STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 23.38 | Sept. 20, 2024
BIG STORY: GOP’S Inglis on endorsement of Harris
MORE NEWS: Measles case shows importance of vaccinations
LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Parking spots
COMMENTARY, Brack: Have confidence in state’s elections
SPOTLIGHT: SC Clips
MYSTERY PHOTO: Old church
FEEDBACK: Agree with column on executions
GOP’S Inglis calls response to Harris endorsement ‘mostly positive’
By Jack O’Toole, Capitol bureau | When former six-term S.C. Republican Congressman Bob Inglis endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in an exclusive Sept. 16 interview with the Charleston City Paper, he had no idea it would turn into a major national news story, with coverage on CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post website and more.
But he thinks he knows why it did.
“The reason it’s gotten attention is because actual conservatives, actual Republicans who really have experienced Trumpism are coming forward to say this is not true north, this is the wrong direction,” Inglis told the City Paper’s sister publication Statehouse Report in a followup interview Thursday. “That’s a powerful moment.”
Inglis, who represented Greenville’s 4th congressional district from 1993-99 and again from 2005-11, is the first major Palmetto State GOP leader to publicly endorse Harris. And he says the response from his fellow Republicans so far has been mixed but “mostly positive.”
“The negative is what you’d expect: I’m a RINO,” Inglis said, using the acronym for Republican In Name Only. “But some unexpected folks have said ‘thank you, Bob.’ So that’s the positive: ‘Oh, finally, a real Republican.’”
The endorsement that went viral
“Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the republic,” Inglis told the City Paper on Sept. 16. “He’s disqualified based on character and rationality, so I’ll be voting for Kamala Harris.”
Continuing, the former GOP congressman pulled no punches with regard to the former president’s character, calling him a narcissist who’s “completely consumed with himself.”
“I feel sorry for him,” Inglis said. “He’s really quite a sick puppy. He needs some help.”
And Inglis had a warning for Republicans who understand Trump’s flaws but see him as preferable to a Democrat.
“He’s been unfaithful to three wives,” Inglis said. “Why would we, at the altar with him as the fourth, think that he’s going to be faithful to us? Talk about irrationality.”
Inglis sees Trump as a symptom of a larger problem bedeviling the GOP — what he describes as a Fox News-fed refusal to see the world as it is. In fact, it was that concern that eventually led him to become the executive director of RepublicEN.org, a conservative nonprofit that acknowledges the evidence of climate change and promotes market-based solutions to address it.
Restoring rationality
“My party needs to restore its rationality to be the credible free enterprise, small government party again,” he said.
And that, Inglis makes clear, is his ultimate goal in endorsing Harris. He wants to see the party return to what he sees as its rational Reaganite roots on core conservative issues like immigration, free trade and limited government.
“If Donald Trump loses, that would be a good thing for the Republican Party,” Inglis said. “Because then we could have a Republican rethink and get a correction.”
Inglis isn’t alone in hoping for a Republican rethink after the election. And more importantly, he isn’t the only prominent member of the GOP who’s prepared to endorse Harris to get one.
The Republicans for Harris movement that started last month has snagged an unprecedented number of high-profile GOP endorsements, political observers tell the City Paper. And the group only seems to be gaining momentum, with hundreds of new endorsers in the past two weeks alone, including former GOP Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and famed conservative columnist George Will— in addition to 17 Reagan administration officials and more than 200 presidential campaign staffers of George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
For its part, the Trump campaign has dismissed the effort as irrelevant.
“President Trump is building the largest, most diverse political movement in history because his winning message of putting America first again resonates with Americans of all backgrounds,” Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told NPR. “Kamala Harris is weak, failed, and dangerously liberal and a vote for her is a vote for higher taxes, inflation, open borders, and war.”
A growing split
But political scientists say the Harris endorsements reflect a real and growing split between the conservative Reaganites who built the modern Republican Party and the Trump faction that’s now in charge.
“The people making these endorsements represent the party before Donald Trump took it over,” College of Charleston political scientist Karyn Amira said. “And at their core, they just don’t agree with Trump’s more authoritarian, populist style of conservatism.”
Specifically, Amira says, these GOP leaders object to what they see as Trump’s betrayal of traditional conservative beliefs on one issue after another, from tariffs to abortion to the size and scope of government – a situation that Trump’s selection of U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate only exacerbated.
“When he picked Vance, he was picking a protege, someone who personifies the complete 180 he’s caused in the party,” Amira said. “Choosing Vance was a signal to everyone, including older Republicans, that ‘when I’m gone, this is what my legacy will be,’ and that didn’t help in easing anyone’s mind about the future.”
Scott Huffmon, a political science professor and director of the Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at Winthrop University, traces the roots of the split back to the latter days of the Trump administration.
“The first few pebbles of this avalanche really started close to the end of his presidency,” Huffmon said in an interview. “That’s when we saw more people from the Republican party start to speak out negatively against him.”
Nevertheless, Huffmon says he doesn’t expect the impact of the recent endorsements to reach beyond what’s left of the more traditional Republican base.
“If you are not a MAGA supporter, you are seen as and called a RINO,” he said. “For Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney, who are so far to the right, to be called RINOs by folks today says a lot about the evolution of the party, and how it has come to be centered around the orbit of Donald Trump.”
At home on his small farm Upstate, Inglis doesn’t disagree. But he knows he doesn’t need every Republican, or even most Republicans, to reject Trump. He just needs a relative handful in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Or as Inglis put it to the City Paper, “Hopefully enough to save the republic from a dangerous second Trump term.”
- Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Measles case shows need for vaccines, officials say
By Jack O’Toole, Capitol bureau | With the fall flu and Covid-19 season just around the corner, a recently confirmed case of measles in the Upstate of South Carolina highlights the importance of vaccinations, according to the S.C. Department of Public Health (DPH).
“It is proven that the best way to prevent measles is by vaccination,” DPH epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell said in a Sept. 19 statement. “I strongly encourage that everyone makes sure that they stay up to date with all recommended vaccinations.”
Measles is a life-threatening virus that spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. DPH learned of the potential case on Sept. 12, when the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) notified state health officials that a potential exposure had taken place on an international flight. Subsequent tracking and testing confirmed the diagnosis on Sept. 16.
The news comes on the heels of earlier DPH efforts to encourage vaccination during August’s National Immunization Awareness Month, when state health officials strongly advised residents to follow their doctors’ recommendations regarding pediatric and adult vaccinations.
“As important as vaccines are for children, adults benefit from vaccines as well,” the DPH said August 19. “Many adult vaccines are recommended at certain ages or for certain risk groups, so we recommend checking with your healthcare provider to determine which vaccines are right for you.”
Currently, the CDC recommends Americans six months and older get Covid-19 and influenza vaccinations for 2024-25 to protect against the latest strains. For a full list of recommendations, including childhood immunization schedules, visit the CDC website.
In other recent news
S.C. prepares for first execution in 13 years. South Carolina is set to execute its first inmate in 13 years after an unintended pause because the state could not obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.
Pendarvis resigns S.C. House amid legal troubles. State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis, D-Charleston, has resigned from the South Carolina House of Representatives, according to House Speaker Murrell Smith’s office.
21 juveniles charged with making school threats in S.C. The charges are part of an investigation into more than 60 threats against schools since a mass shooting that killed four.
USC student event featuring Proud Boys founder draws small protests, no violence. The profanity-laden event, billed as a “roast” of Vice President Kamala Harris, featured remarks questioning her racial heritage and crass sexual comments about her rise in political office.
S.C. weapons violations rising, new stats show. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division released its 2023 report on state crime statistics Tuesday, and the data shows a continuing trend of rising weapons violations.
S.C. prepares for November with new ballot scanners, court incentives for poll workers. All of South Carolina’s ballot-counting machines are being replaced with new, faster versions ahead of the November elections.
ActBlue platform says Wilson trying to discredit it. Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue says S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson’s allegations of fraud are false and part of a campaign to discredit it.
Weaver announces partnership with conservative media organization. S.C. Superintendent Ellen Weaver announced Monday afternoon that the Palmetto State has adopted PragerU as an educational partner. PragerU has previously generated controversy through its provocative educational videos.
Rent costs more in S.C., 20 other states. A majority of tenant households in South Carolina is spending 30% or more of their income on rent and utilities, according to fresh data.
Parking spots
Nationally award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail always has an interesting take. This week, he takes on beach parking woes at Isle of Palms.
- What do you think … love it or hate it? Did he go too far, or not far enough? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Have confidence in state’s elections
By Andy Brack | The question you should ask whenever you hear elected officials squawking about “rigged elections” is this: “So that means the election that put you in office was rigged, right?”
Of course, their elections weren’t rigged. And in South Carolina, they point to no specific election that was rigged – other than the one that former President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim was stolen. Everyone else’s elections? They were just fine. Which should make you question Trump’s claims.
Way too many gullible people get outrageous notions of rigged elections from being hopped up on Russian-backed internet propaganda, myths, old-wives tales, rumors, outlandish conspiracy theories and fake news developed by un-American cynics who want to stir up trouble.
Across the nation, countless audits of state and county election processes after the 2020 election consistently showed one thing: America’s elections are conducted professionally, transparently and with real accountability.
And while there may be an issue here or a problem there during the closely-monitored elections, most tiny snafus are because people – not machines – screwed something up, as explained by Howie Knapp, executive director of the S.C. Election Commission.
“We conducted audits of the [2020] election, and every county publicly tested their machines at the time,” Knapp said. “It was as perfect an election as we could have gotten under the circumstances that we had in November 2020.”
There’s no corruption in elections in South Carolina, he told us this week emphatically, elaborating with this: “If there are issues with the system, it’s incompetence. For an election to be rigged in this state – I’m not including municipal elections –everybody from myself and my commission to the poll managers would have to be on the same page.
“We’d [have to] be tighter than the mafia,” he said. “If people think that is possible, they’re giving the government way too much credit.”
Repeat: No corruption. No collusion. No rigging. No voter fraud.
But occasionally in anything in which 2.4 million people do something on the same day, there will be small problems.
“We have poll managers, you know, turning away voters because, for whatever reason, their name didn’t come up on the electronic poll book, or just not doing procedures correctly. And that comes from a lack of training.”
So it’s people problems, not machine problems.
“We’ve had a lot of turnover with county directors and poll managers and poll workers around the state,” he said.
Since 2021, the state has lost 80% of its county elections directors,” which Knapp said concerns him.
“If people are skeptical and they don’t have an agenda other than just finding out the truth, we encourage them to volunteer as poll managers so they can see firsthand what the system is about,” he said. “We’re not hiding anything.
“We’re doing everything we can, from testing it on the front end, getting people trained who are skeptical and auditing the results. I mean, there’s nothing else we can do besides telling people what we’re doing. … We’re being as transparent as possible.”
Yep, that sounds like a big old conspiracy – to invite people in to see what’s happening.
A recent survey by the Election Commission showed 82% of South Carolinians had confidence in the state’s election system. And 95% said they thought polling places were organized and well-run. Those numbers can improve with more education, a continued commitment to transparency and accountability, and people starting to really question the looney Internet mess about rigged elections.
Participate in this year’s elections. It’s one of every citizen’s greatest powers. If you’re not registered, fill out the form and register. Your window is narrowing.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
SC Clips
Statehouse Report is brought to you weekly at no cost thanks to our underwriters. In the spotlight today is SC Clips, an affordable, daily information digest that provides you with the South Carolina news you need every business day. Subscribers receive a daily email news round-up before 10 a.m. that provides a link to each day’s edition of SC Clips.
Each issue (click for sample) provides a concise summary of dozens of the latest newspaper and television reports of news with statewide impact, politics, business and local stories. Readers also are linked to key opinions by South Carolina’s editorial writers.
- Learn more about this great news service that will save you time — which saves you money.
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Old church
A dedicated reader sent in this photo of what looks like an old South Carolina church. Where and what is it? Send your name, hometown and guess to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Last week’s mystery, “Fall scene,” showed an old spring house and gazebo at remains of the Chick Spring Resort in Taylors, as San Antonio resident Allan Peel explained: “The Chick Springs Resort was first opened in 1840 and was known to be a summer haven for people seeking the healing powers of the Chick Springs which ran through the 100-plus acre property. Native Americans who lived along the Enoree River used these spring waters for years before the spring was discovered by White settlers.
The original resort was built in 1840, but it was destroyed in a fire on Nov. 4, 1862. A second rendition of the hotel was built, but it too burned down and was replaced by a third hotel in 1885. This hotel was also destroyed in a fire in 1907 and replaced again in 1914. This last venture was not very successful, and eventually shuttered its doors as the Great Depression reduced the ability of visitors to afford staying there.”
Others who correctly identified the photo were: Elizabeth Jones, Jay Altman and Nancy Barksdale, all of Columbia; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Penny Forrester of Tallahassee, Fla.; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; and Michael Webb of Hartsville.
- Send us a mystery picture. If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
Agree with column on executions
To the editor:
I want to thank Andy Brack for writing the article on executions and expressing what I always thought.
– Sherry McLaughlin, Spartanburg, S.C.
Send us your thoughts
We encourage you to send in your thoughts about policy and politics impacting South Carolina. We’ve gotten some letters in the last few weeks – some positive, others nasty. We print non-defamatory comments, but unless you provide your contact information – name and hometown, plus a phone number used only by us for verification – we can’t publish your thoughts.
- Have a comment? Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com. Make sure to provide your contact details (name, hometown and phone number for verification. Letters are limited to 150 words.
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