SALON

Tuesday, Mar 6, 2012 7:59 PM UTC

SC County GOP Wants Hopefuls To Sign Purity Pledge

By

Topics: From the Wires,

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The Republican party in a small, conservative South Carolina county expects their candidates to lower taxes. They also expect them to not watch porn, be faithful to their spouses and not have sex outside of marriage.

The Laurens County Republican Party originally decided that anyone who wanted to run for office with the GOP’s blessing would have to sign a pledge and be approved by party leaders. They backed off that idea after the state party told them it was illegal and the pledge received international attention, becoming another cultural issues nightmare for Republicans.

The 28-point pledge passed last week appeared to be at least in part a response to an extramarital affair had by the county sheriff, who was also accused in a lawsuit of driving his mistress to get an abortion in a county-owned vehicle, leading to an inter-party squabble when the local group’s leader called for the sheriff to resign.

The pledge is full of traditional Republican talking points in a conservative state — balancing budgets, opposing gun control laws and abortion, supporting school choice and a statement that marriage is “fundamental to the stability, betterment and perpetuation of our society.”

But where the Laurens County pledge went off the rails was a proposal circulated along with it that would have created a committee to screen potential candidates based on whether they adhered to the promises. The committee could have kept a candidate from running as a Republican.

“We don’t condone that. State law allows anyone on the ballot who meets the qualifications in the law,” said state GOP executive director Matt Moore.

The committee might have had trouble with this year’s presidential primary. Newt Gingrich, who has been married three times and admitted to having an affair with his current wife while married to his second one, received 42 percent of the vote in the county in January’s presidential primary. Mitt Romney was second with 20 percent of the vote.

The pledge also received attention from around the country as the Republicans continue to absorb blows over whether religious organizations can refuse to pay for birth control for employees that use their insurance.

It’s not clear if the qualification panel would have been put in place in time to keep the sheriff off the ballot. Laurens County Republican Party Chairman Bobby Smith didn’t return messages seeking comment Tuesday. He did issue a statement Monday saying the county party would not keep anyone from the GOP ballot in the June primary, but retained the right to vet candidates on its own.

Smith got into a public fight with one of the county’s chief Republicans last summer, when Sheriff Ricky Chastain admitted to having a two-and-a-half year affair with an insubordinate at the sheriff’s office. The woman sued him for sexual harassment, accusing the sheriff of driving her to get an abortion in a county-owned car. That lawsuit is still pending.

Smith called for Chastain to resign. He refused, and the issue appeared to have died down until the pledge was passed Feb. 28.

Chastain, who plans to run for a fourth term, was worried the pledge was intended to keep him off the ballot. Chastain said it should be up to the voters in Laurens County to decide whether he returns to office.

“A small group shouldn’t decide who is best to represent Republicans in this county. It should be all Republicans,” Chastain said.

Retired state trooper Don Reynolds announced his bid to get the Republican nomination for sheriff last fall. He said he wasn’t consulted about the pledge. He supports its ideas, but has no plans to make Chastain’s indiscretions a part of his campaign because everyone in the county already knows about them.

“I don’t know how you can lack ethics in yourself and expect to be able to lead people,” Reynolds said.

More Jeffrey Collins.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
296 points297 points | 260 comments
vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
259 points260 points | 21 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
224 points225 points | 31 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
95 points96 points | 11 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
85 points86 points | 16 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations