Lobbyist in the Grand Strand and Charleston

When Congress passed a major water resources bill in September, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Henry Brown issued a news release applauding authorization of $76 million for key projects in the Grand Strand and Charleston.
Lobbyist Howard Marlowe wasn't mentioned in the news release, even though he'd spent more than two years helping to get the coastal projects into the water measure.
The anonymity doesn't bother Marlowe one bit.
"It's a lot of trench work, but we've got no complaints," Marlowe said. "It's what we're hired to do, and we're good at it."
Since 2005, North Myrtle Beach, Pawleys Island, Myrtle Beach and other Grand Strand communities have paid Marlowe nearly $187,000 to secure federal funds for beach-renourishment, ocean outfalls and stormwater drainage upgrades.
On a separate lobbying contract with prominent law firm Nelson, Mullins, Riley and Scarborough, Myrtle Beach alone has spent $320,000 since 2004 to get federal aid for its downtown redevelopment initiative.
Over a shorter period of time, Horry County has paid two other lobbyists, Don Fowler and John Napier, a total of $400,000 to obtain federal money to build a new terminal at the Myrtle Beach International Airport.
The council voted in September to extend the contracts of Fowler and Napier, at $13,000 per month. The lobbyists got the new contracts even though the airport expansion has stalled and the Federal Aviation Authority wants the county to return $7 million it had received for the new terminal.
Horry County Administrator Danny Knight said the two lobbyists did their job by helping the county obtain pledges of $43 million in federal aid for the airport expansion. It wasn't their fault, he said, that the city's Community Appearances Board rejected the project in April.
In recent years, a growing number of cities, towns, counties, universities and other public entities throughout South Carolina have joined the Grand Strand governments in hiring Washington lobbyists.
By the end of the year, dozens of taxpayer-funded local governments, agencies and other public entities around the state will have spent $3.5 million over 18 months on Washington lobbyists, based on interviews with 32 lobbyists and officials and an examination of more than 100 contracts and required disclosure reports.
That's enough to pay the salaries of 21 members of Congress - more than twice the size of the S.C. delegation.
Sen. Jim DeMint, a Greenville Republican, said this hidden army of lobbyists isn't needed.
DeMint blames public entities' increasing use of Washington lobbyists on a mad rush to get appropriations "earmarks" - money set aside by lawmakers for local projects.
"Towns that can't afford a new stoplight are spending thousands of dollars on lobbyists," DeMint said. "It's shameful that they feel they need to spend so much to come up here and try to get back some of their taxpayers' money."
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