“Get out the Vote, Elect Conservatives, Replace Leadership in Columbia”
Speakers at the RINO Hunt meeting in Greenville County, Friday night, called on conservatives to concentrate on local and state elections for the next two weeks and elect true conservatives who are willing to vote for smaller government and change the way business is being conducted in Columbia.
The speakers included Ashley Landess, President of the South Carolina Policy Council, Sen. Tom Davis of Beaufort County, Rep. Ralph Norman of York County and Talbert Black Jr., from Lexington County, interim state coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty.
“Most of the problems that you are upset about in Washington could be fixed to a large degree if we could get a handle on Columbia,” Landis said to a cheering audience with standing room only at Denny’s on Wade Hampton.
“More than a third of our state budget is funded out of Washington, DC, and your legislature lets that happen,” Landis said.
“In South Carolina we don’t like to be told what to do. Why do we live in a state that has less control over our government than all the other 49?
“The governor has almost no power to run the state,” Landis said. “The Legislature makes 450 appointments to the executive branch of government. Of those, 150 are controlled by four people,” she concluded.
The four individuals are House Speaker Bobby Harrell, House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Cooper, Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell and Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman. All four are Republicans.
Speakers at the meeting advocated removing the power from the four individuals, because they said state government cannot be reformed as long as they control virtually everything in state government.
The first task at hand, according to Landis and the others is to replace Bobby Harrell as speaker, and Rep. Ralph Norman has stepped forward and made himself available as a candidate for speaker.
Talbert Black Jr., coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty called on individuals in attendance to call their legislators and tell them that if they support Harrell for Speaker of the House in the future that they would face primary election opposition in the next election.
Members of the House are hesitant to commit to another candidate for speaker, because they know that if they support another candidate and Harrell succeeds in retaining his power as Speaker, they will be punished and possibly lose their committee assignments.
Both Senator Davis and Representative Norman said they would do all they could to reform state government even if it meant they were punished by the leadership and it costs them their next reelection bid.
Don Rogers announced at the meeting that the Upcountry Coalition of Conservative Organizations and the Greenville Tea Party will hold a press conference Monday October 25th at 10 a.m. at Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville and “identify by name those members of the legislature who have shown by their past voting record to be RINOs who have placed themselves against the welfare of the people of South Carolina.”
Rogers said all state representatives in the upcountry have been asked to answer yes or no to 21 vital issues and to discuss these issues in an interview with a member of the Upcountry Coalition. Each lawmaker will be given a score, Rogers said.
Attendees at the RINO Hunt meeting appeared to be enthusiastically behind the candidacy of Rep. Nikki Haley, because they see her as a key part of reforming and opening up state government to public view. Many see opposition to Haley coming from members of the General Assembly fearful of losing their dictatorial powers should Haley be elected and follow through with reform of the way business is conducted in Columbia.
