South Carolina Governor Sanford Wants to Reconcile with First Lady

Gov. Mark Sanford says he still wants to reconcile with first lady Jenny Sanford. He says he did not watch the interview she did with Barbara Walters that aired Wednesday night.

"I mean the obvious is the obvious, which is I hurt her greatly, as I did many other people across this state," he says. "But I hurt her most greatly and so I don't begrudge her in any way for speaking out as she has. I think that she's been incredibly graceful in that process of dealing with a whole lot of pain that I've caused."

Sanford received international attention when he disappeared for several days in June, then returned to the state and announced he had been in Argentina to see a woman with whom he had been having an affair. Jenny Sanford and the boys are now living at the family's home on Sullivan's Island, having moved out of the governor's mansion during the summer.

Sanford says he visited his sons at their home Wednesday and was driving back to Columbia while the Barbara Walters special was on.

Sanford held a cabinet meeting Thursday morning, during which he and the agency heads that are part of his cabinet talked about state revenues, how federal health care legislation might impact the state budget and taxes, and the state's request to Homeland Security that South Carolina driver's licenses continue to be allowed to be used to get on airplanes and enter federal buildings under the federal Real ID law. He says it's his intent to move forward and finish the final year of his term strong. "We're very much back to the business at hand, which is where I think the people of South Carolina have wanted us to get for quite some time."

The cabinet meeting came the day after a House subcommittee voted not to recommend that Sanford be impeached. It did vote unanimously, though, to censure the governor. Despite the subcommittee's vote, the full House Judiciary Committee meets next Wednesday and it could still pass the impeachment resolution.

Committee chairman Jim Harrison says, “I would think that they would agree with us, but, as someone said in their final comments, reasonable people can disagree on this and we’ve got 25 reasonable people on the committee.”

Gov. Sanford says he'll have to wait to see what happens, but he does feel like impeachment is no longer hanging over his head. "I think that obviously yesterday was a very, very important hurdle day, because if you look at the typical legislative process, that which the subcommittee decides on the full committee generally acts on, as does the floor," he says.

If the full committee goes along with the subcommittee and votes against the impeachment resolution, that issue will be over. But the governor is still facing 37 ethics charges, which the State Ethics Commission will hold a hearing on in January. Sanford could be fined up to $74, 000 for the charges, which are about his use of state airplanes, his travel and his use of campaign funds.