APRIL 4, 2014 -- Two years after lots of Statehouse incumbents got free election rides because of a state Supreme Court decision that booted more than 200 challengers from ballots, guess what? A majority are getting a free pass again, thanks to gerrymandered districts and campaign financing laws that discourage challengers.
Call it, perhaps, how the anger over the Ballot Bomb bombed as a motivator for people to run for office.
A little perspective
Two years ago, the S.C. Supreme Court exposed the complete dysfunction of South Carolina's institutions when it wiped out 200 non-incumbent candidates from ballots all across the state. At the time, every member of the Legislature was up for re-election, and neither the Legislature, the courts, the election commission nor the ethics commission could fix it.
The controversial ruling came to be known as Ballot Bomb, and that year The Nation magazine called it one of the most under-reported stories of the summer.
The reason so many candidates were disqualified was a technicality: Challengers across the state had improperly filed campaign-related paperwork when they decided to run — paperwork that the incumbents they were challenging were conveniently exempted from completing because their information already was on file. As such, scores of incumbents got free passes in the 2012 primary elections.
Members of the public and government watchdogs were outraged, calling it a serious blow to representative democracy. Lawmakers in the next legislative session quickly worked on a measure to smooth out the filing system so such a disaster wouldn't happen again.
The result this year
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RACES TO WATCH
Governor. The big-ticket 2014 race is obviously an expected rematch between Republican Gov. Nikki Haley and Democratic Sen. Vincent Sheheen. Haley, however, took on an unexpected primary challenger in the form of former Upstate lawmaker and judge Tom Ervin. Two third-party candidates are also in the mix for the November general election: Libertarian Steve French and United Citizens Party candidate Morgan Bruce Reeves.
State superintendent. The race for state schools chief will no doubt turn into a circus with a big batch of candidates clawing for the nomination on the Republican side. They are Sally Atwater (Lee Atwater's widow), Gary Burgess, Meka Childs, Amy Cofield, Sheri Few, Don Jordan, Elizabeth Moffly, and Molly Spearman. Democrats Montrio Belton Sr., Sheila Gallagher, Jerry Govan and Tom Thompson are running on the other side. The winners will face Ed Murray of the American Party in November.
Lt. governor. The lieutenant governor's race will likely draw national attention with establishment Republicans like former Republican Party Chairman and Attorney General Henry McMaster facing off against Mike Campbell (son of the late Gov. Carroll Campbell), Charleston businessman Pat McKinney and Ray Moore, a retired Army chaplain. The only Democrat running is Bakari Sellers, the young state representative and member of the Legislative Black Caucus from Bamberg who has been able to angle himself under the national spotlight so far.
Agriculture. Republican Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers will face a primary challenge from someone whose last name is Farmer (first name Joe), which could provide some fun. In the general election the winner will take on the American Party's Emile DeFelice, founder of the popular Soda City Farmer's Market in Columbia, and United Citizens Party candidate David Edmond.
Secretary of State. Democrats are buzzing about their candidate for Secretary of State, Ginny Deerin, who is challenging Republican incumbent Mark Hammond.
S.C. House. Two years ago, lawyer and Democrat Joe McCulloch lost to Republican Kirkman Finlay by around 300 votes in a nail-biter Columbia House race. McCulloch has filed for a rematch that could prove just as exciting. Another local rematch that could be exciting is a battle between first-term GOP Rep. Stephen Goldfinch, who has been under federal scrutiny, and the long-time Georgetown Democrat he ousted, Vida Miller.
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But this year, more than half of the 115 incumbents running for re-election in the S.C. House will face no opposition. (There are 124 seats in the House; nine are open due to retirements.)
“As has been the case in past elections, 60 percent of House incumbents are unopposed — 69 of 115 — 45 Republicans and 24 Democrats,” wrote Conservation Voters of South Carolina director Ann Timberlake in a news release this week. “Of the nine open seats, District 123 (Hilton Head) is the only one with no primary or general contest. Eleven Republicans and five Democrats have primary opposition and there are 30 general election races.”
So, two years after the Ballot Bomb fiasco, what does it mean that elections in South Carolina are still generally following the status quo of years past?
For Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon, the issue is something he pretty much predicted two years ago when he said he doubted anger from the fallout of Ballot Bomb would have staying power when it came to the 2014 elections.
“Anger has a way of finding a new subject,” he says about it now. “A lot of the anger on that seems to have if not fully dissipated at least dissipated to a point that you're not seeing the level of angry challenges.”
Generally speaking, Huffmon says an incumbent being able to avoid a challenge is the result of one of three things: an incredibly safe seat, a popular politician who is truly doing the will of their district or both.
The safe-seat aspect of that argument is what bothers Lynn Teague of the state chapter of the League of Women Voters. Her group, she says, believes it's extraordinarily unfortunate that so many offices are being filled without opposition.
“The voters actually have no choice,” she says. “Of course, a lot of this is the product of districts having been drawn so carefully that people feel there is little point in trying to oppose the dominant party in that district.”
In 2010, the Legislature re-drew district lines from the congressional seats all the way down the local level. In South Carolina, like many states, the job of redistricting falls to the party in power. Lawmakers meet in groups and subjectively carve up their respective turf to decide who they'll represent based on new Census data.
Actual number of safe incumbents probably higher
The latest maps have created incredibly safe seats for incumbents, says Brett Bursey, director of the South Carolina Progressive Network. And, he says, the number of lawmakers this year who will get a free pass actually goes up when you consider some of them face general election opposition from third-party candidates who he says really have no chance. Many might think such a statement is odd coming from Bursey, but he says voters need to face the truth.
“The reality that people need to grasp is that this whole notion about how 'everyone needs to vote to change the world' doesn't work here,” he says. “They've rigged the game to the degree that representative democracy isn't functional. And the way the safe districts have been created over the last 30 years, the bleaching and compacting, the Legislature has created non-competitive districts.”
The way lawmakers drew the 2010 lines was the subject of a lawsuit by former Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian who argued that lawmakers purposefully “bleached” several districts by packing more blacks into others to create safe GOP seats. The lawsuit was not successful. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has since struck down a portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that made state election laws in areas with a haunted history of disenfranchising minority voters, like South Carolina, subject to federal review.
Groups like the League of Women Voters and the Progressive Network say they hope one antidote to a lack of challengers here would be if the state adopted an independent, nonpartisan panel to oversee the next round of redistricting.
In the meantime for some, South Carolinians might still be feeling lingering Ballot Bomb aftershocks.
On May 14, 2012, a smattering of limited-government and Tea Party group members who were outraged over so many challengers to incumbents being kicked off the ballot gathered on the steps of the state Supreme Court in Columbia where they launched an education campaign called Operation Lost Vote. Talbert Black, who runs the state's Campaign for Liberty chapter, was one of them. He thinks the Ballot Bomb might have had a semi-permanent effect.
“After that whole ballot debacle two years ago, a lot of people were just really demoralized,” he said. “Folks who were very energized to run then, who did get kicked off the ballot, they just didn't want to try again.”
Corey Hutchins writes for national publications and is a contributor to Statehouse Report.
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