A Letter from the Pickens County Republican Party President
Phillip Bowers, the Chairman of the Pickens County Republican Party, recently sent this open letter:
A Law Impossible to Obey
Thousands of words have been written about the S.C. Supreme Court
candidate eligibility ruling, but I have not seen these: It is
impossible to follow the letter of the law.
The same law the court used also says candidates “must file a
statement of economic interest (SEI) with the appropriate supervisory
authority.” But the court ruled that candidates must file their SEI with
the “same official with whom the candidate files a Statement of
Intention of Candidacy (SIC),” which is the local party chairman. The
same law the court used specifies only three supervisory authorities:
the S.C. Ethics Commission, the Senate Ethics Committee and the House
Ethics Committee, not the county party chairman.
It is impossible for political parties and candidates to follow the
law as the court interpreted because political parties are not legal
supervisory authorities. By law, the SEI must be filed with one of the
three state agencies which, also by law, require online filing.
Candidates should not be punished over impossible requirements.
I believe all candidates who filed their SIC forms as required by law should be on the ballot.
The law has so many contradictions related to SEI that specific
filing times should be irrelevant, provided it is filed in a reasonable
time before the election. I hope the measure scheduled to be taken up
this week in the Senate will resolve the issue.
If those efforts are unsuccessful then, regrettably, I see no remedy short of Federal Election Commission intervention.
Phillip Bowers, Chairman, Pickens County Republican Party
Zoe Brown
9:14 am on Saturday, May 12, 2012
.
Zoe Brown
10:10 am on Saturday, May 12, 2012
Pickens County is 3rd in the number of candidates bumped from the ballot. Horry, with a new GOP Chair, and Lexington, the epicenter of the ballot crisis, are the only counties with more candidates booted from the ballot.
4/5 of the candidates state-wide complied with the law, and thus remained on the ballot. Why are the majority of Pickens County's candidates getting booted if 80% of the candidates across the state got it right? Are all of the PC candidates dumb, inept or illiterate? No, most run a business or are respected professionals. Most have generous experience wading through government regulation or codes due to their business.
Well then, if the PC candidate pool is generally ok, then what was the single, consistent issue shared by all the candidates that led to so many getting booted, and required narrow interpretation of the law to save the rest? That would be Mr. Bowers opinion on the process during registration.
Mr. Bowers has already been quoted blaming candidates, now he is pointing his finger at the law. It would be simpler just to admit that where many did well, he did not.
Mr. Bowers is a no-show when our politicians disappear. He is a no-show when they are cussing on TV. Now he is a no-show in getting qualified candidates into our primaries.
We have plenty of people in politics pointing fingers and avoiding blame. How about some leadership and responsibility?
Jerry Carman
7:26 pm on Tuesday, July 24, 2012
It just goes to show you that there really ain't much of a difference between a DINO and a RINO. A good example of this is how Larry Martin was a DINO when he had to get in bed with Dick Riley, then had to switch to a RINO after Carroll Campbell was elected. All this happened because some crybaby RINO in Lexington was afraid of getting voted out, and no matter what Larry Martin says, he has always known that if he got voted out, he was out of that cushy job at Alice. It's no wonder he was giving the runaround about signing Rex Rice's petition, It would be like signing 2 pink slips of his own if things worked out.