Commentary by Andy Brack | The crazy case of where GOP Senate District 41 candidate Sandy Senn actually lives has taken even more quirky turns.
Not only has a state judge issued an injunction postponing a hearing on a challenge to Senn’s residency, but a letter has turned up that seems to make it even more confusing about when she actually moved from a home outside the Senate district to a townhouse inside it.
It’s enough to make you do a triple take.
Commentary by Andy Brack, editor and publisher | GOP District 41 Senate candidate Sandy Senn seems to have thinner skin than Donald Trump.
You may recall a May 16 commentary in which we called on the state legislature to fix squishy campaign residency laws so candidates couldn’t cherry-pick districts to move into near elections to try to win legislative office. In the column, we highlighted how Senn, a Charleston attorney, “lived in Folly Beach until the fall, when she took an in-district townhouse in West Ashley, now listed by candidacy records as her residence.” Property records show she owns a house in a gated Folly Beach community about four miles outside the Senate district.
The column went on to emphasize that Senn, who said she had been gerrymandered out of a district she had lived in for years, had done nothing wrong by changing residences. She faces three opponents in the June 14 GOP primary.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | You don’t see political yard signs in South Carolina that say, “Vote John Smith, liberal.” All over the state, however, it is common for candidates to tout they are “conservative.”
In today’s media-saturated world of buzzwords, does the word “conservative” actually mean anything? Hasn’t the word lost its meaning, just like the words “liberal” or “progressive” are relatively simplistic frames of reference that do little to outline a candidate’s full perspective?
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | There’s so much frustration with politics as usual that maybe this is the year for grassroots candidates who are trying to win without big piles of money.
Anybody with a lick of common sense has got to be more than a little annoyed by what’s been going on in the Statehouse. Just look at the recent week as GOP lawmakers, knowing a primary is just three weeks away, trotted out the always divisive abortion issue to throw a little red meat to voters and prove their “conservative credentials.” At issue is a ban on abortions after 19 weeks, a measure that opponents are shouting is unconstitutional and scary because it will harm women (not to mention that men again are making decisions about women’s bodies).
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | You, like most people, probably figure that candidates who run for state House and Senate are required to live in the district in which they run.
You’d be pretty much right. But there’s a big loophole: You only have to live in the district on election days and on the day you file for the office.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | This may be the only political prediction that will become true by the time we head to the polls in November: The weirdest presidential election in American history will get weirder.
In a rational world, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump’s bloviated reality show of a campaign that scares world leaders because they can’t predict him would get so tangled in misinformation, negativity and hyperbole that he wouldn’t be taken seriously by November.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | It was uncomfortable to feel the piercing gaze of a stone Confederate soldier in the town square in Tuskegee, Ala., as African American residents set up tents to sell T-shirts, bracelets, food, candles, shea butter, books and bric-a-brac at an annual festival celebrating inventor George Washington Carver.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | After a fantastic couple of months away from yard signs and blaring television advertising, campaigning is upon us again. Just look out your car windows as you are driving on any major thoroughfare.
Two months from now, voters — mostly those who vote in Republican primaries — will head to the polls to pick candidates for state and federal offices. In many cases, thanks to gerrymandering of political districts, the primary will be the real election as those who win will face little or token opposition in the fall.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Legislators shouldn’t get sidetracked by a narrow, right-wing effort to push new anti-gay legislation through the General Assembly. There’s too much vital work that needs to be done — from a real fix for potholes in roads and substantive reform for ethics laws to improving education, providing better health care and reducing poverty.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | We’re surrounded by rules. They’re what make the world go round without everybody stepping all over everybody else.
Some rules are overt: Speed limits, no murdering others, pay taxes, don’t hit your little sister. Some of them are more covert: You don’t tell the lady next to you at church that her dress or hairstyle is horrible. You don’t laugh out loud when some guy says something monumentally stupid.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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