to improve impoverished schools along South Carolina’s I-95 – a stretch of rural districts known as the Corridor of Shame, reports CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor.
She was inspired by a documentary about the condition of the schools, and decided to help. The recipient of her work was East Elementary in Dillon, South Carolina. 93 percent of the children in the shool live below the poverty line.
“She raised 10 grand, took it over to that school two hours from here and gave it to them for Christmas,” Ferillo said.
“It was like an answer to a prayer,” said Bobbie Walters, the principal of East Elementary.
The school used the money to purchase a copier, an important piece of equipment to a school that can’t afford new books.
“I saw classrooms that are unsafe, that are unhealthy, sewage backing up in hallways, crumbling paint, ceilings that were falling in,” [documentary filmmaker] Ferillo said.
That’s why Edwards is challenging the governor, a fiscal conservative, who says he would accept the federal stimulus money, only if the legislature used it to pay down state debt.
In a statement, the governor told CBS News he’s “looking out for school children who will be forced to pay back the so-called stimulus bill.”
It’s an argument Edwards doesn’t buy.
“When the federal government is offering money to our state, I didn’t understand why we were going to turn that down,” Edwards said.
South Carolina’s legislature has voted to accept the money, but the governor is expected to veto the bill.
“If the governor turns down the request for money for education, I will take this case back to the Supreme Court,” Edwards said.
The governor has until midnight Tuesday to decide.
I bet I know what happened when Governor Sanford got wind of this little story.
He stomped around for a while wringing his hands, and called his spokesman to put out a press release. It was all about frivolous litigation, and accused the young woman of trying to sabotage him, and rack up legal bills for the state. He called the suit bogus, and asinine, and published it on the State of South Carolina website.
Blogs friendly to governor Sanford then pointed out that this woman was probably jealous of the governor because he has really good hair, and a nice car, and came to the conclusion that she was probably a paid operative of the Democratic Party just to make Sanford look bad and try to ruin any chance he had at winning the 2012 Republican nomination. As a matter of fact, they mused, this probably came all the way from Obama, because surely no 18-year old would just come up with something like this all by herself.
The local conservative radio station starts spewing the governor’s talking points on a daily basis: If the kids in those schools don’t like the crumbling paint, then hold a bake sale or something. Don’t like the sewage in the hallways? There’s a thing called “a mop“. Don’t whine and blame the governor just because he’s trying to be sure that some day the children of these students aren’t still paying for indoor plumbing in public schools. That’s what church groups ought to be doing. Why is everyone picking on him anyway? Nobody would be doing this if he was anybody but Mark Sanford. They’re all just a bunch of lazy, socialist whiners looking for a handout. These kids are what’s wrong with America.
You’re looking at me funny. Well….that’s what would have happened in Alaska.
Too bad he doesn’t understand the strings attached. The funds are a one time thing and require the state to rewrite its laws, expanding coverage on several programs. Then when the money is gone the State is stuck, theoretically forever, with an expanded unfunded program.
Any governor who pauses or rejects these funds should be called a hero.
I hope this gets more news coverage and I hope someone in AK makes a squawk, also too.
Lee323
“How in the heck can kids even learn in such an environment as this??”
They do learn. They learn what this country thinks of them, at a very early age.
What other Community Organizer do we know?
Humm.
You go for it Casey, this contry needs young adults that care.
Its the Empathy thing and out President endorses it, and you’ve got it.
American exceptionalism.
If Sanford were less concerned about tax cuts for his rich campaign contributors, and more concerned about education, he would be open to criticism of being “just like the French”.
We can be sure that French schoolchildren are pretty happy that their government is not just like “Les Americains”.
The argument that these governors are protecting our children by not putting them deeper in debt is one that only the brain dead could believe. The stimulus money is borrowed money. Every dollar of that money is going to be spent. If South Carolina (or Alaska) rejects the money, it will be spent in a different state. The children of South Carolina and Alaska will still have to pay it back, they just won’t get the benefit of that spending. The decision to borrow the money to stimulate the economy has already been made. The only remaining question is whether to use that money in Alaska and South Carolina, or send those state’s share to other states.
Fiscal myopic….best. description. ever.
Sewage in the schools, and there is even a question of whether or not the state should take the money and spend it as intended?! Forget sueing him, IMPEACH him! RECALL him!
You go Casey! You have the support of everyone in the THINKING world!
Another excellent post, as always, AKM. I am with Lee323 on this. It’s a crying shame that kids in our country have to go to schools like that. We (American society) love to tout our exceptionalism while ignoring the abject poverty that many of our youth face.
The irony of the poorest red states calling the feds socialist has always weighed heavily on me, too. I used to work as a day treatment counselor for kids who had been ordered by the court to attend our program or go to juvie. The kids came into life with the deck stacked against them, and the system didn’t make it any easier for them to advance. I had one kid who was fourteen and couldn’t read. His teachers just kept passing him from grade to grade.
If we (American society) truly care about our kids, then it’s time to put our money where our mouth is.
Like HonestyinGov, my first thought was that you were referring to our Alaska Gov.
I wish Casey Edwards the best. She’s definitely a young woman who’s putting a lot of effort and money where her mouth is, which is a lesson many of us adults could learn from.
@ Lee323 You are so right. We need our kids to think they are important, their education is important, and that things can change.
@ #14 Mona Lisa IS MY NAME! thanks for the phrase “fiscal myopic.” It’s a much more concise way of saying “penny wise and pound foolish” which is also my observation about some self-proclaimed “fiscal conservatives.” What amazes me is how often voters will fall for the spin by some politician who says they saved all kinds of taxpayer dollars by cutting things out of the budget like maintenance of roads and public buildings, never realizing just how many more taxpayer dollars it’s going to cost later to rebuild that improperly maintained infrastructure.
We need to develop some critical thinking skills and some patience, stop focusing on short-term things like quarterly earnings and start thinking about where we want to be in five, twenty, fifty, and a hundred years from now and electing leaders that will do the same. That leaves Sanford and Palin out.
HA HA watched that clip-She lost me in that garbled rhetoric. I thought the clip was going to be about her Grand Rapids Michigan visit. Where she gave the answer:What are you trying to do, stump the candidate. You just can’t say it enough, she’s a total embarrassment to Alaska. As for McCain picking her, I think he felt a stir in his pants. Speaking of McCain, surprised to read that he addressed the NRA, in Phoenix. He never comes to Phoenix, unless it’s to check up on his money supply.
AKM, you expose the irony succinctly as usual.
This type of rhetoric, this type of hype on fiscal conservatism as a vanguard to our children’s future is what galls me on behalf of vulnerable populations. Every state has them, but Alaska and many southern states are lousy with them.
What I fervently hoped to be exposed during Palin’s unblinking quest for world power – this so called “Energy Expert” had dozens of poverty-level villages without appropriate energy sources who were paying through the nose for stove oil at peak prices. In the ARCTIC.
People were siphoning gas and oil out of their neighbors tanks in the dead of sub-zero night. People were doubling/tripling up in 80’s era pre-fab homes or worse. Schools were cutting aides and teachers to keep the light and heat on during the day and trying to provide nutritious meals for all the children.
Want to see the energy expert at work? Here’s an example of her mastering the energy issue after two years on the Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (of which she had NO qualifications – sound familiar? Thank you Frank.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvUsdmqGYV8
When Governor Palin took helm in 2006, 34% of Alaska Native villages still did not have modern water and sewer services. As a person who grew up with no indoor plumbing and still experiences it in many of Western villages – I seized on Obama joking that he had to get up to Alaska since it was the last on his list of States visited. Footage of him hauling a honey bucket to the sewage lagoon would have exposed much of Alaska’s third world living conditions and embarrassed the Governor and the oil rich State that rests on its laurels when it concerns villages over the last 50 years.
Granted, building infrastructure takes time and an enormous amount of financing (that’s why our Delegation had to fight for earmarks so unapologetically) – but this country made a promise to Alaska when we rammed Statehood into being, we have a right to pursue the American dream – and in this case, it still means something as simple as running water.
What do you look for in life to be a leader? What inspires you? The ability to say “suck it up” when disaster strikes? Don’t count on government, we are not the answer? Corporate America, Wall Street, big and small business and mega churches know better?
At least Sarah’s never run on the “compassionate conservative” moniker, because those cookies from Jesus was an entirely appropriate response to the food or fuel dilemma.
Good luck Casey, you have a lot more cajones than the adults around you.
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@Shadow’s Heart
May 18th, 2009 at 3:47 AM
Yeah! It’s one of those glaring FACTS that the media never seem to bring up. But neither do the Dems.
It’s so much more fun to sling mud, I guess.
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@Cosanostradamus Great minds think alike. LOL Though you beat me to the punch. And probably stated it much better also too.
The only problem with the socialist meme is that South Carolina is a socialist state. They get more back from the government then they pay in income taxes. And in MHO that’s the crux of the whole situation, better educated children and adults for that matter make better tax payers which in turns generates higher tax brackets which puts more money in the hands of the government and decreases the amount that SC would receive. After all a $20 per hour job creates more income taxes then a minimum wage job does. The same goes for the extended unemployment which you still have to pay income tax on so why would he be for it. Less people getting it less income tax paid more money for the state. So it’s really just the greed of the Governor making sure his state will still rake in the bucks at the end of the day. He doesn’t give a rats behind about the future generations and if he doesn’t care about the children and people in his own state just think what he would do if he ever made it to the WH. But don’t worry he would pray for us all.
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Thank GAWD for the Republican Party!
Who else would take such a risky stand and protect us from scourges like “TRAHL LOYAHS!!! TRAHL LOYAHS!!! TRAHL LOYAHS!!!”
And, you know, teenaged girls…
Is it any wonder that the reddest States are also the poorest? But they are also the big winners in tax dollars gotten back in Federal spending: They all get WAY more tax money back than they pay in. Yet they’re still the worst in infant mortality, life expectancy, education, etc.
Kinda makes you wonder how people can vote for a Party that just doesn’t work, at all.
Oh, yeah, that last in education thing. Guess that’s no accident, then…
Here’s what they were up to this weekend in Indiana. Check out that LOON Alan Keyes. Funny! Sad. Scary!
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Hooray for Casey Edwards! and hooray for Lee323 – you always say the things I want to say, but so much better! your passion is inspiring. Upthread, Mona Lisa IS MY NAME called these guys “fiscal myopics,” what an apt turn of phrase. We’ll all be watching to see how Sanford responds and whether the MSM picks up on this story.
I’ll bet Casey Edwards won’t have any trouble finding a lawyer to represent her in her lawsuit pro bono.
Stimulus or no stimulus……it’s an outrage of unbelievable proportions that any children in this bloated wealthy country of ours have to go to school where sewage is backed up in the halls, paint is crumbling, ceilings are falling in….
How in the heck can kids even learn in such an environment as this??
I’ll tell you what those kids will learn…..That they are not important; that schools are not important; that education is a dead-end; that things will never change….
“93 percent of the children in the school live below the poverty line.” …These are the most “at-risk” kind of children who will go on to perpetuate the cycle of poverty and ignorance that is WAY more costly to this country than the proper appropriations to fund their schools! The dunderheaded “fiscal conservatives” like Sanford and Palin simply cannot get this basic economic fact through their thick, fat skulls.
Shame on Sanford! Shame on the state legislature! Shame on anyone who has the power to help these schools but doesn’t!
4 the problem child Says:
May 17th, 2009 at 6:19 PM
Haven’t beaten ;pvazwindy to a first post in a while…
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ I was enjoying a bunch of crispy red grapes. Not in lurk mode as I didn’t think AKM would post this late. Gotta tell ya they were sooooooo good. But a tip of the hat to you problem child. Surely, Alaska has students like Casey Edwards. Isn’t this exactly what Pres. Obama’s, message extolls. Give back and do what’s right for your fellow man.
Sauerkraut …. missed it. It is unbelievable. The FBI has moved in. It was nice of them to send all the juvies to my county and now those idiots are going to jail too. It is unbelievable that those people made millions on the backs of poor kids.
Good job Casey! It is great to see the young people taking and stand and not just taking it! GiNO do you see this???
And every television reporter and print reporter/photog team should be taking photos and plastering it in every media outlet they have access too. If Casey and her compatriots are stonewalled, they need to take the ‘worst’ photos showing the more egregious situations and turn them into flyers, pack up a busload of kids and head off to visit the legislators with lots of media coverage of the trip.As they walk the halls and descend on the Gov’s office they need to hand those flyers out to everyone they meet. For a little guerrilla work…they can post the flyers on the telephone poles (just like band announcements). They need to put videos up on youtube, vimeo and send them to Keith O and Rachel. And finally, they need to set up a free blogger or wordpress blog, imbed those videos and send links and messages to Daily Kos, HuffPo *and* to the conservatives. Nothing like pictures to put things in perspective.
redwoodmuse
Funny you would point that out, SameOld… did you catch last night’s episode of Law & Order? Grabbed from the headlines of Luzerne County, you betcha. Also. Too.
How long before Law & Order does a segment that includes Casey Edwards’ lawsuit? Hope they don’t kill her off. …
#
16
sauerkraut Says:
May 17th, 2009 at 7:37 PM
good for casey edwards in standing up for education in his state. wonder if anyone in pennsyltucky is possessed of the same type of courage?
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Only if they get a slots permit or want a job in Lucerne Co. (cause everyone else there is in or going to prison …. they were even selling jobs in the school system).
Gino, are you listening???
Good for her!
I wonder how that guv’ner is (actually) going to react…
HonestyinGov: GINO may realize that somebody else might have the same idea now ( in AK) and she NOW has a BIG decision to make.
We can hope this is so……
SeattleFan: “I applaud Casey Edwards for what she is doing and what she stands for. What a glorious example of our youth and future leadership.
Ditto……and I really am not anti-bake sales, really, just wasn’t thinking it was the solution to the huge needs….. :-I
Oh my! I just want to clarify that the quote
“they’re all just a bunch of lazy, socialist whiners looking for a handout. These kids are what’s wrong with America.”
was not one of AKM’s, just her read on what they are saying. Wanted to make that clear!!!
here in pennsyltucky, the state legislature wants to tap into the stimulus money intended for public education and use those funds to balance the budget. meanwhile, that very same legislature has over $200 million in slush money in their caucus coffers.
good for casey edwards in standing up for education in his state. wonder if anyone in pennsyltucky is possessed of the same type of courage?
First of all I applaud Casey Edwards for what she is doing and what she stands for. What a glorious example of our youth and future leadership.
Secondly, I want to say that, sadly, AKM is right in her last paragraph. The extreme right will take this and run with it. They will go to their “go to” answer for these issues.
“they’re all just a bunch of lazy, socialist whiners looking for a handout. These kids are what’s wrong with America.”
I’ve heard this argument before and I am not lost on the fact that this is code for something else we all know exists.
Kudos to Casey and her team. I will be watching to see what happens and am also sending emails to the appropriate people on both sides to give my support and thoughts.
Tina in Tennessee Says: May 17th, 2009 at 6:14 PM “It’s ironic that he wanted to mortgage the kids’ futures to pay down his current state’s debt, but it was a different thing if the money was used for schools.”
EXACTLY! He has no problem mortgaging their future, he’d just rather do it without investing in the only thing that will ensure they have the best possible ability to HANDLE what the future will bring!
He’s a fiscal myopic.
I tip my hat to Casey Edwards. She had the gumption to do what most adults in her state should have done: insisted that South Carolina’s administration fix school buildings that are unfit for occupancy.
Perhaps she’s a Southern mudpup, a seldom seen subspecies 🙂
Long-time lurker, first comment. Couldn’t let my insane governor’s actions go by without a comment. In fact, Sanford called the challenge a “politically-driven press spectacle … rather than a suit with any actual merit.”
Sound familiar? I swear, they all went to the same lobotomist.
#8 honestyinGov Says:
May 17th, 2009 at 6:40 PM
This might be even better though… because GINO may realize that somebody else might have the same idea now ( in AK) and she NOW has a BIG decision to make.
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No worries anymore for GINO. She’s got the AK Fund Trust. Though, she may be wondering how to get around the ethics law and amend the trust to allow bigger maximum contributions.
Do these people have no shame at all?!? (Sanford, et. al.)
Palin, Perry and Sanford. Three peas in a pod.
What a great story! It’s so encouraging that a student would stand up to the system and find an attorney to help. If Sanford does use the veto, I hope the lawsuit gets huge media coverage and exposes all his nonsense. He sounds suspiciously like Palin….er, rather, Palin sounds like him.
OMG !! AKM… You can’t put a Headline like ‘T H A T ‘ on your webpage..?
My immediate thought was you referred to your favorite Gov here.
This might be even better though… because GINO may realize that somebody else might have the same idea now ( in AK) and she NOW has a BIG decision to make.
Will she be calling Mr. Evans to ask for His opinion…? Oh… that’s right… Meg Stapletongue announced on ADN that he doesn’t work for GINO. (or does He)
Somebody has to ‘ blink ‘ though.
Maybe current gov-logic is getting spread around, perish the thought.
I love this part….”If the kids in those schools don’t like the crumbling paint, then hold a bake sale or something. Don’t like the sewage in the hallways? There’s a thing called “a mop“.” and then,… “paying for indoor plumbing in public schools. That’s what church groups ought to be doing.” IS that what Wasilla church groups do, to pay for various buildings and upgrades? …….no, don’t think so; that first part about kids holding a bake sale if they don’t like the crumbling paint ~~ ha…….like we need more baked goods.
You go girl.Thats what we need smart young people just looking around and seeing what is happening.It would be great to see this young lady kick that morans butt!!.
That’s a profound way to make a statement. 😀
Yes AKM, Sadly enough, that’s exactly how Sarah would react (and HAS reacted).
God forbid the government should put our tax money toward adequately funding education in this country. It only makes for more of them “liberal activist types” who want to start takin’ care of basic social needs for citizens and such like that, also.
I saw the story when it broke , and the young lady’s lawyer was on tv and was really a straight forward man. He was very clear on how serious the girl is on this matter. I was really impressed.
It’s ironic that he wanted to mortgage the kids’ futures to pay down his current state’s debt, but it was a different thing if the money was used for schools.