Article 1: Secretly LGBTQAI+-Led PAC Backing Darline Graham

Article 2: Hidden Money Flow: PAC Supporting Darline Graham Funneled Money to Texas PAC

Article 3: Dark Money Loyalists: Who Does Security Is Strength PAC Do Business With?

The art of queering communities across the world, especially when representing a traditionally conservative state like South Carolina, is not easy. No one in the U.S. Senate took more public flak from the LGBTQAI+ community than Lindsey Graham did, as he was viewed as being closeted by many in the LGBTQ+ community while at the same time, he took public stands for allowing the right for states to continue bans on same-sex marriage and also supported “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Even after his death, in Advocate magazine, an American LGBTQ+ magazine, writer Ariel Messman-Rucker labeled Graham as one of eleven anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans dogged by gay rumors. Messman-Rucker wrote that two transgender people have now come forward alleging that Graham paid them for sex work, one of them being Taylor Snider.

Below is a new video interview where transgender Taylor Snider outs Graham:

In 2025, Trump loyalist Laura Loomer, while under oath, defended a post that she wrote on X when she said that Graham was gay and closeted. Graham had called Loomer a “toxic” presence and had tried to convince Trump not to allow her to be part of his entourage at a 9/11 ceremony.

If Loomer is correct, was Graham publicly advocating against the LGBTQ+ community as a buffer to remain elected so he could secretly expand acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community worldwide?

The Three Amigos

In 2003, Graham was elected to the U.S. Senate and became part of the “Three Amigos,” which included Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT/Independent). Both McCain and Lieberman were known for embracing LGBT issues, Lieberman more so than McCain.

While many thought McCain was socially conservative, very few are aware that during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Log Cabin Republicans endorsed McCain. During the same campaign, he became the first Republican presidential nominee to grant the LGBT press an exclusive interview.

To learn about the Log Cabin Republicans, watch the introductory video below:

In 2010, Lieberman championed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. The repeal allowed homosexual and bisexual people to serve openly in the US Armed Forces without fear of being investigated or discharged for their sexual desires. Former Vice President of the queer advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, David Stacy, said, “Senator Lieberman was not simply the lead Senate sponsor of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — he was its champion, working tirelessly to allow lesbian, gay, and bisexual people to serve in the military as their authentic selves. The nation’s first Jewish Vice-Presidential nominee, Lieberman had a historic career and his unwavering support for lesbian, gay, and bisexual military servicemembers is a powerful legacy. Our hearts go out to his family and friends as they grieve a tremendous loss.”

Although McCain voted against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, he was credited for opposing an “amendment to a defense spending bill that would have undermined President Obama’s executive order banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination by federal contractors.” In 2015, McCain supported confirmation of President Obama’s pick for Secretary of the Army, an openly gay man named Eric Fanning.

The question stands: were McCain and Lieberman merely conduits for Graham, knowing he had to remain private in LGBTQ+ advocacy given his electorate in South Carolina?

Gowdy Eulogizes Graham

Graham’s close friend, former Congressman Trey Gowdy, spoke at Graham’s funeral in Columbia, South Carolina, and hinted at Graham’s absolute diversion from being involved in a heterosexual relationship when he delivered his joke about Lindsey Graham being chained together with Cindy Crawford in hell for all of eternity as a form of punishment.

Gowdy also disclosed at the funeral that he had five semi-private meetings with Lindsey Graham and Paul Hewson, the lead vocalist of U2. Graham knew Gowdy’s favorite band was U2, so Gowdy was invited multiple times to meet with Graham and Hewson. What was not said at the funeral is that Hewson is one of the world’s most outspoken advocates for LGBTQ pride, famously supporting the legalization of gay marriage abroad and, during concerts, altering lyrics to incorporate messages of LGBTQ pride.

Graham helped direct hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to Hewson’s supported “charitable” organizations. Just a scroll through Hewson’s RED organization’s X timeline shows how strongly they support LGBTQ pride. One has to wonder where all of the money actually went overseas…

Graham Was Queering The World With USAID

One of the most obvious abuses of taxpayer dollars in recent years involved USAID’s outrageous spending. The organization spent our taxpayer money on advancing DEI and LGBTQ+ in foreign communities — even funding a transgender opera, a transgender comic book, along with sex changes.

Although Graham put on a good show that he opposed USAID’s abuses of our taxpayer money, blaming the Democrats for its demise, what he hid from the public was that, as a U.S. Senator, he directed USAID money to almost completely fund the International Republican Institute, of which he was an 11-year board member.

Two days after the fedsurrection (incorrectly known as an insurrection) on January 6, 2021, Daniel Twining, President of the International Republican Institute, boasted in Foreign Affairs magazine that Americans have made, due to its own struggles, tremendous progress “growing equality for LGBTQ citizens.”

It is reported that Lindsey Graham had a net worth of approximately $1.4 million when he died, which seems like a small amount for a U.S. Senator, but what is overlooked is that he used USAID money to queer not just America, but the world, through the IRI, which spent over $1 billion while Graham was on their board.

Will Darline Continue The LGBTQAI+ Legacy?

During the recent special election to fill Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat, nearly all Republican voters didn’t know Darline Graham was an outspoken LGBTQAI+ advocate for DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). While acting as the commissioner and agency head of the South Carolina Commission of the Blind, she stated, “We’re working on all new policies and procedures, putting internal controls in place. We’ve got a diversity inclusion committee. I want to be a leader in state agency when it comes to that.” Her words couldn’t have been clearer.

Even if she tries to change her mind at this point about her advocacy for LGBTQAI+, she will be surrounded by those who used to be close to Lindsey who will pressure her to continue his legacy. The baton has been passed; the lavender Dark Money cartel headed by Kevin Hall of Security Is Strength PAC has sneaked this one in.

For further understanding on this subject, we recommend reading William F. Jasper’s 1989 article for The New American magazine titled The Queering of America. The article from 1989 warned of the long-term strategy of the homosexual revolution, including not just same-sex “marriage” but much more.

Who Kevin Hall has hired to provide consulting help, direct mail pieces, door knockers, and other vending services may surprise you. The vendors are shown below.

Faith Wins America, A Faith Wins Initiative

Former SC GOP Chairman Chad Connelly is known for his work with Faith Wins, an organization that spent $883,821 in 2025. Faith Wins is associated with Faith Wins Action and Faith Wins America. Altogether, during the recent primary, Security Is Strength PAC spent $112,500 with Faith Wins America, whose registered agent is not Chad Connelly but Butch Bowers, Jr, the attorney who was once President Trump’s impeachment lawyer.

Faith Wins America’s chief initiative, according to its own website, is opposing expanded gambling in South Carolina. The irony here is that Butch Bowers, Jr. is a shareholder, along with Gov. Nikki Haley’s husband Michael, of the Two Kings Casino’s equipment supplier, Kings Mountain Equipment Supply LLC.

Another irony is that the late U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham ultimately paved the way for the Two Kings Casino to open just across the border from York County, South Carolina. One has to ask: does Faith Wins America really want to stop casinos from being built in South Carolina, or does Bowers want to stave off competition for the casino he has a financial interest in? All in all, Bowers has benefited greatly from the Grahams financially while under the “Faith Wins” umbrella, making it seem as though he stands against casinos.

Bishop Strategies

During the 2026 primary election, Bishop Strategies received $946,479 from Security Is Strength and $3,896 from Project 2026 PAC. Kevin Bishop is Lindsey Graham’s longtime communications director who retired in 2024, just before deciding to run for Congress, where he lost, receiving only 11% of the vote in the primary.

Bishop protected Graham when he was accused of pulling strings to open the Two Kings Casino. Bishop said, “The Catawba Nation has been treated unfairly by the federal government, and the legislation that was passed rights that wrong.” Bishop said the suggestion of any connection between Graham’s legislative activity and political donations is “nonsense.”

The entrepreneur behind the Two Kings Casino, Wallace Cheves, contributed $6,600 to Kevin Bishop’s congressional campaign in 2024. One of Cheves’s first political donations was $5,400 to Graham’s 2016 presidential campaign; he later contributed $12,600 to Graham’s future campaigns.

Starboard Communications

Walter Whetsell, founder and owner of Starboard Communications, is a well-known Political Consultant in the Palmetto State. He received $1,962,442 from Security Is Strength PAC and $424,512 from Project 2026 PAC during the 2026 primary election. He helped get Congressman Jeff Duncan, Congressman Mick Mulvaney, and U.S. Senator Tim Scott elected as first-time candidates in 2010, according to Politico. In the 2014 campaign cycle, he launched West Main Street Values PAC to support Graham’s re-election as U.S. Senator. The PAC raised $902,450 that year, with $250,000 coming from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Push Digital

Scott Howell, a Texan and Senior Partner at Push Digital, an organization Palmetto State Watch recently scrutinized due to its co-founder Wesley Donahue’s participation in the Rom Reddy for South Carolina Governor campaign. Altogether, Push Digital raked in $1,705,000 from Security Is Strength and $342,500 from Project 2026 PAC during the 2026 Republican primary. His biography page states, “His journey in politics began with pivotal roles at the Republican National Committee and working alongside Karl Rove in Texas.” He also states on the biography page that he is “renowned for his work with influential figures including former President George W. Bush, Senate Majority Whip John Thune, and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.”

Dark money loyalists within the Graham network continue to outmaneuver the patriots who are trying to save America from the LGBTQAI+ agenda and neoconservatives like Karl Rove. One has to wonder: what is the glue that holds them together? Is it money, friendship, or a secret agenda?

Our next article will answer the question: Was the late Lindsey Graham trying to queer America? New facts about his network will likely shock you.

If you haven’t already, please read our two previous articles regarding Security Is Strength:

As we noted in our previous article, Secretly LGBTQAI+-Led PAC Backing Darline Graham, the American people should examine Security Is Strength PAC for its involvement in Republican Party politics. In the recent primary election, Security Is Strength PAC spent $1,382,063 on negative ads against U.S. Senate candidate Mark Lynch and $6,396,230 to support Lindsey Graham. Of the $6,396,230 spent, Hall sent $780,000 to a new PAC called Project 2026 founded by Marlay Morris on March 20th of this year. Was the money sent to try to avoid public scrutiny?

Although the PAC has an address in Houston, Texas, the phone number registered with the PAC has an 803 South Carolina area code. Morris, a young woman in her 20’s, is living in Oklahoma, where she is, according to her bio found on the Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform website, a Partnerships Coordinator for Turning Point USA, National Committeewoman for the Oklahoma Young Republicans, and Chairwoman of the National Women’s Prayer and Voting Army.

When we reached out to Morris about the PAC, she did not respond. Her employer at National Women’s Prayer & Voting Army, founder Mrs. Eleanor Wilkerson, confirmed that Morris was the agent for the PAC.

Altogether, Project 2026 PAC spent $667,160 against Mark Lynch using Bishop Strategy, Starboard Communications Agency, and Push Digital—all three are South Carolina companies used by Security Is Strength.

Why did Security Is Strength PAC funnel $780,000 to Project 2026 PAC when the same vendors were used?

Was it to make South Carolina voters think there was more than one PAC attacking Mark Lynch?

Could it have been that the negative ads run by Danny Peppe’s Pop-Up PAC Palmetto Action were initially going to be run by Project 2026, where Marlay Morris would be the fall guy?

America Works Fund Inc. sent a $350,000 deposit to Project 2026 PAC, and then the PAC refunded the money. Why was the money refunded? Why does America Works Fund Inc. not even exist as a registered corporation in the state of Texas or any other place that we can find? Did Security Is Strength PAC send the money to Texas knowing that America Works Fund Inc. would also give the PAC another $350,000?

The more we examine Security Is Strength PAC, the more shocking it gets. In our next article, we’ll look at which vendors they use and why that should raise eyebrows. Even one well-known South Carolina-based “conservative Christian” organization is taking money from Security Is Strength PAC to further the LGBTQAI+ influence over South Carolinians.

If you haven’t already, please take the time to read our two previous articles: Secretly LGBTQAI+-Led PAC Backing Darline Graham and Pop-Up PACs and Political Power: Tim Scott, Crosby Ottenhoff, Epstein’s Friends and the War Waged Against Mark Lynch.

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Who Is Security Is Strength PAC?

During the 2015-2016 presidential campaign cycle, the PAC was formed and raised almost $5 million and, in total, has raised over $25 million from 2015-2026. Originally, William Bethea Jr., an attorney in Hilton Head, served as custodian and treasurer. In 2021, Kevin Hall, a Columbia attorney known for successfully challenging South Carolina’s “no promo homo” law and overturning the Anti-LGBTQ Curriculum provision of the state’s Comprehensive Health Education Act, became custodian and treasurer.

Shortly after South Carolina’s “no promo homo” law was struck down on March 11, 2020, South Carolina public schools began to use Black History Month to teach a perverted LGBTQAI+ curriculum to children.

Since that time, the fight has ensued, and parents of public school children have to keep an extra watchful eye on any notice they receive from their child’s school regarding LGBTQAI+ curriculum.

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In the past few weeks, the LGBTQAI+ agenda is getting its tentacles even further into schools as 4th grade students in Dorchester County are not being allowed to switch classrooms although their teacher is transitioning genders.

Hall, a managing partner at Womble Bond Dickinson (formerly Womble Carlyle) in Columbia, South Carolina, has not hidden his LGBTQAI+ agenda. He has also been a panel speaker at the LGBTQ+ BAR Lavender Law Conferences, where he has been a panel speaker for topics such as:

• Pushing Back Against ‘No Promo Homo’ Laws and Other Restrictions on LGBTQ-Affirming Curricular Content

• Red State Rebuttal - Advocating for LGBTQ Clients in Conservative Regions

• Advocacy with a Drawl, Y’all: A Case Study in Southern “No Promo Homo” Laws

The South Carolina Republican Party is made up of members who constantly advocate for traditional family values and oppose same-sex marriage. How is it that South Carolina’s Republican Party has had no qualms over the fact that an open homosexual who has helped open the floodgates for queering South Carolina children is the principal and treasurer of Security Is Strength PAC?

In his own words, Hall has said about himself, “I am a gay guy, I am a dad, I’ve got 4 kids. I was married for 20-plus years to a wonderful, wonderful woman who is still my dear friend.”

In his quest to overturn the Anti-LGBTQ Curriculum provision of the state’s Comprehensive Health Education Act, which helped open up the floodgates for the queering of South Carolina children in the public school system, he said, “I began to build a team of lawyers here in South Carolina and within my law firm Womble Bond Dickinson..and then began to work with South Carolina Equality which is our leading statewide LGBTQ equality organization and then began to branch out and work with organizations in other states including a couple of national organizations that are tremendously talented, Lambda Legal and the National Center For Lesbian Rights and then also an organization called the Campaign for Southern Equality out of Asheville. All tremendously talented folks and really good people, they do a great job.”

Despite Hall’s disturbing stance against traditional family values, he still shows on his law firm’s biography webpage his past time serving as legal counsel for the “South Carolina Republican Party, Governor Mark Sanford, Senator Lindsey Graham, Governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott, Senator Jim DeMint, and Representative Trey Gowdy, among others.”

Nowhere in his biography does he show that he is legal counsel for the Democratic Party or any Democratic politicians. Why is it that so many Republicans have embraced his work rather than excommunicating him from the party that stands for traditional family values?

South Carolina’s Republican 2026 primary between the late Lindsey Graham and Mark Lynch revealed the great lengths the Republican establishment was willing to go to keep Lindsey Graham in office. Just after the final federal reporting deadline during the primary, a “Pop-Up” Super PAC called Palmetto Action was started by Danny Peppe, a senior accountant for the Republican Dark Money powerhouse, the Crosby Ottenhoff Group. Although currently legal, a “Pop-Up” Super PAC evades pre-election reporting rules and avoids disclosing its contributors until after the election.

The PAC ran a defamatory video that garnered over 13 million views against Graham’s opponent Mark Lynch, falsely claiming that Lynch’s business was caught breaking immigration law and that one of Lynch’s advisors supported an alleged pedophile. Palmetto Action spent $3,614,708 against Lindsey Graham’s opponent, Mark Lynch, in the final weeks of the election.

Lynch responded to the defamatory video with a Cease & Desist letter delivered directly to the PAC and directly to Danny Peppe. The only problem with delivering the letter to the PAC was that the PAC’s address was for a Staples store in Aiken, South Carolina. Sometimes Staples stores have mailboxes available for rent, but the Staples store in Aiken offers no such service; therefore, the employees there were surprised to learn that Palmetto Action had used their address. It’s likely that Peppe intentionally used a false address for the PAC when registering to deceive the American people and the FEC.

Not only did Peppe sign up Palmetto Action with a false address, but it also used a false bank address for Chain Bridge Bank, listing 1445-A Laughlin Ave, Aiken, SC 29803. Address manipulation matters because intentionally providing an incorrect address means Peppe was trying to fool the citizenry.

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In Aiken, South Carolina, there is no Laughlin Ave., but in McLean, Virginia, right next to the Capitol, there is a Chain Bridge Bank located at 1445-A Laughlin Ave, McLean, VA 22101. Interestingly, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, Chain Bridge Bank is well known as the bank for Lindsey Graham’s Super PACs, and it was Lindsey Graham’s close friend, the late John McCain, who helped Chain Bridge Bank get its start in banking for political organizations and campaigns.

A Glance at the Crosby Ottenhoff Group

Alabama native, Caleb Crosby, a co-founder of Crosby Ottenhoff Group, got his start on the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. After the campaign won, he served in Alabama for the Environmental Protection Agency. Then he worked at the White House’s executive office managing the event and travel budget for George and Laura Bush. He then joined the Alabama Policy Institute and served as its President/CEO from 2014-2023. It was in 2018 when Crosby co-founded the Crosby Ottenhoff Group with another Republican strategist, Benjamin Ottenhoff.​

As for the other co-founder, Benjamin Ottenhoff, there is very little information about him available online. There isn’t even a picture we could find. Originally from Illinois, Ottenhoff got his start at the NRCC as a budget manager in 2008 and worked his way up to CFO in 2011. Ottenhoff is currently the treasurer for WinRed, which has brought in over $600 million since Jan. 1st, 2025, and cites itself as being the “official secure payments technology designed to help GOP candidates.”

Since its founding, not only has Crosby Ottenhoff Group become a top accounting and compliance hub for Republican PACs, but it has also gained enormous clout within the Republican Party. Currently, Caleb Crosby is the Treasurer not just for the Senate Leadership Fund but also the Congressional Leadership Fund. He serves as Treasurer for both funds, while Crosby Ottenhoff Group collects payments from them, which is seen as a conflict of interest.

In 2024, Crosby Ottenhoff Group collected $347,215 from the Congressional Leadership Fund and $257,779 from the Senate Leadership Fund. In addition, they collected $300,000 from the National Republican Congressional Committee, of which Katy Williams, a former or current Senior Vice President of Crosby Ottenhoff Group, is listed as treasurer.

Danny Peppe is not the only employee of the Crosby Ottenhoff Group who has played a role in Dark Money schemes. Back in 2024, Crosby Ottenhoff Group employee Kayla Glaze was listed as the treasurer for Roosevelt Society Action’s FEC filing. The filing shows that the Roosevelt Society Action PAC also paid Crosby Ottenhoff Group $7,877 towards consulting services.

More recently, Crosby Ottenhoff has been linked to three sham “progressive” PACs that have been attempting to influence voters in key Democratic primaries across the U.S. The three PACs are Progressive Champions PAC, Real Change PAC, and Lead Left PAC. Both Progressive Champions and Real Change PAC reportedly have used Bryant Bank, a bank linked to Caleb Crosby. Lead Left PAC listed its address as a Staples store in Tallahassee, Florida, that reportedly has only been used by two committees; both of these committees were connected to the Crosby Ottenhoff Group.

Who Were The Top Donors To Palmetto Action?

Of the twelve donors to Palmetto Action, none were from South Carolina.

$2,500,000 came from Conservative Americans PAC ($40+ million PAC), controlled by Charles Gantt, Sr. Vice President of Red Curve Solutions — Danny Peppe’s former co-worker of twelve years at Red Curve Solutions. Recently, he has served as treasurer for MAGA Inc., a PAC that supports Donald Trump and has spent over $60 million. He has also recently been the treasurer of MAGA KY PAC, which spent $4.77 million to stop Congressman Thomas Massie’s reelection bid.

$1,200,000 came from GOPAC Election Fund ($20+ million PAC), controlled by Melodie Johnson and mostly funded by GOPAC INC. The advisory board for GOPAC includes South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and Speaker of the House Murrel Smith.

$500,000 came from AIBFF Inc., controlled by Leonard Blavatnik - Ranked as the 75th-richest person in the world, Blavatnik’s name appeared in written correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, according to US Department of Justice documents spanning at least 2009 to 2017.

$200,000 came from Mark Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management, with an estimated net worth as of 2026, according to Bloomberg, at $9.77 billion. Currently battling a class action lawsuit for hiding business dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.

$200,000 came from Larry Mizel, C.E.O. of M.D.C. Holdings, co-founder and chair of the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem

Who Will Stop The Dark Money Gangs?

In October of 2015, Donald Trump said, “I am self-funding my campaign, and therefore I will not be controlled by the donors, special interests and lobbyists who have corrupted our politics for far too long…I have disavowed all Super PAC’s, requested the return of all donations made to said PAC’s, and I am calling on all Presidential candidates to do the same.”

That same month, Trump said, “These PACs are the biggest disgusting joke you’ve ever seen. And first of all, these PACs are all controlling the candidates. And when they say the candidate doesn’t speak to the PAC and they’re not allowed to legally, I guarantee you these candidates – I would say every single one of them is speaking to their PAC and they’re not allowed to legally.”

Was Trump telling the truth about candidates illegally speaking to PACs? Is it possible that someone close to Lindsey Graham called Danny Peppe, perhaps someone who already had a relationship with the people at Crosby Ottenhoff Group?

When Lindsey Graham announced his reelection campaign for U.S. Senator in 2026, he announced that U.S. Senator Tim Scott would be the co-chairman of his campaign. Unsurprisingly, Tim Scott’s PAC, Great Opportunity PAC, has Kirsten Quick, an employee of Crosby Ottenhoff Group, as its treasurer. Not only that, Scott is the Chairman of the NRSC (National Republican Senate Committee), and since becoming Chairman, Scott used the organization to send $62,000 to Graham’s 2026 campaign and $105,500 to Crosby Ottenhoff Group for compliance consulting.

Could Scott have spoken to Quick, Crosby, or Ottenhoff about the need for Super PAC help for his friend Lindsey Graham? Could he have already known Peppe?

In an attempt to garner the votes needed for Graham to defeat Lynch, Scott went live on-air with Sean Hannity the evening before the election to downplay Lynch’s final commercial and to ask Sean Hannity’s viewers in South Carolina to vote for Graham. Scott went to great lengths to see that Graham won and it wouldn’t be a surprise if Scott was the man behind the curtain strategizing with PACs like Palmetto Action.

The Silver Lining​

More and more Americans are waking up to the problems posed by dark money flowing through Super PACs each campaign season. Total funds raised in 2024 exceeded $5 billion, compared to just over $89 million in 2010. All in all, the flood of money going into PACs is making them more noticeable in elections, and the lack of government oversight is also prompting their personnel to act more unscrupulously, as in the case of Danny Peppe.

This year, before the FEC, the Campaign Legal Center, representing Sophia Gonsalves-Brown, issued a complaint against Lead Left PAC. As mentioned earlier, Lead Left PAC is a PAC linked to Crosby Ottenhoff Group.

According to the complaint, Lead Left PAC, a pop-up Super PAC like Palmetto Action, rapidly spent $2.4 million influencing Democratic primary elections in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Texas. They are also accused of “gaming federal reporting deadlines to avoid disclosing sources of its election spending.”

Additionally, the PAC is being accused of “appearing to have violated federal campaign finance laws requiring full transparency about the recipients of that spending. Specifically, by funneling all of its spending on political ads through two newly formed companies that are almost certainly not the ultimate recipients of those funds.”

It is still early to know what the FEC will determine regarding the complaint, but they are moving forward with an investigation, and more Americans are paying attention and being reminded that constant watchfulness is required to maintain a state of liberty.

Whether the FEC acts or not, the American people need to find a way to escape control by Dark Money. Right now, Americans and our elected lawmakers have limited power to protect our elections from unlimited outside money, including foreign-connected money.

After $4,000,000 in Super PAC ad spending attacking Mark Lynch, mostly coming from pro-Graham PAC Palmetto Action ($3,300,000), the war waged against Lynch needs to be a wake-up call to the American people that it's time to eliminate Dark Money agents from participating in the election process.

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After the longest stretch our legislators have gone without spending money in recent memory, the party is back in town. On Tuesday, August 11, the South Carolina House and Senate return to Columbia for a single legislative day to vote on the FY 2026-27 conference report. The same budget that blew 70 days past adjournment, left the state running on a continuing resolution for most of the summer and started a brand new fiscal year with nothing new on the books is now supposed to clear both chambers in one afternoon.

The Deal Negotiators Struck

Six people cut this deal behind closed doors in late July: Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, Senator Tom Davis, and Minority Leader Brad Hutto for the Senate, and Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister, outgoing Majority Leader Davey Hiott, and Rep. Jackie Hayes for the House. Three big fights we warned you about in The Pork Report have been resolved and have become much more sinister.

Property tax "relief" got a haircut. The Senate spent the spring pushing to triple the Homestead Exemption for homeowners 65 and older, from $50,000 in assessed value up to $150,000. The last deal landed at $75,000, with vague talk of expanding it later. FITSNews put the actual relief around $82 million, well short of the roughly $250 million the Senate started with. And nothing in the deal stops your county or city from simply raising millage to claw back whatever you save. Our analysis? It’s small a number dressed up as a win and local governments get the final say.

Scout Motors is still getting its bailout. The roughly $150 million for the Department of Commerce to cover cost overruns at the Scout site is still in the plan. It is just parked until an audit of the project is finished, per Nick Reynolds with the Post and Courier. Our readers will recognize that audit as the one Proviso 117.107 already handed to the Legislative Audit Council, as previously reported. Scout has already pulled more than $1.3 billion from South Carolina taxpayers in devious ways. Judging by this budget, the General Assembly is nowhere near finished handing over the rest.

The earmarks got pulled out of the budget and snuck into a different bill. The more than $300 million in House member earmarks we documented in the Pork Report were stripped down to a single dollar in the conference report. Go through the document line by line and you will find those projects still sitting there, each one funded at exactly $1. The Oconee Memorial Hospital request we flagged is in there at $1. So is Senator Peeler's Project Green Landing in York, at $1. So is Senator Davis's Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, at $1. The South Carolina Policy Council counts roughly 100 of them and projects the real total will land around $309 million once the separate bill drops. That single dollar is a bookmark. It holds the line open so the real number can be filled in later, once an ad hoc committee that has not been named, has not been scheduled, and has no published criteria decides who gets what.

Like a magician, legislators will pull the earmarks out of one budget line and move them into another vehicle nobody can see yet.

Those That Plan to Vote No (So Far)

The SC Freedom Caucus says it will vote no on the state budget, raising two constitutional flags:

1) Article III, Section 18 requires three readings on three separate days in each chamber, and only one floor day is scheduled.

2) Article IV, Section 21 ties the governor's line-item veto to bills "appropriating money," so if the earmarks eventually ride a joint resolution instead of an appropriations bill, the caucus argues a future governor could lose the power to strike them line by line.

Senator Lee Bright took to Facebook to let his constituents know that he will be voting against the budget and urges everyone to contact their legislators, telling them to vote against the conference report as spending is out of control.

Spending Continues to Grow in Creative Ways

According to the proposed documents, the state’s budget comes in at a whopping $44,404,959,459. The state general fund makes up $15,699,103,018, while the federal fund nearly matches at $14,036,525,486. All other funds total $14,670,202,154. On top of that, the FY26-27 Summary Control Document leaves $378,612,834 unappropriated, and $377,741,635 of that, nearly all of it, is nonrecurring one-time money. This is most likely the money pot waiting to backfill the earmarks once the separate bill drops.

As referenced by Reynolds’ article, a few other items were ignored: a one-year fix on liquor liability insurance for bars and restaurants, the Freedom Caucus push to clear long-vacant state jobs, and a ban on solar facilities near schools that was written in response to the Silfab contamination in Fort Mill. All three were ruled out on House rules.

What To Expect & What You Can Do

The vote is scheduled for Tuesday, August 11. The earmark fight is far from over, as it is just moving to an unknown committee. Between now and then, contact your senator and your representative and ask them which bill is carrying the leftover earmarks. If you want to take a bigger step, tell them to vote against the conference committee report, which is full of outrageous budget lines, and for once to save taxpayers money by not growing the budget. Then watch how they vote.

Earlier this week, we asked whether Scout Motors was about to receive more government benefits and how Richland County Council Vice Chair Derrek Pugh was tied in. Two days later, Pugh answered that question himself...by announcing that he has taken a job with Scout Motors while continuing to serve as a councilman.

Let's take a close look at Pugh and his record that, in retrospect, was setting himself up to take this position all along.

Scout Motors (subsidiary of Volkswagen) has been the most expensive and most secretive economic development deal in recent South Carolina history since it was rushed into law in 2023 in under a week. This corrupt deal that we have exposed since the very beginning has become the playbook for other huge "economic development" plans revolving around electric vehicles and solar projects across the state. Of course, Richland County officials have been in the middle of this Scout mess the entire time.

Pugh has served as the Richland County Councilman for District 2 for over five years and has served as the council's vice chair since 2024. Simultaneously, he has worked full time for more than four years as the South Carolina State Director for Abraxas Youth and Family Services and has taught at Allen University for the past five. Now add Scout Motors to the list.

According to Pugh's 2025 Statement of Economic Interest (SEI) Report, he also pulls a salary from United Cerebral Palsy of South Carolina. This is not included on his LinkedIn profile like the other jobs are.

The Abstention That Made Us Question

On July 14, Richland County Council voted 10-0 to send a letter of support to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, backing the City of Columbia's request for $11.4 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration for the "Scout Water Storage Tank and Transmission Main Project." Pugh abstained from the vote, stating that his "parent company may receive benefits from the support letter."

What "parent company" is he referring to?

Whether he is referring to an actual parent company or just himself, we decided to check to see if he had any companies in SC that he has registered to himself...and we found several.

Derrek Pugh is the registered agent listed for three different nonprofits and one Limited Liability Company (LLC). Two of the nonprofit addresses trace back to random businesses in Orangeburg and one out of what appears to be his personal home. The LLC, named Hitchcock Group, LLC, was incorporated July 13, 2023, five months after the Scout Motors deal was passed by the legislature and signed by Governor McMaster.

The Hitchcock Group address links back to a rundown strip mall off Two Notch Road in Columbia and, from what we can tell, has no internet footprint. Another shell corporation? Hmm...

Pugh's Voting Record

Long before his recent abstention, Pugh was a reliable yes. By our count, he voted eight times in favor of Scout related deals, tax breaks, and road widenings across 2023 and 2024. On October 17, 2023, Pugh voted to acquire the Blythewood facility that Scout now uses to train its employees. That training center is roughly $25 million and was built with help from readySC, the Department of Commerce, Midlands Technical College, and Richland County.

We cannot resist to pose the question...Will Derrek Pugh end up training in the building the county bought with his yes vote?

What We Cannot See

Since 2024, Pugh has sat on the county's Economic Development Committee, which placed him inside the executive session updates on the Scout project after the deal was signed. Those meetings are conveniently not recorded and posted to YouTube the way regular council sessions are, so the public has no idea what is being discussed, even outside the executive sessions. It's not surprising however, when you remember that this project has always been run behind closed doors.

For example, The Nerve reported that over two months before the Scout deal became public (January 2023), Richland County entered into an non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the South Carolina Department of Commerce in regards to Scout Motors which “broadly bound the county to nondisclosure on all matters related to the project." That NDA was in effect until the deal was passed and made public as of March 2023, completely blindsiding Blythewood residents and the taxpayers of South Carolina.

Did Derrek Pugh sign an NDA regarding Scout Motors early on? It's a question worth asking.

As a part of the Economic Development Committee, Pugh voted in favor of the Blythewood Road widening contract on September 17, 2024, which serves the main artery of the Scout plant. We do not have the minutes from the July 7, 2026 committee meeting where the EDA federal funding letter was voted on, but you can check out the agenda HERE.

The Small Business "Champion"

Here is the part that should bother anyone who has heard Pugh talk about small business. He has chaired the county's Office of Small Business ad hoc committee since 2023, and he likes to call small businesses "the backbone of our community."

As Tony Spain stated in a previous article this past February, “Scout Motors should take a loan, look for other investors or use cash reserves. Small businesses rarely, if ever, get this kind of treatment, they just help foot the bill along with taxpayers.”

It’s easier and safer for politicians to give out a large sum of cash to one big company that has a high chance of success so they can receive praise for “all the jobs they helped create” rather than hundreds of small business start-ups, half of which statistically will fail in their first five years.

In 2024, Pugh told the Free Times that smart growth meant attracting businesses that want "to establish a strong, long-term relationship with us, in order for our constituents to have opportunities to be employed." He called that "really, really key." He was right about the opportunity to be employed. It just turned out to be his...

Pugh Gives Government Money to His Wife's DEI Nonprofit

Teshieka Pugh, Derrek Pugh's wife, was diversity officer for Junior League of Columbia 2024-2025, a nonprofit for women's leadership. Richland County Council has given the Junior League three huge checks totaling $60,500 in just three years:

• February 2024: $20,000

• February 2025: $25,000

• February 2026: $15,500

In the Junior League's form 990 for 2024-2025, they do not include any mention of government money in their "government grants" section. Can the conflict of interest get any worse than this?

This isn't the first time we have caught Pugh giving hard-earned taxpayer dollars to his personal special interests. As previously reported, Pugh's own fraternity collected more than $10,000 in the county's FY 2023-2024 budget.

While we are at it, take a quick look at the video that Richland County produced in 2024 of Derrek Pugh discussing how excited he is for Scout Motors and how they have been "working together to make sure...that the community understands that we are not trying to kill the quality of life as we grow but at the same time making sure that we are being good stewards to our new neighbors at Scout Motors."

In the video Pugh praises Jeff Ruble, the Richland County Economic Development Director at the time, who we previously caught doxxing every Blythewood citizen who publicly shared concerns about the Scout deal. Richland County paid tens of thousands of dollars to have these citizens (and even a sitting legislator) stalked online and circulated the list around state government. Want to guess whose money they used to pay for it? It was our tax dollars...

It's not surprising that Pugh praises someone like Ruble, as Pugh (just last year) trespassed a concerned constituent of his who was educating the community on the $1.4 BILLION budget that Richland County Council was about to pass in June 2025. But we will have more on that later.

The Pattern That No One Can Refute

It's the merry-go-round that never stops turning off the same grift. Scout Motors arrived in South Carolina as a backroom deal and has stayed one. The legislature rammed through a $1.3 billion incentive package, including $400 million in cash, that most people (even certain legislators) had no idea even existed.

We have documented how the state reached into a COVID era contingency reserve fund, money set aside for virus-related economic hardship, to help pay for it, sidestepping the two-thirds vote and the fiscal impact statement the Constitution would otherwise require.

The Nerve exposed the secret meetings that preceded all of it, and the Governor's own chief of staff told the Commerce Secretary that residents who did not like it could take it up through elections. When residents did object, Richland County Economic Development circulated a letter naming them as vocal opponents. That is the machine Pugh has been operating inside, and the county has kept its own share of it in the dark.

The deal has only gotten worse. It is now more than $150 million over budget (that legislators are working to sneak in the state budget). Not a single vehicle has been built. Production has slipped to the end of 2027, and Scout took its headquarters and 1,200 white collar jobs to Charlotte after South Carolina had already opened its checkbook. Volkswagen, Scout's parent, reported more than $47 billion in cash on hand. The taxpayers of this state are carrying all the risk while their politicians reap all the benefits.

Derrek Pugh is just another confirmation of a pattern we have traced for more than three years. The same actors that brought Scout to Blythewood and ignored their citizens wishes (while actively lying to them about the benefits) kept voting to roll out the red carpet for a foreign corporation that is being completely subsidized by our state, Richland County, and the Town of Blythewood. Now, one of them is an official employee.

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What followed has sparked debate throughout the state’s Republican grassroots.

Joined by Sarah Grace Allen and Preston Baines of SC Confidential discuss their firsthand experiences at the convention and share their perspectives on:

• What unfolded on the convention floor

• Delegate credentialing and convention procedures

• The debate over candidate qualification rules

• Grassroots concerns following the convention

• Where the South Carolina Republican Party goes from here

Watch the full interview now and join the conversation!

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In our conversation, we revisit two major topics shaping South Carolina Republican politics: the controversies surrounding recent SCGOP conventions and the broader questions about party leadership, consultant influence, grassroots participation, and accountability.

In the conversation we discussed:

• The 2025 SCGOP Convention controversy

• Delegate credentialing and convention procedures

• The role of political consultants within the party

• The “private club” debate and party accountability

• The convention method vs. primary elections

• Why grassroots conservatives continue pushing for reform

Whether you agree or disagree, understanding how the process works is essential to being an informed voter.

Watch the full interview on Rumble HERE or on Facebook HERE.

Later today, we will be dropping another interview where Preston Baines and Sarah Grace Allen of SC Confidential will go over the chaos from last Saturday. Stay tuned!

If you appreciate our work, please share this interview with others and send them to UnitedPatriotsAlliance.com to subscribe to our email list!

In Christ,

Evan Mulch

Tactical Strategist

(864) 804-0789

South Carolina’s June 9th, 2026 primary is quickly approaching and the field is saturated with candidates. There’s a reason why: many seats are wide open because the incumbent is leaving or the incumbent’s bad actions are finally catching up with them. And in case you haven’t noticed, in South Carolina the primary is where all the action is. By the time we roll around to the general election, it’s often a choice of the lesser of two evils, and we all know how that gives us a sinking feeling and creates apathy.

This election is a referendum on whether the status quo in Columbia continues unabated or whether South Carolinians finally elect enough candidates who will actually put citizens first. Over the past several years, our team has documented patterns of backroom deals, conflicts of interest, ethical violations, and a systemic disregard for the taxpayers who fund state government.

This guide distills our investigative reporting into concrete questions every South Carolina voter should ask before casting a ballot. Use it as a checklist. Share it with your community and hold every candidate accountable.

1) Financial Conflicts of Interest: Does the Candidate Profit from the Government They Oversee?

Elected officials find several ways to profit off of the government they oversee, whether that is directly or indirectly.

Our investigation into the South Carolina Attorney General’s Litigation Retention Agreements (LRAs) revealed a troubling pattern of certain lawyer-legislators collecting millions in settlement fees from the very office whose budget they controlled. Both Democrats and Republicans equally benefited. Two examples of some of the most powerful were the House Speaker and Ways and Means House Chairman. House Speaker Murrell Smith‘s firm received over $2.1 million from the SCAG’s office over the course of three years while he wielded budget authority over it. Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister‘s firm collected over $541,000 over two years from their LRAs while his committee wrote the AG’s budget.

The AG’s budget is looking at an 11.9% increase in appropriation of general funds (excluding federal dollars) in 2026-2027 over the previous year. For comparison, total general funds for the entire state budget are poised to increase by only 3.8% over the same period. It appears much of this is due to an increase in salaries/benefits and vague operating expenses. Did Bannister’s payday influence his willingness to be more generous with the budget of the Attorney General’s office?

Smith only reported the conflict on the most recent of the three Statement of Economic Interest reports (SEI) spanning this time frame and Bannister only amended his report to include the conflict for last year four days after our second article launched in this series. That was 11 1/2 months after the original report was due.

While we’re discussing conflicts of interest, can we talk about roads for a minute? Let’s take Rep. Travis Moore (R-Spartanburg) as an example. He has never once voted on the DOT section of the budget in his 6 years in office because of reported conflicts of interest. In fact, 34 Representatives abstained from casting a vote on the SCDOT’s budget this year alone, and these aren’t powerless backbenchers. They’re committee chairs, budget writers, and leadership, the people with the most authority over the very dollars they’re conflicted out of touching. That means more than 27% of legislators in SC are not even voting on roads due to conflicts of interest. Let that sink in for a minute. One or two conflicts of interest are one thing, but when a legislator is conflicted to the hilt — Moore abstained from 18 budget votes this year due to conflicts of interest, which accounts for 15% of the votes, and almost half of the state budget in dollars — is that a legislator who can even represent citizens well in Columbia?

The LRA money trail doesn’t stop at direct payments to legislators. Our investigation also found evidence that settlement proceeds appear to be finding their way back into campaign coffers through a web of shell LLCs with no internet presence and no brick-and-mortar addresses. Randy Lowell, the lead attorney on the $75 million Plutonium Settlement and a former partner at Willoughby & Hoefer, the same law firm where AG Alan Wilson worked before taking office, registered several companies like Copper Walrus Ltd. Co. and Iron Elephant Ltd. Co., both incorporated just six days after he signed his LRA with the AG’s office, which subsequently began appearing on campaign donor rolls. Using multiple LLCs, a single donor can effectively multiply the number of allowable donations beyond what state contribution limits permit for any individual.

Since 2010, Lowell’s companies have funneled over $81,000 into AG Alan Wilson’s campaign even though Lowell personally has not donated to Wilson by name in that same period. Those same LLCs also show up as donors to Stephen Goldfinch, who is running for SC Attorney General. The central question we raised: are attorneys’ fees generated by large, state-initiated settlements ultimately being recycled into the campaigns of the political establishment that made those settlements possible in the first place?

Questions to Ask:

• Do you or your employer (or law firm if applicable) receive fees, contracts, or payments from any state agency, county, or government body you will be voting on?

• Have you filed your Statement of Economic Interest (SEI) on time and completely? Have you ever amended it only after public scrutiny?

• Will you commit to recusing yourself from votes that directly benefit your private clients or employer?

• How many recusals will you have? Which ones?

Red Flags to Look For

Late or amended SEI filings, law firms with undisclosed state contracts, and vague answers about outside income. A candidate who can’t answer clearly on paper trail questions likely has something to hide.

2) Taxpayer-Funded Corporate Welfare: Will the Candidate Write Blank Checks to Big Corporations?

In 2023, the South Carolina legislature (with the support of several local and state officials) rammed a $1.3 billion incentive package for Scout Motors through in less than a week and had it on the the Governor’s desk in 60 days. Now in 2026, when they were scheduled to start production, Scout has built zero vehicles, is more than $150 million over budget, and has pushed its production start date to the end of 2027 at the earliest. The deal South Carolina cut was also estimated to be $300-$500 million higher than comparable incentive packages offered by competing states. Most of the state representatives that are seeking re-election voted in favor of this boondoggle. Senator Josh Kimbrell and Senator Stephen Goldfinch, who are candidates for state-level seats voted to pass this deal. Gubernatorial hopeful Lt. Governor Pamela Evette supported the move as Governor McMaster signed off on it.

The same pattern is repeating with data centers. In Spartanburg County, a $3.1 billion data center investment was negotiated, with the name of the company hidden. It turns out that the company behind this deal appears to be backed by Chinese money. Spartanburg dodged a bullet there. It’s bad enough these guys are collecting our data; what’s worse is the county officials are actually signing non-disclosure agreements so are going into these deals blind, not knowing what country is going to be collecting the data they’re putting in our back yards. To make matters worse, these deals often only produce a handful of jobs while residents are stuck with utility rate spikes as a result of increased power usage and infrastructure costs, not to mention a myriad of other headaches and potential unintended consequences. Water shortages are being seen nationwide, and the company that funded the one that was wooing Spartanburg is also involved in the private sale of water business. In the name of progress and development, we’re paving paradise and instead of putting up a parking lot, we’re building the most resource-intensive buildings we can build in today’s market.

Often the main drivers behind this economic development are the state and local Chambers of Commerce. Typically people laud the local Chambers of Commerce as champions for small businesses. Unfortunately, what people don’t realize when they get to Columbia, those local interests are drowned out by big business. For example, BlueCross Blue Shield is a founding (platinum, etc.) member in more than a handful of Chambers of Commerce around the state. That means that they pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to multiple Chambers around the state. Meta recently donated $75 million to Aiken County Chamber of Commerce Foundation. That money will drown out any local business interest from here forward in Aiken. Meta also arrived in Aiken under the secrecy of an NDA.

Let’s not forget the State Chamber was also a driver behind prolonged mask and vaccine mandates in the state back in the Covid years.

In 2025 the SC Chamber of Commerce, which is among the largest lobbies in Columbia merged with the SC Manufacturers Alliance, so form an even bigger lobby. Would it surprise you that our own Governor McMaster lauded this merger? In what alternate reality do we live in that a government would so openly flaunt their ardor for a lobby?

Another way we see local governments supporting business is through Fee-in-Lieu-of-Tax (FILOT) agreements. In Saluda County a solar company proposed locking in a 30-year tax break that would dramatically slash the county’s solar tax revenue. In every case, political insiders benefit while the taxpayers absorb the risk.

This is not about being against progress. This is about being against massive companies that have zero interest in our state coming in and setting up shop, getting massive deals on taxes, and then turning around and sucking all of those dollars out of our state so the local citizens are left with an eyesore of a massive industrial building, few jobs to show for it, and little hope for a revitalized main street. The incessant cascade of laws the legislators in Columbia pump out year after year create anti-competitive business environments and increasing amounts of red tape which largely impact small businesses, but can be absorbed easily by large businesses.

One of the subtler tests of whether a candidate is truly a fiscal conservative is to pay attention to what they say about federal and state dollars. Candidates who campaign on small government principles will often turn around and enthusiastically talk about how much grant money, federal matching funds, or state appropriations they plan to bring back to their district. What they rarely acknowledge is that every dollar of federal or state money they chase comes with strings, grows the bureaucratic apparatus required to administer it, and adds to the spending problem they claim to oppose. Accepting a federal grant is not free money. It is a vote for bigger government, just laundered through a press release about economic development. Scout Motors is a perfect example: legislators who pride themselves on fiscal conservatism lined up to hand over more than a billion dollars in incentives to a foreign-backed automaker that has yet to produce a single vehicle.

Questions to Ask:

• If you support bringing federal or state dollars into your district, can you explain exactly what it costs taxpayers in the long run, what strings are attached, and how accepting that money does not simply grow the government you claim to oppose and bring left-leaning ideologies into our state that will now be required by law?

• Will you require full public disclosure and a minimum 30-day public comment period before any FILOT, tax incentive, or corporate subsidy is voted on?

• Do you support clawback provisions that require companies to repay incentives if job ad investment promises are not met?

• Will you vote against incentive packages negotiated with unnamed “project” companies under NDAs until the company’s identity and terms are fully public?

• Have you ever voted/will you support the state to invest taxpayer dollars in electric vehicles and foreign-owned companies?

• What is your opinion of the State Chamber of Commerce/Manufacturers Alliance and will you be influenced by that lobby?

3) Election Integrity and Transparency: Is the Candidate in Favor of Letting Citizens Verify Their Own Elections?

For the past 6 years South Carolina citizens have been blocked from accessing Cast Vote Records (CVRs) which are a fundamental audit mechanism that allows the public to independently verify how ballots were tabulated. This access existed until 2020, when the former state elections director Marci Andino, who had collaborated with Mark Zuckerburg’s Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) for the 2020 election, asked AG Alan Wilson to issue an opinion restricting it. Wilson deferred to Andino’s expertise for his initial opinion and has maintained that position even as public interest groups have pressed the issue in court and evidence points to the state’s position being erroneous.

At the same time, our state willingly hands ERIC, a nonprofit data-sharing consortium, the full Social Security Number and driver’s license number of every registered voter, sharing that data across all member states, which even initially the SC DMV was hesitant to share because they feared it might violate the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA). The privacy concerns cited to block federal voter roll verification were selectively applied as the same officials who called for “privacy” were sharing far more sensitive data with a private third party (who shares it with their third parties?).

In South Carolina, many voters cast ballots using ballot-marking devices that print both human-readable text and a barcode. The scanner reads the barcode, not the printed text, meaning a discrepancy between what the barcode encodes and what the voter actually selected could go undetected. Current post-election audits rescan the barcodes by machine, which only confirms the barcode was read consistently, not that it matched voter intent. The only process that could catch a discrepancy, human reviewers checking the printed text, happens on samples so small they are statistically meaningless.

One of the primary reasons cited by AG Wilson for not allowing voters to view voted ballots is the write-in portion, even though our election systems’ program contains a toggle button that redacts the name listed on the write-in ballot, simply recording it as a generic ‘Write-in Candidate’.

Questions to Ask:

• Do you support restoring public FOIA access to Cast Vote Records so citizens can independently verify election results?

• Do you support South Carolina withdrawing from ERIC, a mechanism that requires states to use resources to solicit voters from an “eligible-but-unregistered” pool?

• Do you believe voters have a right to verify how their ballot was counted?

• Do you support requiring post-election audits that include a statistically meaningful human review of the human-readable printed text on ballot-marking device records, rather than relying solely on machine rescans of the barcode?

Red Flags to Look For

Candidates who invoke “election security” to justify less transparency or who cannot explain why CVRs should be off-limits to the public while full SSNs flow freely to a multistate nonprofit that first received funding through the George Soros Open Society.

4) Ethics and Disclosure: Does the Candidate Have a Verifiable Record of Honesty?

Two ethics investigations were opened into SC Attorney General Alan Wilson within two months of each other in summer of 2025. The first alleged that $25,000 in campaign funds were used to finance a birthday party, then “washed” through a nonexistent organization. The second raised additional concerns about improper campaign account structures and the use of state-sponsored email for campaign RSVPs. These investigations were never voted on by the State Ethics Commission Board because too many members recused themselves due to a conflict of interest.

A whistleblower document raised concerns about Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office pressuring career procurement staff to approve sole source contracts for vendors with undisclosed ties to Adam Piper, a former senior aide and close political ally. Staff documented in writing that Piper was never disclosed his involvement with the vendors, was not registered as a lobbyist in South Carolina, and did not appear in procurement documents, despite playing a central role in at least one contract after award. Career staff who pushed back on sole source requests documented being told the Attorney General was unhappy with their refusal and was scolded for putting that refusal in writing because it was now subject to FOIA. The Senate Oversight Committee reviewed the allegations and found no violations of the South Carolina Ethics Act, though the committee’s findings did not address the factual details documented by procurement staff, including the undisclosed relationship between Piper and the vendors or his absence from required procurement disclosures, as well as alleged misappropriation of federal funds.

Another ethics investigation was opened into David Stumbo for allegedly receiving more than $36,000 in so-called reimbursements through a years-long series of monthly installments.

Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister amended his Statement of Economic Interest to include over half a million dollars in fees from the very office whose budget he controls, filing that amendment 11 and a half months late and four days after our reporting made the omission public.

South Carolina’s ethics disclosure system depends entirely on the honesty of the people it governs. Our FOIA investigations have repeatedly found that honesty is optional in practice: missing disclosures, amendments filed only after our reporting went public, and financial arrangements carefully structured to stay just inside the legal line while well outside any reasonable definition of transparency.

Questions to Ask:

• What ethics complaints or investigations you have been subject to, including the circumstances and outcome?

• Have any of your Statements of Economic Interest required post-filing amendments? Explain the circumstances.

• Do you support strengthening South Carolina ethics laws by requiring mandatory recusal when a legislator’s firm has a financial relationship with an agency whose budget they control, and what specific reforms do you support?

• Describe your approach to FOIA requests into your conduct in office. What will you do to ensure full compliance and transparency?

Red Flags to Look For

Watch for candidates who dismiss ethics complaints as “political attacks” without addressing the substance, who have amended disclosures only after press scrutiny forced their hand, who describe financial relationships with agencies they oversee as routine, or who treat FOIA requests as threats to be managed rather than transparency tools to be welcomed.

5) Government Transparency and FOIA: Will the Candidate Protect Citizens’ Right to Know?

Our most impactful reporting has been made possible by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Our FOIA requests to the State Election Commission have produced thousands of pages on concerning correspondence behind the master lease deal and unusually high pay raises. Our FOIA requests to the AG’s office produced hundreds of pages of documents that revealed millions in undisclosed payments to lawyer-legislators. Our reporting on Silfab Solar, Scout Motors, and data center deals all depended on public records.

In early 2026, a bill was filed in the South Carolina legislature that would have threatened the effectiveness of watchdog organizations like ours, moving almost immediately after introduction. South Carolinians deserve a legislature that strengthens FOIA access, not one that quietly works to gut it.

In York County, the Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously ruled a site inappropriate for a hazardous industrial facility, yet county officials and the company continued pushing ahead with county council even granting tax incentives for Silfab in defiance of the ruling. Citizens waited up to six hours at public meetings to be heard. That is not a representative government.

Medium-sized counties such as Aiken county have repeatedly dodged requests to make public meetings available online. Small counties do this on a dime with a live feed set up through a Facebook channel, or inexpensive cameras and a YouTube account. Aiken County claims it would cost too much, citing an almost $100,000 line item in the budget for this feature. We understand that County Attorney Brad Farrar opposes these efforts and may have advised council members against meetings being online.

Questions to Ask:

• Will you oppose any legislation or regulations that weakens FOIA law or raises costs for requestors?

• Do you support requiring county and municipal governments to livestream and archive all public meetings?

• What will you do to ensure citizens have a right to attend, speak at, and record their government in action without being threatened with removal for speaking up?

Red Flags to Look For

Candidates who have voted to limit public records access, who support NDAs in government incentive negotiations, or who have discouraged citizen participation at public meetings.

6) Community Over Corporate Interests: Who Does the Candidate Actually Represent?

In Spartanburg, a sitting state representative was told to “sit down and be quiet” or be escorted out by police when she raised questions about a secret data center deal at a county council meeting by the council’s only Democrat member. Residents who showed up in large numbers to oppose the Silfab Solar facility in Fort Mill were told, in effect, that their unanimous local zoning ruling didn’t matter. A whistleblower was fired after exposing that Silfab was operating without occupancy or operational permits.

Again and again, the people who show up to their government, who do the research, who wait in line for hours, who file the complaints and writer the letters, are brushed aside in favor of well-connected corporations and the insiders who benefit their deals.

Questions to Ask:

• When constituents and the business community conflict, who do you represent?

• Have you ever accepted campaign contributions from companies that have or are seeking state contracts, tax incentives, or regulatory approvals? Will you disclose them and what are the details?

• Do you support meaningful community input requirements before large industrial projects are permitted near schools or homes, or will stress water sources and other utilities?

• Will you commit to holding regular town halls, not just fundraisers in your district? Will you answer questions directly at town halls, not just pre-submitted questions?

• Will you publish your personal cell phone number for your constituents to directly contact you and engage in meaningful conversation with them, as opposed to quipping preset talking points provided by lobbyists?

• If you come across an issue you are unfamiliar with, will you take the time to research all sides of the issue and stand by your guns when you cast your vote, instead of voting in favor of issues you’re not fully informed on, you know to be wrong, or will create unintended consequences?

Red Flags to Look For

Candidates with significant corporate funding who offer platitudes about “job creation” without specifics, who have not held public town halls, or who have dismissed constituent concerns as “outside interference.”

7) Voting Record: For Incumbents or Previous Politicians, Actions Speak Louder Than Campaign Promises

Any incumbent running for re-election has a record and that record is public. Palmetto State Watch tracks specific legislation and votes so South Carolinians can see exactly what their representatives have done in Columbia. Campaign season promises are cheap. What a legislator actually voted for, against, or quietly let die in committee is the truth. What an elected official vetoed, signed, publicly supported or opposed speaks louder than words.

The 2025-2026 session alone has produced a number of votes that reveal where incumbents truly stand on taxes, medical freedom, abortion, government accountability, and your rights as a citizen. Here are some of the most recent to take a look at:

• H.4216 — The Blue-Collar Tax Hike: Sold as historic tax relief, this bill was signed into law and will raise taxes on nearly 23% of South Carolina filers while cutting taxes most for the top 1%. Did your incumbent/candidate vote for it? Did they speak out against it or stay silent?

• H.3368 — No Tax on Tips/Overtime/Senior Deduction: The Senate voted 16-27 to kill this bill, blocking conformity with the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) and denying SC workers the same tip and overtime tax relief their federal return provided. Fifteen Republicans joined all Democrats to kill it. Is your candidate on that list?

• S.831 — SCDOT “Modernization” Bill: This bill allows any road in South Carolina to be monetized as a toll road with no legislative approval and little to no public warning, will increase state road debt, and smashes the IMTF “lock box” where the legislature promised to never divert the additional gas tax from road maintenance. Through the passage of this bill, South Carolina legislators tripled down on chronic problems of SCDOT: new construction with no end in sight and further neglecting road maintenance causing more damage to our roads. For a complete breakdown, check our former representative Jonathon Hill’s bad bill sheet.

  • The House voted 112-2 to pass S.831 and the Senate voted 43-0. Governor Henry McMaster signed it into law on May 18th, 2026.

• H.5126 — State Budget: While the state budget has not passed yet, this year’s budget reintroduces $300 million in pork spending that had been cut out last year, as well as sizable increases in spending across the board.

Questions to Ask

• For challengers with no legislative record: Ask them specifically how they would have voted on each of the bills above. A challenger who cannot answer these questions concretely has not done their homework…and that matters.

• How will you ensure your votes reflect the interests of working South Carolinians rather than party leadership or special interest and what will you do when those two things conflict?

• What is your process for independently evaluating legislation before casting a vote, and how will constituents know when you’ve broken from your party because a bill wasn’t in their best interest?

• How will you communicate your votes, including the ones that are unpopular or complicated, to your constituents, and how will you be held accountable if your record doesn’t match your campaign promises?

Red Flags to Look For

Incumbents who cannot recall their votes, who repeat talking points without engaging the substance of questions, or who voted in favor of bills that raised fees and taxes on working families while blocking real tax relief and tip/overtime deductions, and in general grew the size of government and reliance on federal dollars. Also watch for incumbents who were absent or “excused” on critical votes…nonvotes can be just as telling as “no” votes.

Take Notes of Their Answers During Debates. Their Responses May Alarm You or Give You a Better Idea of What They Represent.

For Republican gubernatorial candidates, there were many telling answers to questions answered during the first debate. Regarding abortion and their stance on anti-abortion bill S.1095, only Ralph Norman stated that he would support it.

When asked about data centers, their answers became more tricky. Alarmingly, AG Alan Wilson stated that "forward-thinking" people would want them, and he would incentivize.

When asked about whether or not the gubernatorial candidates supported hate crimes legislation, Ralph Norman and Pamela Evette were the only two to come straight out and say they did not support hate crimes legislation. This was a different answer from Evette, as she has previously waffled on the issue.

The debates may have revealed more than just policy positions. Representative Joe White reported having witnessed knowing glances and even a fist bump between candidates Rom Reddy and Attorney General Alan Wilson at the debate on May 26.

Your Voter Checklist: Before June 9th

Take these steps before casting your ballot in any primary race:

• Look up their Statement of Economic Interest and check their campaign finance disclosures: https://ethicsfiling.sc.gov/public/home

• Research their voting record: https://www.scstatehouse.gov/votehistory.php (Individual members’ voting records can be found on their page at the above site as well)

• Attend a candidate forum or town hall

• Read the bill summaries, not just the headlines: https://www.scstatehouse.gov/legislation.php

South Carolina’s June 9th primary is not just another election. It is a choice between more of the same and something better. The backroom deals, the amended disclosures, the billion-dollar boondoggles, the votes cast in favor of party leadership instead of the people who sent them to Columbia, none of it happens without complicit legislators and an uninformed electorate. You now have the receipts. Use them. Ask the hard questions, demand real answers, and when a candidate deflects, dodges, or dismisses, let that be your answer. The most powerful thing a South Carolinian can do on June 9th is walk into their polling location knowing exactly who they are voting for, and exactly why.

On the morning of April 23, 2026, the Richland County Courthouse docket on the second floor read like roll call of reckoning. The courtroom was packed with lawyers and defendants alike, crammed shoulder to shoulder in front of the judge’s stand. State prosecutors were perched like birds of prey in the jury box, eagerly awaiting their next victim. Fluorescent lighting beamed down, washing all of the color out of the room and bathing everyone in a sickly white light.

Former elections director Howard “Howie” Knapp sat in the middle of it all.

He came dressed for the occasion this time. His last courthouse appearance was on October 24, 2025, when he stood before a bond judge at Alvin S. Glenn in joggers and New Balance sneakers, looking every bit like a man who had not expected his morning to go the way it did. SLED had arrested him that day on eleven charges: eight counts of using his official position for personal financial gain, one count of embezzlement of public funds, one count of misconduct in office, and one count of accessory after the fact. His bond was set at $75,000. His attorney Joe McCulloch emerged from that hearing with a single statement: “This is all about politics. We look forward to a very public trial.”

April 23rd went quicker and more quietly than the last hearing. When Knapp’s name was called, he rose and approached the bench alongside his attorney, Kathy “Kat” Schillaci. Knapp’s second appearance in court was procedural. Schillaci and the state prosecutor discussed discovery and set Knapp’s next court date for July 30, 2026.

Former deputy elections director Paige Salonich was also in the courthouse that morning, but she was not seated with the defendants. The former Deputy Director sat in the gallery alongside media and onlookers, watching the proceedings from the other side of the bar.

Salonich has been charged with one count of wiretapping. As previously reported, the charge stems from the afternoon of September 17, 2025, the same day the Election Commission voted 3-2 to fire Knapp following a nearly five-hour closed executive session. According to the termination letter the commission provided to Salonich, agency security cameras captured her placing an unauthorized recording device in the SEC’s training room, the same room where commissioners had just voted to end Knapp’s tenure. The next morning, SLED arrived at the State Election Commission to open a wiretapping investigation. Salonich was placed on unpaid suspension that same day. She attempted to resign on September 22nd. The commission refused to accept it. She was terminated the following morning.

As previously reported by FITSNews, internal sources had long described the State Election Commission under Knapp and Salonich as a toxic environment and investigators allegedly later uncovered what appeared to be evidence of an ongoing affair between the two.

Knapp had given Salonich numerous pay raises and promotions during her short tenure at the State Election Commission, including attempting a 12% raise within 24 hours before his own termination. A FOIA obtained by Palmetto State Watch Foundation shows email correspondence of Knapp’s request that was denied because it was above Salonich’s pay grade. At the time, Salonich was earning a base salary of nearly $142,000 a year.

If the 12% had been approved, it would have bumped Salonich to nearly $159,000 which would have put her making more than Knapp, who was salaried at $150,000.

When Knapp’s case was addressed, Salonich’s attorney Jim Griffin stepped forward as well. Griffin confirmed to Palmetto State Watch Foundation that he is representing Salonich on her criminal charge from the state and as plaintiff in her civil lawsuit against the State Election Commission. Griffin said the state has so far failed to produce the audio recording at the center of the wiretapping allegation, resulting in a continuance. Salonich’s hearing is set for July 2, 2026.

Despite these charges, Knapp’s questionable purchase of over $30 million of unneeded election equipment has still gone unaddressed by authorities. The master lease deal that committed South Carolina taxpayers to more than $30 million in election equipment (equipment the legislature had explicitly refused to fund just months before) has never been the subject of criminal scrutiny, even as the number grew without explanation from $24.5 million at the time the commission voted to authorize it, to $28.8 million, to $32 million, to a final amended figure of $33 million.

Knapp faces eleven charges, but none of them speak to how the single largest expenditure of his tenure was authorized, misrepresented, and quietly amended upward by millions of dollars on the backs of South Carolina taxpayers. They deserve to know where that money went, who signed off on it at every step, and why the figure kept growing.

Palmetto State Watch Foundation‘s ongoing investigation into the South Carolina Attorney General‘s (SCAG) Litigation Retention Agreements has, until now, focused heavily on the Senate side of the legislature and on the network of outside counsel that has profited from the state’s biggest settlements. Today, we turn to the House and specifically to the two men who wield tremendous power in it.

Speaker Murrell Smith and House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister are not merely powerful legislators, they are also practicing attorneys whose law firms have collected substantial sums from multiple government entities while holding office. Of particular interest are Litigation Retention Agreements (LRAs) that originate in the office of the Attorney General, an office whose budget is allocated, in significant part, by the House Ways and Means Committee that Bannister chairs.

According to documents obtained by Palmetto State Watch Foundation through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Smith Robinson Holler DuBose and Morgan, LLC—the firm of House Speaker Murrell Smith—received $2,157,383.60 between 2023 and 2025 under SCAG Litigation Retention Agreements. Bannister, Wyatt & Stalvey, LLC—the firm of Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister—received $541,075.27 during 2024 and 2025 under these agreements as well.

Combined, the two most powerful members of the South Carolina House of Representatives have seen their law firms collect nearly $2.7 million from agreements (that we know of) with Alan Wilson’s Attorney General office in just the past two years.

What Are Litigation Retention Agreements?

As we have reported in previous installments of this series, when a government entity contracts with private outside law firms instead of using in house lawyers that are already on the state payroll, they utilize Litigation Retention Agreements. South Carolina Attorney General’s office has used these Litigation Retention Agreements extensively in recent years with political insider law firms, engaging them to represent the state or political subdivisions in litigation, including major class action lawsuits.

Depending on the structure of the agreement, compensation can take the form of hourly fees, contingency fees, or a combination of the two. The settlements in question are contingency fees from a batch of class action opioid settlements that have brought in over $256 million for the state and a different settlement with Centene, a healthcare company that has come under scrutiny in other states for its settlements-combined-with-lobbying efforts.

Our sources tell us that the vast majority of the insider politicians that signed on to these lawsuits didn’t do any of the heavy lifting in these class action lawsuits, merely copying and pasting legal documents from other participating law firms and signing their name. The numbers of politicians signing on to represent certain political subdivisions in SC are staggering. Aiken County alone had 6 attorneys signed up, including two sitting legislators: Rep. Murrell Smith, Sen. Tom Young‘s Young & Thurmond. It is worth asking why counties such as Allendale and Barnwell required the representation of 9 law firms, but a large county like Charleston only required one.

In November 2025, Palmetto State Watch Foundation submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office for the past ten years of Litigation Retention Agreements and financial documents with outside law firms, including those representing political subdivisions for state matters. What came back in January was voluminous and, as this series has demonstrated, deeply troubling.

The same lawyers that received settlement funds because of their relationship with the Attorney General’s Office get to decide how much taxpayer money the SCAG’s office gets for its budget. In the Senate, we documented how Democrat Senators Brad Hutto and Margie Bright Matthews, whose firms collected over $147,000 from opioid settlement LRAs, sat on the very subcommittee charged with reviewing the AG’s budget. But the Senate’s conflicts pale next to what the FOIA documents reveal about sitting House representatives.

House Speaker Murrell Smith’s Cut

On top of being arguably the most powerful legislator in South Carolina, House Speaker Murrell Smith is also a named partner at Smith Robinson Holler DuBose and Morgan, LLC, a law firm that has collected over $2.1 million from SCAG Litigation Retention Agreements in just two years.

On the last page of Smith’s Statement of Economic Interest Report (SEI) for 2026, he reported receiving $867,766.38 from SCAG from “Opoid Fees for Represent for the counties and Centene settlement” (he misspelled Opioid) during the year of 2025. According to the documents we received from the AG’s office, he only received $514,808.37 during 2025 for the three separate settlements. That’s a $352,958.01 discrepancy.

Did SCAG omit some payments made to Smith’s law firm? And if so, how many payments were omitted regarding other “political subdivisions”?

Worth noting as well: for reporting years 2023 and 2024 Smith did not report any opioid or other settlement fees from the SCAG's office, nor did Bannister in 2024 in his original filing. Interestingly enough, Bannister amended his disclosure for the year 2024 11 1/2 months after the report was due to include the settlement fees his law firm received from SCAG. The amendment was filed four days AFTER our second report on the AG's litigation retention agreements with lawyer-legislators. In the amendment, Bannister added that he had represented a private citizen that sued South Carolina Department of Transportation and he earned $90,000 in fees...which he had apparently failed to report on his original disclosure almost a year before.

Chairman Bruce Bannister’s Cut

If Smith’s situation raises questions of scale, Bannister’s raises questions of structure. As Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Bannister holds perhaps the most consequential budget-writing perch in the entire General Assembly. His committee’s decisions directly shape the funding levels available to every executive agency, including the Attorney General’s office.

His firm, Bannister, Wyatt & Stalvey, LLC, collected at least $541,075.27 from SCAG LRAs in 2024 and 2025. At the same time, his committee was writing the budget that determines how much money flows to the office whose LRAs were paying his firm.

This is not a theoretical conflict. It is a structural one, and our prior reporting adds another dimension to it. On August 19, 2024, an email landed in then-Elections Commission Director Howard Knapp‘s inbox expressing support for the SEC using the Master Lease Program under SC Code § 1-1-1020 to acquire new voting machines. It was signed: Bruce Bannister, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee, South Carolina House of Representatives. However, Bruce Bannister did not send that email, it instead came from his assistant, Kim Jackson’s email.

The other recipient on that email was none other than Hobart Trotter, the registered lobbyist for ES&S, the company whose machines were being purchased. The vendor’s own lobbyist was copied on what amounted to a legislative endorsement of his client’s sale. The following year, the same Elections Director was arrested and charged 11 times related to embezzlement, misconduct, use of his official position for financial gain, and accessory to wiretapping.

Beyond the Speaker and the Chairman

Smith and Bannister may be the most glaring examples, but the FOIA documents reveal that the web of lawyer-legislators collecting fees under SCAG Litigation Retention Agreements extends well beyond the current House leadership. Rep. Robby Robbins’ law firm Thurmond, Kirchner & Timbes, PA also received $568,761.14 from the opioid settlement as well. Across both parties and both chambers, the pattern repeats: a legislator holds a law license, their firm signs onto an LRA with the Attorney General’s office, and public settlement money flows back to a private practice run by someone who votes on that office’s budget and authority.

The figures below represent what the FOIA documents show was paid to firms connected to current or former legislators over the past ten years, beyond those already detailed above.

Current Republican Representative Robby Robbins, a former First Circuit Solicitor, received $568,761.14 through his firm Thurmond, Kirchner & Timbes. The co-founder of this law firm, Paul Thurmond, is the youngest son of former U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond.

Current Republican Representative Tom Young‘s firm, Young & Thurmond, received $58,094.80.

Former Democrat State Senator Thomas McElveen‘s firm, Bryan Law Firm of SC, received $17,879.33. McElveen, who served three terms in the Senate before retiring in 2024, returned to full-time practice at the Sumter-based firm he had been with since 2003.

Former Republican Representative and current Kershaw County Council Chairman Ben Connell‘s Connell Law Firm received $12,805.72.

Former Republican Representative Gary Clary‘s firm received $114,594.09.

Former Republican Representative George Hearn received $231,272.73 through Hearn & Hearn, the law firm he shares with his wife, former South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Kaye Hearn. The firm bears a name that carries considerable institutional weight in South Carolina’s legal community, which makes its appearance on the AG’s LRA ledger all the more notable.

Former Democrat Representative James Smith Jr.‘s sole practice received $306,256.01. Smith is also a member of Liberty Fellowship class of 2012. Smith’s inclusion carries a dimension that goes beyond the financial: according to documents reviewed by Palmetto State Watch Foundation, he also represented Attorney General Alan Wilson in connection with ethics complaints against Wilson’s office. Is a former legislator collecting six figures under the AG’s LRA program is the appropriate person to defend that same AG against ethics proceedings? Let’s continue...

Former Democrat Representative Cezar McKnight‘s Law Office of Cezar E. McKnight LLC received $60,200.61.

Former Democrat Senator Gerald Malloy‘s Malloy Law Firm received $44,177.86.

Former Democrat Representative Paul Agnew‘s firm received $18,960.29.

Former Republican Senator Sandy Senn‘s firm, Senn Legal, received $1,198,772.29 which places her among the highest individual recipients in the entire FOIA dataset outside of Smith and Bannister themselves.

Former Democrat Senator and gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen‘s firm received $138,114.93. Sheheen, who ran for governor twice as the Democratic nominee, is among the more prominent political figures whose firm appears on the LRA ledger.

Taken together, the firms of these current and former legislators collected well over $10 million in addition to the nearly $2.7 million flowing to the firms of Smith and Bannister. This is a clear pattern of financial relationships between the Attorney General’s office and the legislative branch that raises serious questions about independence, oversight, and the integrity of the budget process that funds the office at the center of it all. It is also worth noting that the Democrats received nearly double compared to what the Republicans received.

I cannot emphasize this next point enough: this is not all of the SCAG payments to powerful politicians. This is just the list of legislator-related LRAs that we received. Yes, it continues to get worse the more we dig.

“An Existential Threat to Our Machine”

It is against this backdrop that Solicitor David Pascoe who built his career prosecuting public corruption in South Carolina, announced his campaign for Attorney General. The establishment’s response was swift.

Pascoe, who spent years as a circuit solicitor aggressively pursuing corruption cases that others in the Columbia power structure preferred to leave alone, is now on the receiving end of attacks from a group called Fact Check SC, described by Pascoe as a Republican House caucus operation funded by dark money. As someone who has been a lone figure in raising awareness about these LRAs for years, Pascoe made the following comments:

“I recently asked someone close with the State House establishment why they are coming after me so hard with a group called Fact Check SC, a Republican House caucus group. It is the same dark money that has gone after conservatives like Representative Joe White. He was very honest in his response, ‘because you are an existential threat to our machine.’”

“We have lawyer legislators making hundreds of thousands, and in one case millions, of dollars off of Attorney General Litigation Retention Agreements. We did not elect them to go to Columbia and make a profit. The two most egregious examples of State House grifters on the LRA’s are the two most powerful: Speaker Murrell Smith and Ways & Means Chairman Bruce Bannister.”

“They know I will make sure they never profit from their position again so their consultants in the Blatt Building are coming after me with caucus money. It won’t work. Republican voters are fed up with the the bipartisan culture of corruption in Columbia.”

The “Blatt Building” reference is pointed. It is the home of the South Carolina House of Representatives’ leadership offices, located directly across from the State House. The consultants Pascoe refers to operate in close proximity to the speaker’s suite.

How The Uniparty Stays In Power

What this series has now established, across three reports, is that the attorney-legislator LRA arrangement is a clear pattern, not just a partisan phenomenon.

That pattern continued to grow into an octopus when we looked into the $75 million opioid settlement that involved Alan Wilson’s former law firm and key players. Companies were formed days after the contract was signed, hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed into Wilson’s political campaign, and others soon after the settlement money arrived some even the day the funds were received.

Politicians like Senator Stephen Goldfinch who is running for Attorney General is also a recipient of those donations. This is how they keep the machine working flawlessly.

Now, we add House leadership to the mix of lawyer-legislators who appear to siphon off of lucrative state settlements.

These are the people who make decisions that directly affect your everyday life. They raise your taxes, they decide who gets prosecuted and who does not. They pass laws that benefit their group and exempt themselves from standards that you are held to. You fund the system that they bankroll.

Many of these positions are coming up for election during South Carolina’s upcoming primary which is scheduled for June 9th, 2026 and the subsequent runoffs scheduled for June 23rd. Educate your circle and remember this series at the ballot box.

I reached out to both Speaker Murrell Smith and Chairman Bruce Bannister for comment. Neither had responded as of publication.

The South Carolina State Election Commission (SEC) voted 4-1 last week to authorize Executive Director Conway Belangia to execute a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (DOJ), ending more than a year of legal battles, legislative interference, and public standoff over the state’s voter registration list.

The one dissenting vote was commissioner Joanne Day, who commented when asked why she voted against she said she had constitutional concerns.

The agreement, which Belangia signed yesterday and which DOJ Acting Chief of the Voting Section Eric V. Neff had already countersigned on April 23rd, requires the SEC to transfer South Carolina’s complete statewide Voter Registration List to the DOJ no later than five business days from April 28th which is approximately May 5th, 2026.

Read the resolution HERE.

As stated in the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding), the SEC will transmit voter data through DOJ’s encrypted Justice Enterprise File Sharing system (JEFS). Social Security Number digits (which was one of the main privacy concerns) will be transmitted in hashed form. Hashing is a one-way cryptographic process that converts data into a fixed-length digital fingerprint that cannot be reversed or decoded. According to the SEC’s press release, the DOJ will receive a fingerprint, not the number itself.

The data fields DOJ is receiving are full name, date of birth, residential address, and voter registration number. For the sensitive identifier field, the MOU’s Section II cites HAVA requirements and lists either a driver’s license number or the last four SSN digits. Section VI then specifies that the last four SSN digits will be transmitted in hashed form.

ERIC Receives More Personal Data Than The DOJ

The SEC distributed a Voter Data Elements Comparison chart at yesterday’s meeting, and it deserves a closer look.

South Carolina already shares more voter data through more channels than what DOJ is getting here. The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonprofit data-sharing organization of which SC is a member, receives full name, date of birth, residential address, mailing address, both the driver’s license number and the full Social Security Number, voter registration number, county code, registration date, gender, last voted date, voter status, last update to voter record, and email and phone number when available. That data is then accessible to all of their member states and the District of Columbia.

Let that sink in. ERIC, an organization with a well-documented reputation for maintaining dirty voter rolls, gets the driver’s license number AND the full SSN, unredacted, shared across a 25-state consortium. The DOJ, under this MOU, gets one or the other, with the SSN digits hashed.

South Carolina also sells voter data to purchasers, listed as ‘VRL Sales Data’ on the chart, that includes voting history going back two primary cycles, primary ballot selections, and whether a voter participated in the two most recent general elections. According to the SEC’s comparison chart, none of those fields were will go to the DOJ.

So, it begs the question, why has our state handed ERIC both sensitive identifiers in full who shares that data with third parties and then spent nearly a year fighting the federal government over a hashed copy of four digits? The privacy concerns were real, but they were selectively applied.

State Election Commission Controls Removals

According to Section VIII, the DOJ will analyze the VRL and notify the SEC of any voters it believes may be ineligible. The SEC then has 45 days to review those findings. Voters are removed only when “identified by [DOJ] and confirmed by the SEC.” The SEC retains independent authority over every removal decision.

Belangia’s transmittal letter to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon credits DOJ for adopting language that accurately reflects the SEC’s independent role in making eligibility determinations, suggesting the original draft did not make that authority as explicit.

Future With the DOJ

The SEC has until approximately May 5th to transmit the data. If the DOJ’s analysis identifies potential ineligible voters, the SEC will be notified securely and will have 45 days to review and confirm any removals before resubmitting an updated list to DOJ for verification.

The MOU runs through December 31, 2028, with either party able to terminate with 90 days written notice.

The Commission’s stated goal, per Belangia’s letter, is to ensure “every eligible citizen has the opportunity to register to vote and participate in fair and impartial elections with the assurance that every vote will count.”

The Transparency Contradiction

The same state apparatus that resisted this data-sharing agreement for over a year, citing privacy concerns and the sanctity of voter information, continues to block Cast Vote Records (CVRs) from public FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) access. Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Alan Wilson continues to block access to this previously FOIA-able documents and has maintained that position even as citizens and public interest groups have pressed the issue. Wilson doubled down on his CVR opinion during a public forum in Lancaster on April 10th.

Cast Vote Records show how individual ballots were tabulated and are the audit mechanism that allow the public to independently verify election results, the very thing that a healthy republic should welcome—scrutiny. CVRs were available to the public in South Carolina until former state election director Marci Andino asked Attorney General Alan Wilson in August of 2020 to issue an opinion to state that CVRs contained private information and could no longer be subject to FOIA.

The SEC will hand the federal government a hashed copy of 3.3 million South Carolinians’ voter registration data, the last four SSN digits, transmitted through a DOJ system. But a spreadsheet showing how ballots were counted? Still off-limits to the citizens who cast them thanks to Alan Wilson.

Pennsylvania Makes CVRs Public On The Same Day

On the same day that the SC Election Commission announced its MOU with the DOJ, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled that spreadsheets of raw data associated with every ballot are public records. The Democratic-majority court said its unanimous decision was a way to “satisfy the voting public that our elections are safe, secure and accurate” while preserving the state constitution’s requirement that votes remain secret.

The court ruled that cast vote records “are spreadsheets of raw data pulled from the cast ballots. They are not the physical ballots contained in the ballot box,” and therefore are public records, concluding that “this interpretation does not destroy the secrecy of the vote any more than a tally of all votes from a specific election.”

Somehow, a blue-embattled state like Pennsylvania will make their CVRs public along with many other states, but bright red Attorney General Alan Wilson continues to refuse.

Who Negotiates For the Voters?

Pennsylvania’s highest court ruled unanimously yesterday that citizens have the right to see how their ballots were counted. South Carolina’s AG decided in 2020 that they don’t, and has spent every year since defending that decision. The SEC just proved it can negotiate hard for the privacy of voter data when it wants to. The question now is…who negotiates for the voters?

Read the signed MOU HERE.

BEFORE:

• Election protests started at the county party level, with multiple layers of appeal, including circuit court

• Candidates had up to 26 days to gather evidence

• Winners had to wait until challenges were resolved before taking office
  

AFTER (under H.3556):

• ALL protests go straight to state executive committee

• Appeals may go only to the State Supreme Court and only based on the party’s hearing record

• Protests must be heard within just 11 days

• Declared winners can take office immediately, even if challenges are ongoing
  

Why this matters:

This bill concentrates power in state party leadership, limits transparency, shortens timelines for due process, and makes it harder to challenge election results. It also reinforces a system where taxpayers fund primary elections, yet political parties maintain tight control over them.

Take action now:

Call or email your state representative and urge them to VOTE NO on H.3556. Election integrity, fairness, and accountability depend on it.

Find your state representative HERE.

Have you been wondering why you owe the government more money than usual while filing your taxes this year? Or wonder where all those empty “tax relief” promises went?

While South Carolinians were busy filing their returns this spring, the state legislature spent the past three weeks raising fees, blocking tax relief, doubling their own paychecks, and gutting insurance protections. They killed three attempts to suspend the gas tax, signed a bill that raises taxes on nearly a quarter of all filers, and blocked a property tax break for anyone under 65. They also found time to hand data centers another tax credit and fast-track new transportation fees. Here is a full rundown of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

General Assembly Kills Three Attempts To Temporarily Suspend the Gas Tax

The Senate and the House has blocked three separate attempts to temporarily suspend the gas tax over the past three weeks.

A Senate joint resolution (S.1045) introduced March 24th by Senator Russell Ott would suspend SC’s motor fuels user fees for 30 days, with an automatic extension for another 30 days if average gas prices haven’t fallen 15%. Governor McMaster has made it clear that he will not support any gas tax pause. There are multiple companion bills (5398, 5419, 5422, 5443, 5475) but S.1045 continues to sit in the Senate Finance Committee.

Two days later, on March 26th, Representative Jordan Pace attempted to bring another joint resolution that would suspend SC’s gas tax for two months (H. 5398) to the House floor for debate. House Speaker Murrell Smith blocked Pace’s attempt after their top budget writer, Representative Bruce Bannister, objected.

House leadership was not finished killing attempts to alleviate South Carolinians, however. According to a FITSNews report, “Smith and Bannister also blocked a separate piece of legislation (H. 5419) sponsored by representatives Mark Smith and Justin Bamberg that would suspend the gas tax for one month.”

Governor Signs Blue-Collar Income Tax Hike

Despite intense opposition from the grassroots and warnings from a handful of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the General Assembly passed the blue-collar income tax hike (H.4216) which was signed by Governor Henry McMaster on March 30th. This bill is being paraded by the establishment as a “historic tax cut,” which couldn’t be farther from the truth.

H.4216 replaces the state’s existing three-bracket income tax system with two rates while stripping away the federal standard and itemized deductions South Carolinians previously used on their state returns. The state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has also been capped at $200.

According to the bill’s own fiscal impact report, almost 23% of South Carolina filers will see a tax increase while another 34.6% will not see a change in in their tax liability. The rest will see some form of a tax decrease, with the top 1% of South Carolinians (with an annual average income of $1.7 million) will see a tax cut of $3,139 in 2026 as per the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

As we reported in February, this is textbook reverse Robin Hood. The state legislature has decided to raise taxes on working families struggling the most, while simultaneously padding the wallets of their donor base.

Senate Kills Trump’s No Tax on Tips/Overtime & Senior Deduction While Passing Pay Raises For...Themselves

On March 31st, the Senate voted 16-27 to kill H.3368, the bill that would have conformed South Carolina’s tax code to the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act for the 2025 tax year. That means South Carolina workers who earn tips or overtime, seniors who would have claimed the new $6,000 federal deduction, and families who relied on the expanded standard deduction received nothing. Fifteen Republicans joined all Democrats in rejecting the measure.

During floor debate, Senators Shane Massey and Everett Stubbs led the opposition, arguing that conforming to the federal code for one year would make taxes appear to increase the following year and that they did not want to raise taxes on their constituents. That argument is intellectually insulting.

These senators are asking South Carolinians to believe that we would rather be overtaxed now than receive one year of legitimate tax relief. The reality is that all 46 Senate seats are on the ballot in 2028 and these senators do not want to spend the next two years explaining why taxes look higher under the very income tax overhaul they just championed. They chose their own electoral comfort over real relief for working families. The question worth asking is...why are our senators actively fighting tax breaks for the people they represent?

Less than an hour after killing tax relief for South Carolinians, the Senate Finance Special Subcommittee moved forward on S.933, a bill that would nearly double legislator pay. The bill was amended in the Senate Finance Committee on April 15th and given a favorable report. Under the amended version, legislators would receive a base salary of $15,000, up from $10,400, plus an in-district legislative service allowance of $32,500, bringing total annual compensation to $47,500. Both figures would be adjusted every two years based on the consumer price index, capped at 5%. More on this in the future.

The same legislators who blocked tax relief for working South Carolinians managed to find time to nearly double their own compensation on the same day. A bit ironic, since affordability seems to be one of the issues certain gubernatorial candidates are campaigning on.

Legislators Fast-Track SCDOT’s Bill to Increase Vehicle/Sales/Property Taxes

As we reported in February, S.831 and its House companion H.5071 are nearly 15,000 words of legislation that grow bureaucracy, weaken oversight, expand transportation debt, and create new revenue streams for the state under the banner of SCDOT “modernization.” The bills were crafted with direct input from SCDOT Secretary Justin Powell, the Municipal Association of South Carolina (MASC), and politically connected private contractors.

Representative Don Chapman even joked during the ad hoc committee process that the committee’s logo should have been dollar signs.

The bills raise biennial registration fees for electric vehicles from $120 to $400 and for hybrids from $60 to $200, a more than 300% increase, and add a new $0.045 per kilowatt hour tax on public EV chargers. Both fee increases are tied to CPI adjustments, meaning they will continue to grow automatically without a legislative vote.

The bills also authorize county governments to impose a new 2% sales tax and to increase annual property tax millage beyond the caps currently in place under Act 388, in exchange for counties taking over roads that SCDOT no longer wants to maintain.

To make matters even worse? The bills allow the state’s $51 billion public employee pension fund to be used to finance toll road bonds, and explicitly exempt those bonds from South Carolina’s constitutional debt limit.

On April 1st, the House Ways and Means Committee voted 22-2 to advance both bills. Only Representatives Micah Caskey and Kevin Hardee voted no.

What in these bills are considered “modernization”? From our analysis, it is just more tax increases dressed up in infrastructure language, fast-tracked through committee in under ten minutes. They are now waiting to be called to the House floor for a vote.

Senate Blocks Property Tax Exemption For All Citizens Under 65

As we reported back in March, S.768, the Homestead Act championed by nearly 50-year incumbent Senate Finance Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler, would add two more property tax homestead exemptions ($75,000 and $150,000) for individuals 65 years old and older with certain residential requirements. During floor debate on February 18th, Senator Lee Bright offered an amendment that would have extended the same property tax break to all South Carolina homeowners regardless of age.

Bright emphasized that tax cuts that pit generations against one another are not good policy, especially when younger working families are struggling to survive in this economy. He also pointed out that the state had no trouble finding $1.3 billion for Scout Motors and $130 million for the Carolina Panthers, but when asked to return roughly $900 million to all of its taxpayers, the Senate suddenly discovered fiscal restraint.

As you may imagine, the response from Senate leadership was defensive. Bill author Senator Peeler attempted to convince Bright to withdraw his amendment by offering him “a seat at the table.” Senator Larry Grooms tried to kill it with a poison pill amendment inflating the exemption to $1 million, a move Bright immediately recognized and rejected. When neither tactic worked, Senator Danny Verdin moved to table the amendment outright. The Senate voted 32-10 to kill the amendment. The age-restricted version of S.768 passed and is now awaiting a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee.

Dictating How Cities in Greenville, Oconee County, & Beaufort Tax Residents

S.866, the “Municipal Tax Relief Act,” would authorize municipalities in counties that do not currently impose a countywide 1% sales tax to levy their own 1% municipal sales tax, subject to a local referendum. In practice, the bill is narrowly targeted at cities within Greenville and Oconee Counties, which have never imposed a countywide sales tax, and cities in Beaufort County, which would be permitted to hold a referendum in 2028 if a countywide referendum fails first.

At least 20% of the revenue collected must be directed toward property tax relief for owner-occupied homes, with the remaining 80% available for roads, infrastructure, police stations, fire stations, and similar projects. The tax could be imposed for up to eight years and reimposed for up to seven more.

Here we go again as the state attempts to pass laws that dictate to counties how to tax their citizens and even forcing their hand to do so. Why do you think these areas have exploded and are some of the top counties that people are moving to? If a city needs additional revenue, that conversation should happen transparently at the county level where all residents have a voice, not carved out in a deal that benefits city governments while leaving everyone else to foot the bill.

The Senate passed S.866 on a 32-9 vote for second reading on April 1st, and it passed third reading on April 15th. It arrived in the House on April 16th and was immediately referred to House Ways and Means.

Senate Affirms that Data Centers Can Receive Tax Credits of Empty Buildings

S.853 was introduced on January 28th in direct response to SC Revenue Ruling 26-1, a SCDOR ruling issued just three weeks earlier on January 6th that tightened eligibility for the state’s Abandoned Buildings Tax Credit by requiring that a building must have been income-producing before its abandonment. The bill strips that requirement out of state law entirely, meaning any building that has sat vacant for five years or more can qualify for the credit regardless of whether it was ever commercially operated.

The appearance of the intent seemed to be to protect legitimate redevelopment projects like historic restorations and community revitalization efforts. What became clear during Senate floor debate, however, is that the change also opens the door for data centers to claim the credit on vacant properties they acquire and develop. Or perhaps it has something to do with the over 20 million square feet of speculative buildings built in the past several years in the Spartanburg area, that are still standing vacant, and likely all around the state? OneSpartanburg’s PAC, Spartanburg Tomorrow PAC (also Spartanburg Tomorrow Economic Development PAC and Spartanburg Tomorrow Tourism Development PAC), has contributed $15,000 to various legislators this year alone.

Senators Martin, Bright, Cash, Reichenbach, Leber, Rice, Corbin, and Kennedy attempted to add an amendment that would have explicitly excluded data centers from taking advantage of the credit. That amendment was defeated 31-12 by a motion made by Senator Tom Davis. In a joint statement, those eight senators explained that after learning between second and third reading that data centers could benefit from S.853, they voted no on third reading after unsuccessfully trying to remove data centers from the bill.

The Senate passed S.853 with a 33-10 vote anyway and it has since moved to the House Ways and Means Property Tax subcommittee, which gave it a favorable report during the week of March 27th. It is now headed to the full Ways and Means Committee.

South Carolinians who have been watching the legislature hand out one data center subsidy after another should pay close attention to this one as it moves through the House.

Governor Signs Boat Tax Reduction

Now that we have covered some of the alarming pieces of legislation that hurts state residents, let’s take a look at the bone that some South Carolinians are being thrown by the political class.

On March 30th, Governor McMaster signed H.3858 into law, which reduced South Carolina’s boat property tax assessment rate from 10.5% to 6%, phased in over three years and fully in place by 2030. The bill also eliminates the longstanding requirement that outboard motors be titled and taxed separately from the boat, consolidating the two into a single taxable value.

South Carolina has historically ranked among the highest in the nation for boat property taxes, and it’s been showing for a long time. According to the SC Boating and Fishing Alliance, 80% of boats sold in South Carolina and valued at $120,000 or more are currently registered out of state.

The bill passed the Senate 39-1 and the House unanimously. There may be a reason why the legislature was so excited to pass this law. The reduction of taxes will not be coming out of their coffers, but instead it will impact the county. The estimated $40 million in annual property tax relief to boat owners comes directly out of local government and school district revenue, with Lexington County taking the largest single hit at an estimated $9 million annually by 2029. Counties that had already lowered their own boat assessment rates by local ordinance, including Beaufort, Charleston, Dorchester, Florence, Hampton, and Horry, will see no change. For everyone else, the phased reduction begins with property tax years after 2026

Insurance Reform Trojan Horse

Under current law (Section 38-77-280), automobile insurers in South Carolina are already required to waive deductibles on automobile safety glass claims entirely under Comprehensive and Collision coverage. That means that if your windshield needs to be replaced right now, you pay nothing out of pocket regardless of your deductible if you carry these coverages. That is the existing standard protection for all SC drivers.

H.4817 guts that protection. The bill does two things regarding automobile glass claims:

(1) It sunsets the existing mandatory zero-dollar deductible for glass claims on December 31, 2026. After that date, the free glass replacement that SC drivers currently enjoy as a right disappears.

(2) Beginning January 1, 2027, it replaces the mandatory waiver with a voluntary offering. Insurers would only be required to “offer” a zero-dollar deductible option for glass, meaning they can charge extra for it. Drivers who want the same protection they have today would have to pay an additional premium to get it.

This is a straight reduction in consumer protection disguised within a massive insurance reform bill. South Carolina drivers currently have one of the strongest glass claim protections in the country at no extra cost. After January 1, 2027, that same protection becomes an add-on that insurers can price however they want. Drivers who do not actively opt in and pay for the upgraded coverage could find themselves paying a deductible of hundreds of dollars for a windshield replacement that would have cost them nothing the year before. Opting in could cost consumers anywhere from an additional $60 to $150 per year to keep this coverage. Who wants to bet insurers won’t drop premiums one penny if this coverage goes away?

On April 1st, the House voted 76-35 to pass second reading of H.4817. The next day, they sent it to the Senate. H.4817 currently sits in the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee.

The $2.7 Billion Question: Where Is Our Tax Relief?

While your legislators have been busy raising taxes on working families, fast-tracking fee increases, blocking property tax relief for anyone under 65, and nearly doubling their own paychecks, Governor McMaster announced in January that South Carolina’s economy generated $2.7 billion in surplus revenue for the upcoming fiscal year. Read that again. $2.7 billion dollars in surplus revenue, and the best this legislature could offer working South Carolinians was a boat tax cut that comes out of county budgets, not the state’s.

The pattern is obvious. When there is money to give to Scout Motors, there is $1.3 billion. When there is money to give to the Carolina Panthers, there is $130 million. When there is money to fund data center subsidies, the legislature moves quickly.

But when Senator Lee Bright asks for a property tax break for every South Carolina homeowner, 32 senators vote to kill it in under an hour. When workers ask for the same no-tax-on-tips and no-tax-on-overtime relief that the federal government already passed, 27 senators say no because it might be politically inconvenient in 2028.

When three separate attempts are made to give drivers even a temporary break at the gas pump, General Assembly leadership blocks every single one before they can reach the floor for a vote.

This legislature has $2.7 billion in surplus revenue, a Republican supermajority in both chambers, and every political tool available to deliver real, broad-based tax relief to every South Carolinian. They have chosen not to. That is not a policy disagreement. That is a choice, and it is one they will need to answer for at the ballot box in 2028. In the meantime, bookmark every vote listed in this article. Your legislators are counting on you to forget. Do not let them.

During the March 4th hearing on S.897, a bill that removed the religious exemption from measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, Senator Shane Martin hinted that a bill allowing personal exemptions for vaccines would be filed.

Before the vote was taken on S.897, Senator Billy Garrett said that he agreed with Martin and would help work on filing legislation that addressed personal exemptions:

This is the same inside baseball move Janis Price discussed in her article entitled, Fast-Tracked and Funded or Political Theater? Following the Money and Politics Behind the MMR Bill. Did South Carolina’s Senate move an extremely-left bill sponsored by one lone democrat (Sen. Margie Bright Matthews) to defeat it, add a feather in their cap for election season, and tee-up the medical freedom community to accept a compromise?

On March 18, 2026, Senator Billy Garrett introduced S.1029, a bill that amends South Carolina's laws on contagious and infectious diseases and was referred on the same day to the Senate Medical Affairs Committee. At first glance, the bill seems like a win as it removes state vaccine requirements for private schools and private childcare facilities. However, if you read the fine print, those removals are replaced with an alarming power dynamic that is dictated by the South Carolina Public Health Department (DPH) and private schools.

The Private School Loophole

While S.1029 removes private schools and private childcare facilities from state vaccine mandates, this bill explicitly gives those private institutions the authority to create their own vaccine mandates as a condition of admission of enrollment.

There is no requirement in this bill for private schools or private childcare facilities to accept any form of vaccine exemptions. That means a private school in South Carolina could require every vaccine on the schedule and deny your child admission with zero legal recourse under state law.

Under current law, exemption processes apply to both public and private schools. S.1029 strips that protection from families who choose private education. The existing statutory medical, religious, and personal exemption processes would apply only to public school mandates going forward. Private institutions get to make up their own rules, and your family has no guaranteed right to push back.

What About the Proposed Personal Exemption?

S.1029 does add a new personal vaccine exemption for children attending public schools and public childcare. A parent or guardian could obtain a personal exemption certificate from their local health department.

While this seems like a decent provision, it would not be that effective. South Carolina's existing religious exemption is already written broadly. According to current DPH rule, a Certificate of Religious Exemption may be granted to any student whose parent or guardian signs a statement saying that one or more immunizations conflicts with their religious beliefs. That criteria is already fairly easy to meet.

The personal exemption addition does not come close to outweighing what this bill takes away on the private school side.

DPH Wields All the Power

The most alarming part of S.1029 is that it significantly expands the Department of Public Health's authority. The bill gives the DPH "general direction and supervision" over vaccine exemptions statewide and grants new rule-making authority over those exemptions. That means the law allowing you to opt out of vaccine requirements would be set by an overly bureaucratic, administrative agency.

To make matters worse, S.1029 specifies that during a declared public health emergency, the DPH may isolate or quarantine children enrolled at private schools or childcare facilities who have vaccine exemptions and have been diagnosed with or exposed to the relevant disease. While this code already exists in several areas of S.C. Code Title 44, Chapter 4 (and we have spent years advocating against) why does it need to be spelled out again and in the specific case of children?

The Bottom Line

Once again, our legislature is packaging what they claim to be good legislation while quietly removing the rights and freedoms South Carolina families are actively using today.

S.1029 is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It creates a scenario where private schools and childcare facilities can discriminate against children based on their vaccination status with no checks, expands state bureaucratic authority over exemptions for public school families, and adds quarantine language that is redundant at best and concerning in its intent at worst.

This bill is currently sitting in the Senate Medical Affairs Committee and waiting to be scheduled for a hearing. Now is the time to act. Contact committee members and ask them to oppose S.1029.

Special thanks to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) and their extremely detailed analysis on S.1029. You can read their full bill breakdown in their advocacy portal HERE.

Tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM, the House Ways and Means Committee will hear two bills claiming to “modernize” the SCDOT - S.831 and H.5071. Don’t be fooled by the word “efficiency”. These bills aren’t about fixing potholes; they are about opening your wallet.

What’s actually in these bills?

Property Tax Hikes: Allows local governments to blow past legal caps to tax your home for roads.

Sales Tax Doubling: Authorizes a 2% local sales tax (up from the current 1% limit).

EV/Hybrid Penalties: Triples registration fees for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Turnpike Expansion: Makes it easier to add toll lanes and rack up new state debt through turnpike bonds.

99-Year Contracts: Grants SCDOT broad powers to hand over infrastructure to private companies for nearly a century.

Digital Burden Shifting: Funds a pothole reporting app that forces citizens to do the inspection work SCDOT should already be doing, creating a convenient excuse for why repairs aren’t made until you report them.

SCDOT does not have a revenue problem; it has an accountability problem.

CALL TO ACTION: We need to flood the House Ways and Means Committee with calls and emails BEFORE 9:00 AM tomorrow. The Message: “Vote NO on S.831 and H.5071. South Carolinians are taxed enough. Focus on accountability and existing resources, not new revenue streams and debt.”

Committee member office numbers:

Nathan Ballentine - 803-734-2969
Bruce Bannister – 803-734-3144
Gilda Cobb-Hunter – 803-734-2809
Micajah “Micah” Caskey – 803-734-3113
William “Bill” Clyburn – 803-734-3033
Neal Collins – 803-212-6913
Heather Crawford – 803-212-6933
Chandra Dillard – 803-212-6791
Kevin Hardee – 803-212-6796
Jackie “Coach” Hayes – 803-734-3099
Lee Hewitt – 803-212-6927
David R. Hiott – 803-734-3138
Lonnie Hosey – 803-734-2829
Leon Howard – 803-734-3049
Steven Long – 803-212-6878
Phillip Lowe – 803-734-2975
Dennis Moss – 803-734-3073
Brandon Newton – 803-212-6874
Todd Rutherford – 803-734-9441
Leonidas “Leon” Stravrinakis – 803-734-3039
Bill Taylor – 803-212-6923
David Weeks – 803-734-3102
William “Bill” Whitmire – 803-734-3068
Mark Willis – 803-212-6882
Richard “Richie” Yow – 803-212-6949

Email list for the House Ways and Means Committee:

brucebannister@schouse.gov, gildacobbhunter@schouse.gov, billwhitmire@schouse.gov, nathanballentine@schouse.gov, micahcaskey@schouse.gov, billclyburn@schouse.gov, nealcollins@schouse.gov, heathercrawford@schouse.gov, chandradillard@schouse.gov, kevinhardee@schouse.gov, jackiehayes@schouse.gov, leehewitt@schouse.gov, davidhiott@schouse.gov, lonniehosey@schouse.gov, leonhoward@schouse.gov, stevenlong@schouse.gov, philliplowe@schouse.gov, dennismoss@schouse.gov, brandonnewton@schouse.gov, toddrutherford@schouse.gov, leonstav@schouse.gov, billtaylor@schouse.gov, davidweeks@schouse.gov, markwillis@schouse.gov, richardyow@schouse.gov

For more information on these bad bills, check out Anna Herron’s article on Palmetto State Watch entitled, “Both S.C. Chambers Filed Their Versions of Bills to “Fix” SCDOT – And They Must Be Stopped”

Joseph “Conway” Belangia has been appointed Interim Director of the South Carolina Election Commission (SEC) on Wednesday, March 25, 2025 at the SCVotes headquarters in Downtown Columbia following the withdrawal of Jenny Wooten, who withdrew her name from consideration for the permanent director role after Senate leadership made it clear she would not receive their confirmation.

Conway was appointed unanimously, with one board member absent.

Belangia is 72 years old and has served as the Greenville County Director of Voter Registrations and Elections since 1992. Prior to 34 years as Greenville’s election director, Belangia worked for the Division of Research and Statistical Services and eventually served as the Public Information Officer for the State Election Commission.

Conway Belangia was born in Charleston, grew up in St. Stephen, South Carolina, and now resides in Mauldin. He received his B.S. from the University of South Carolina. The day before his appointment, Belangia received the Order of the Palmetto.

The Lead Up

Wooten was appointed Interim Director in October 2025 after the SEC voted 3 to 2 to fire former Executive Director Howard “Howie” Knapp, who now faces eleven criminal charges including eight counts of using his official position for financial gain, one count of embezzlement of public funds, one count of misconduct in office, and one count of accessory after the fact. His former deputy, Paige Salonich, faces a wiretapping charge after allegedly planting a recording device in the room where commissioners voted to remove Knapp.

During her tenure, Wooten moved to reform the agency’s vendor relationships, particularly with Elections Systems and Software (ES&S), and signaled the SEC would pursue competitive bidding for an estimated $18 million pollbook contract, a departure from the agency’s longstanding sole source relationship with ES&S.

Her withdrawal came after Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and Senator Chip Campsen reportedly worked to block her confirmation and install their preferred candidate. New State Election Commission chair Robert Bolchoz, appointed following the resignation of Dennis Shedd, was described by FITSNews as taking direction from Massey rather than from Governor Henry McMaster, even though McMaster was the one who appointed Bolcholz.

What’s Next for the Election Commission

The SEC is still grappling with the fallout from the Master Lease deal Knapp orchestrated, which grew from an original quoted price of $24.5 million to a Commission approved $33 million, as well as the pending criminal charges against Knapp and Salonich and unresolved questions about the role of legislative staff and the Ways and Means Committee in facilitating the deal as we exclusively reported last week.

The media sat down with Belangia following his appointment to answer a few questions before he was ushered back into the office. I asked about his mindset towards transparency in leading the State Election Commission, especially considering the previous director’s “controversial” relationships with the media.

“I hope to be very available as much as I possibly can,” Belangia added, “it’s important that we have a good relationship with the news media, the counties, the legislature, the governor’s office, federal offices as necessary, but as much as we possibly can. I don’t know what the relationship was before with prior directors but I will establish my style fairly quickly.”

Considering the recent senatorial block of the previous interim director Jenny Wooten, I asked Belangia how he foresees his senate confirmation going. Conway stated that he has not had any contact with the legislature as his appointment has “happened fairly quickly.” While he mentioned he had senatorial friends, he expects a “grilling.”

Another reporter asked the new interim director on his perspective of the biggest challenges facing elections in South Carolina. Conway responded, “just the target that’s on the back of election officials and the distrust of a small group of people in the electorate that don’t like election officials, period. That’s a hump, but by and large in South Carolina, elections are viewed as being good, fair, proper, and we intend to keep it that way.”

When asked how he plans to rebuild trust in the state, Belangia responded, “It will be one step at a time.”

If you have a tip, contact alaina@palmettostatewatchfoundation.com.

In our previous reporting from March 2025 and October 2025, we documented how the South Carolina Election Commission (SEC) former Executive Director Howard “Howie” Knapp used the state’s Master Lease Program as a backdoor to borrow tens of millions of dollars for new election equipment the legislature had explicitly refused to fund just months before.

We now have a much clearer picture of who helped make that happen...and one of those people appears to be the Chairman of the most powerful budget committee in the South Carolina House of Representatives.

In the FY 2024-2025 budget cycle, Knapp requested funds to prematurely replace Elections Systems & Software (ES&S) election machines, which had been used for exactly one 4-year election cycle thus far and which the state spent $51 million on in 2020, despite having been assured by sales reps that the machines would last upwards of 10 years. The SC Senate agreed to fund half ($12.5 million) but made clear they expected the full amount to come through appropriations. The SC House made their position even more plain: they allocated exactly $1.

Within weeks of that rebuke, Senate staffer Rick Harmon, Research Director for the Joint Bond Review Committee, emailed a Senate budget analyst Quentin Hawkins in the early hours of June 12, 2024, outlining precisely how Knapp could go around the legislature to obtain the funds. “Howie has the authority to do this under the Election Commission statute, subject to approval of the Election Commission—no further approvals are required from the JBRC or SFAA.” Harmon forwarded that email to Senate Finance Committee staffers later that day and sent it directly to Knapp the following morning. Knapp forwarded it to Jenny Wooten McGill, his Chief of Staff, the following week.

“Not Simply Staffers”

In an August 12, 2024 email, the SEC Commission Chairman Dennis Shedd stated he wanted “appropriate State Senate and House Leadership (and not simply staffers) to tell us they are supportive of this contract,” noting that to that point, “their actions suggest otherwise.” It seems he was not satisfied with the “verbal assurance“ Knapp informed him he had received.

An Email Signed By Bannister...But Not From Bannister?

On August 19, 2024, days before the SEC commission voted to approve the Master Lease purchase, an email landed in Knapp’s inbox. It expressed support for the SEC using the Master Lease Program under SC Code § 1-1-1020 to acquire new voting machines. It was signed: Bruce Bannister, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee, South Carolina House of Representatives.

Bruce Bannister did not send that email. It was sent by Kim Jackson, the House Ways & Means Committee Executive Assistant, from KimJackson@schouse.gov.

It appears that the SC House Ways and Means Chairman, whose committee had so recently registered the House’s position by appropriating one dollar, had an executive assistant send an email that would be used to justify a multi-million dollar borrowing commitment on behalf of the state. Whether Bannister personally directed Jackson to send it, or whether she acted on her own presumption of his support, is a question only he can answer. But it carries his name, his title, and his committee’s institutional weight.

The other recipient on that email was none other than Hobart Trotter, the registered lobbyist for ES&S, the company whose machines were being purchased. The vendor’s own lobbyist was copied on what amounted to a legislative endorsement of his client’s sale. That alone deserves an explanation.

Bannister himself was not cc’d on this email.

We are told this is standard practice in the legislature. Executive assistants send out emails on behalf of legislators. That makes sense when arranging agendas or making appointments, but to use that method to authorize the spending of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars? That’s A LOT of power given to an unelected official. Which begs the question that we hinted at in our previous article, does the system that produced this loosey-goosey policy deserve closer scrutiny?

The Commission received an email from an executive assistant bearing the name of the Committee’s Chairman and, apparently, accepted it as sufficient. On August 21, 2024, the Commissioners unanimously voted to authorize Knapp to sign the Master Lease agreement...with, notably, no mention in the minutes of how much they were authorizing him to spend.

It does appear Wooten met with Bannister in January 2025 to discuss the details of the funding of the machines, months after the contract had been signed.

The Amount Kept Growing

This is where it gets even more interesting. Knapp had told commissioners the ES&S price tag was $24.5 million. By September 27, 2024--the day Knapp left signed documents on General Counsel Thomas Nicholson’s chair--Nicholson was already sending documents to the deal’s broker explaining why the SEC was now requesting $28.8 million. Nicholson also noted that “ES&S’ final proposal document was missing the second page that states ES&S’ grand total.” Rates locked September 30, 2024.

By March 2025, Knapp was before the Senate asking for $32 million to repay the loan. By October 2025, after Knapp had been fired, the commission voted to amend the contract to $33 million. That is $8.5 million more than what Commissioners were told when they voted to authorize the deal just one year before.

Chairman Shedd, who then voted to approve the higher amount, stated at the October meeting that he “had no idea this contract would be financed through a third party” and had “very serious concerns” about what Knapp did with the Commission’s authorization. The question he didn’t address: if the Commission was misled, why did they just approve it for $5 million more?

Now add Bannister’s office to the picture. His staffer sent the email that provided legislative-adjacent cover for a deal that Senate staff had architected, SEC staff had operationalized, and the vendor’s lobbyist had been looped into from the start.

Then Came the Arrests

On September 17, 2025, the SEC fired Knapp in a 3-2 vote following a nearly five-hour closed executive session. The next morning, SLED showed up at the State Election Commission to investigate wiretapping allegations after Paige Salonich allegedly placed a hidden recording device in the room where the Commission had just voted to remove Knapp. Salonich was terminated on September 23rd.

On October 24, 2025, both were arrested. Knapp faces eleven charges: eight related to use of his official position for financial gain, one for embezzlement of public funds, one for misconduct in office, and one for accessory after the fact. Salonich faces one charge of wiretapping. Knapp’s bond was set at $75,000. His attorney’s response to reporters was simply: “This is all about politics. We look forward to a very public trial.”

And if you would like to learn about the alleged affair between the two former employees that has now been brought to court by Paige Salonich against the SEC...read HERE.

The SEC’s Top Vendor Stood On the Chopping Block

Following Knapp’s firing, Jenny Wooten was named Interim Director. The change in the State Election Commission happened seemingly overnight: FOIAs were being answered freely and without copious redactions, and relationships began to be rebuilt with staff and media alike that had previously been treated with hostility under the former Director and former Deputy Director’s reign.

Wooten began cracking down on staff interactions with vendors, specifically ES&S. In an email sent before the South Carolina Association of Registration and Election Officials (SCARE) conference, Wooten gave strict instructions that staff was not allowed to attend meals with vendors/vendor representatives, “accept anything of monetary value from a vendor...even a cup of coffee”, nor were they allowed to attend the vendor-sponsored networking event that was being held offsite.

On February 24, 2026, Interim Director Wooten presented the SEC’s budget in front of the SC Senate Constitutional Budget Subcommittee. In the hearing, Wooten requested $18 million for new pollbooks, citing that the contract on the previous pollbooks ended in September 2025. “We have the equipment, we will continue to use the equipment but we do not have the authority or ability to purchase anymore.”

Wooten stated that the State Election Commission would put out a request of proposal (RFP) for a public bid in order to procure more equipment, emphasizing that the SEC would get the lowest cost possible. Currently, the SEC has exclusively used ES&S as their vendor for all machines. This signaled that Wooten may be looking to break the longstanding relationship that was previously built by former election directors Marci Andino and Howard Knapp, who were both known for having very close relationships with ES&S, according to internal sources.

Providing there is nothing tying the systems together (e-poll books, ballot marking devices, and tabulators), there is no reason to sole source this contract and splitting them up would be the superior choice as having poll book data that logs date/location of voting reside with the same company that holds the data that logs the ballots (with early voting, this is so much more spread out because the precincts are jumbled and the process is spread out) it is not out of the realm of possibility that ES&S has the ability to determine how most, if not every, South Carolinian is voting, which would be a violation of the SC Constitution.

After this meeting, Senator Larry Grooms stated that South Carolina “wasted” $31 million on the previously purchased machines and that the upgrades from ES&S were all “hype”, as noted by The State Newspaper. This is akin to getting a new iPhone every time a new model comes out.

Now the Senate Wants to Remove the Person Cleaning Up the Mess

Now Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, with support from Sen. Chip Campsen, is working to block Wooten’s confirmation as permanent Director and install their own person in the role. According to FITSNews, new SEC Chairman Robert Bolchoz, who was appointed after Dennis Shedd’s resignation, is said to be taking his marching orders directly from Massey rather than from Governor McMaster, who appointed him. One source told FITSNews bluntly: “The governor is getting cuckolded.”

The stated motivation, according to FITSNews sources, is Massey’s desire to control ongoing negotiations over the release of South Carolina’s voter file to the Trump DOJ...negotiations Massey reportedly wants to dictate from the Senate. It is worth noting that both Massey and Campsen supported Tim Scott and then Nikki Haley in the 2024 presidential primary against Trump, and that Knapp was allegedly working from inside the agency on behalf of Massey and Democratic minority leader Brad Hutto when they sought to block the voter file’s release last summer.

But there is another thread here that hasn’t received enough attention: the Senator who wants to remove the Interim Director that is cracking down on inappropriate relationships with ES&S who may not receive an $18 million contract, is operating in the same legislative political ecosystem that produced the original Master Lease deal...a deal in which ES&S’s lobbyist was copied on a letter of support from the Ways and Means Chairman’s office.

Since the pressure from the Senate has become clear that they would not confirm her, Jenny Wooten has withdrawn her name for consideration for Executive Director of the State Election Commission.

A Pattern That Keeps Repeating

SC Code § 1-1-1020 authorizes the State Treasurer’s office to provide financing for agency equipment purchases. It says nothing about requiring General Assembly approval before borrowing tens of millions of dollars. It does not address what happens when the legislature has already refused to fund the very equipment being purchased. The Treasurer’s office is a rubber stamp.

The legislature said no. A Senate staffer wrote the workaround memo. A House chairman’s executive assistant provided cover. The vendor’s lobbyist was copied on the endorsement. The commission voted on an amount they were never fully told. The number grew by $8.5 million. The former director was arrested and charged. And the person trying to bring order to the agency has been forced out by the same legislative forces that helped create the mess.

At this point, the South Carolina Election Commission isn’t so much a government agency as it is a revolving door of scandal with a budget line. Directors get arrested, deputies plant listening devices, contracts grow by millions in the dark, and the one person who showed up with a mop gets pushed out the moment she started making people uncomfortable. The only thing that seems stable at the SEC is the instability and the quiet, persistent presence of the people who profit from it.

A bill that would threaten the effectiveness of watchdogs in South Carolina was filed on February 26, 2026 and began moving almost immediately. It appears that Senate leadership has not taken too kindly to our efforts to hold them accountable and decided to file S.960.

The significance of the date this bill was filed was not lost on us as it was the same day S.897, a bill authored by democrat lawyer-legislator Margie Bright Matthews that would eliminate religious exemption for the MMR vaccine, was scheduled for a hearing. Thanks to our and other watchdog group efforts, this bill did not move out of subcommittee.

Now, state senators are attempting to make sure we cannot do that again. Specifically, Senators Sean Bennett, Greg Hembree, Luke Rankin, Ross Turner, Chip Campsen, and Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey.

What S.960 Does

S.960 defines “election communication” that would encompass any paid message supporting or opposing a “clearly identified candidate or ballot measure” over TV, radio, internet, or print to be considered “election communication.”

The bill also defines “Independent expenditure committee” anyone or or any group that spends $500 or more on political messaging will be classified as an independent expenditure committee. If you qualify as an “independent expenditure committee “ under S.960, you now have to provide detailed compliance rules, including major donor and spending disclosures.

The Fine Print

If you do qualify under these definitions, you will have to provide the following detailed information to the government:

A) Donor Disclosures

Identify every person who have contributed $1,000 or more, including their name, address, occupation, and employer. You will also have to list aggregate amounts across reporting period and report certain loans and fundraising proceeds.

B) Spending Disclosures

Detailed vendor reporting including their name, address, occupation, business, plus amount, date, and purpose. You will have to prepare separate reporting for personal services, salaries, and reimbursements. Furthermore, you will have to report transfers to political committees and candidates, as well as any debts and obligations.

C) Forced Disclaimers on Communications

For any communications on the internet, print, or mail you will have to include committee name and address in a “legible, conspicuous” area. For broadcast (like radio, TV, or podcasting), the committee name must be clearly spoken and the address must be included.

D) Record Retention

You are required to maintain records for four (4) years.

E) Filing Schedule

If that wasn’t enough, you will also be required to file with the State Ethics Commission on the same schedule as campaign reports.

Negative Impacts on South Carolina

This bill would essentially eliminate watchdog groups and the grassroots movement in the Palmetto State. Exposing corruption and alerting the public on issues that directly impact them tends to make a lot of enemies. We, along with others, are already stretching every dollar we have to continue these efforts.

To make matter worse, this would scare away the few donors who do give to these efforts. Under this bill, the personal information of donors would be made public.

S.960 is the ultimate incumbent protection act, as it eliminates all opposition to elected officials. This is how you completely control elections in South Carolina and discourage citizens from participating. Instead, the power of the people will be shifted to only those that can afford these detailed compliance requirements and are funded by donors who would not be impacted like George Soros and Bill Gates.

What You Can Do

S.960 is waiting to be re-scheduled in the South Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee so it is imperative to contact those members. Copy and paste the emails of the following senators and tell them to kill S.960:

LukeRankin@scsenate.gov, BrianAdams@scsenate.gov, AllenBlackmon@scsenate.gov, ChipCampsen@scsenate.gov, RichardCash@scsenate.gov, JDChaplin@scsenate.gov, JasonElliott@scsenate.gov, TomFernandez@scsenate.gov, MichaelJohnson@scsenate.gov, CarlisleKennedy@scsenate.gov, JoshKimbrell@scsenate.gov, MattLeber@scsenate.gov, ShaneMassey@scsenate.gov, RogerNutt@scsenate.gov, MikeReichenbach@scsenate.gov, EverettStubbs@scsenate.gov, JeffZell@scsenate.gov, DeonTedder@scsenate.gov, TameikaIsaacDevine@scsenate.gov, JefferyGraham@scsenate.gov, RussellOtt@scsenate.gov, EdSutton@scsenate.gov, OvertureWalker@scsenate.gov, LeeBright@scsenate.gov

Special thanks to Conservatruth for their analysis on S.960. For a more detailed overview on the bill’s contents, read their article HERE.