A preacher once informed me that: “We don’t want to anger Satan, it will cause dissension in the church.” The same advice would apply to the members of the South Carolina legislature, election commission, ethics commission and Supreme Court. When conservative Republicans began insisting that elected officials with an “R” following their name conform to the Republican Party Platform or be replaced, the pretenders panicked and disrupted the entire legislative and electoral system in order to protect their positions of power. The South Carolina General Assembly, theoretically controlled and dominated by a majority of Republicans and the Supreme Court Judges they appointed and re-appoint every ten years, have disenfranchised thousands of South Carolina voters by removing their candidates from party primary ballots.
The legislature had an opportunity to correct the problem they created and restore candidates to the ballots after the Supreme Court rulings, but failed to do so.
The behavior of some South Carolina Lawmakers is deplorable. The leadership must be replaced. This may be the most corrupt legislature since Reconstruction when it was composed of illiterates, Carpetbaggers and Scalawags. Historically, the South Carolina Legislature in those days was “the most corrupt in the nation’s history.” We must not allow the current situation to continue.
By their actions, they have proven without a shadow of a doubt that South Carolina Government is corrupt and only drastic measures will restore credibility and representative government. Some of the measures that must be implemented if representative government is to be restored include the following:
We must have voter registration by party.
Political parties must be allowed to select their own candidates.
Political parties must run and fund their own primaries without government interference.
Registered voters must show a photo ID in order to reduce voter fraud.
The punitive, unconstitutional “Civil Rights” law imposed by President Lyndon Johnson on Southern states that voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and allows the US Attorney General to override laws passed and signed by the Governor of those states must be repealed.
Until representative government is restored in the state capitol, it may be necessary for the Republican Party to select candidates by convention, although state election laws make that process difficult.
The method of appointing judges in South Carolina must be improved. Lawyers in the legislature appoint judges and represent clients before the judges they appoint. We do not have a system of justice in South Carolina. We have a “legal” system.
Three equal branches of state government must be restored to provide checks and balances. There is currently only one branch, the legislative branch. The Governor is governed by the legislature and the judges in the courts are appointed by the legislature.
Tragically, we do not just have an enemy in the camp. The enemy is running the camp. Now that they, like Satan in the church, have been angered and have exposed themselves, they must be replaced with competent candidates with integrity. Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their state.
