The South Carolina Elections Commission sent a strong message to the state Republican Party and Gov. Nikki Haley on Thursday: That whole “rule of law” thing y’all keep talking about? Yeah, it matters.
Despite the SCGOP Executive Committee’s unanimous vote to recertify tea party activist and Haley ally Katrina Shealy as a candidate against Lexington Sen. Jake Knotts in the Republican primary, the Elections Commission announced that Shealy will not appear on the ballot. Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said the State Supreme Court ruling which removed Shealy from the ballot in the first place prevents the commission from adding any more names after the May 4 deadline.
“As an agency of the State of South Carolina, the State Election Commission has no authority to accept additional candidates after the May 4, 2012 noon deadline set by the Supreme Court in the Anderson decision,” Whitmire said in a statement. “The June primary ballots are set, ballots have been printed, voting machines have been prepared, and voters are voting.”
The commission’s move directly contradicts Gov. Haley, who urged the SCGOP Wednesday night to ignore the laws and court rulings which removed Shealy from the ballot for incorrectly filing an ethics statement when she registered her candidacy. “Did the law say they couldn’t run? Yes,” Haley told the committee. “But we can change the law — we do it every day.”
The Shealy campaign did issue a statement on the Elections Commission’s ruling, though presumably they made a few four-letter comments among themselves when they found out. Neither the governor’s office nor the SCGOP has returned requests for comment.
The arrogance and cynicism of this barely-elected governor borders, at times, on the delusional.
How many more times over the next two and one-half years will we be treated to the sights and sounds of a governor either ignoring or being ignorant of the limits to her powers and laughably—or, sadly—attempting to usurp powers that quite simply and quite obviously do not belong to her?
When the chief executive of the state has no more regard for our laws than to imply that she will do what she wants and, if doing what she wants breaks the law, she will simply change the law—”we do it everyday”—we have entered a parallel universe of governance.
John Rainey’s initial appraisal of this governor’s lack of character—”she is the most corrupt governor in the history of South Carolina”—looks more prophetic with every passing day.
The only thing that is wrong here is the Good Ole Boys system hard at work. Jake Knotts is the biggest RINO in the state and should be defeated. Our Governor is trying to put an end to the ruling party of RINO idiots that are running this state.I say we vote them all out.