South Carolina Soapbox

Charleston Post & Courier’s Yvonne Wenger reports that the governor’s office has removed the link from the executive website to a donation page embedded in Haley’s campaign Facebook account after the link was first pointed out in this post on SC Soapbox:

COLUMBIA — A link from Gov. Nikki Haley’s official executive website that connected online browsers to the donation section of Haley’s Facebook page has been deleted.

The link was removed in the days after Democratic blogger Laurin Manning — a former staffer for Haley’s gubernatorial challenger, state Sen. Vincent Sheheen — posted commentary about it on the blog South Carolina Soapbox.

Manning called the link a “flagrant violation” of state law. The official website for the office of governor should be kept completely separate from sites that solicit online campaign contributions, Manning said.

“It’s true that the ethics of social media usage in campaigns and governing is an area where most laws and regulations haven’t caught up with these rapidly changing communications tools, but isn’t it common sense that the accounts being run by a politician’s campaign apparatus should be kept entirely separate from the ones being run by an elected official’s office?” Manning opined.

Haley’s press secretary, Rob Godfrey, said the link was removed as part of an effort to create a more robust social media offering from the new governor. The changes are part of her transition into office, he said.

Rob also noted that the site is temporary, which is good news.  I would’ve been less critical of how anemic the current site is if there had been some indication on the site that it is, in fact, temporary.  I’m glad to hear that plans are in the works for a more robust website, and I look forward to checking it out when it launches.