Democrat Vida Miller’s “stand” with big-name liberals, against Sanford vetoes targeted in latest GOP radio ad
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 6, 2008
CONTACT: Tom Swatzel 843-222-7456
GEORGETOWN -- The Georgetown County Republican Party today started running a radio ad that targets both Democrat State Rep. Vida Miller's opposition to Governor Mark Sanford’s efforts to cut state spending, and the thousands of dollars in campaign contributions she has received from a number of nationally recognized liberal Democrats.
The ad states: “Who does liberal Democrat Vida Miller stand with? Not Governor Sanford. He vetoed nearly five hundred pork barrel earmarks to save taxpayers a quarter-billion dollars. Liberal big-spender Vida Miller opposed 95 percent of his vetoes. Vida Miller doesn't stand with taxpayers. But her campaigns got over four thousand dollars from big-name liberals: Joe Biden, John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt . . . And she stood with homosexual activists when she didn't vote for the marriage amendment. Vida Miller doesn't stand with my family.”
Click here to listen to ad
Georgetown County Republican Party chairman Tom Swatzel said, “It’s very clear that Vida Miller stands not with Mark Sanford in his efforts to cut wasteful spending and reform government, but with some of the most liberal big-name Democrats in the nation, all of whom support higher taxes and more spending, same-sex marriage, and abortion on demand.”
“Rep. Miller has sided with these extreme liberals and not with conservative Georgetown County values,” he said.
Three weeks ago, the county Republican Party started running a series of radio ads that targeted Miller's refusal in 2005 to support efforts in the General Assembly to put the Marriage Protection Amendment on the ballot and her refusal to support ratification of the amendment in 2007 even after 77% of her constituents voted in favor of the amendment.
According to House journals from 2004 to 2008, Miller voted to sustain Governor Mark Sanford's vetoes of excess government spending only 17 out of 473 times, consistently earning her "F" grades on S.C. Club for Growth's yearly report cards for not standing up for taxpayers.
Miller, according to her campaign finance disclosure forms, in 2003 received $1,000 contributions each from PACs controlled by Gephardt and Edwards, and $250 from Kerry’s PAC.
In 2004 she received $1,000 from Dean’s PAC, and in 2007 she received campaign contributions totaling $1,000 from Biden’s PAC.
An article published in the Washington Post on October 3, 2007 questioned the intent of contributions from Biden's PAC to state legislators who endorsed him for president, specifically mentioning Miller as an example of a legislator who benefited from a PAC contribution and then endorsed Biden on October 1, 2007.
According to the article, Miller received a $500 contribution earlier in 2007 from Unite Our States, the leadership PAC controlled by Biden. While it is not unusual for U.S. Senators to use their PACs to support state legislators, the article stated that it is unusual for those contributions to continue after someone has announced their candidacy for president.
After Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Miller then endorsed Edwards.
Miller faces Republican Jill Kelso for the House District 108 seat in November.
