The Post & Courier

A Republican state senator from Charleston added drama to the S.C. Supreme Court election with allegations repeated this week that House Republicans effectively decided the race behind closed doors before it had even begun. Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said the candidates’ quick withdrawals indicate a poll of some kind had been taken and accused Republicans of hiding behind the confidentiality pledge.

"Informal polls are a very obvious evasion of the rules around pledging,” said Lynn Teague, the vice president for issues at the League of Women Voters of South Carolina. “It is a distinction without a difference and should not be permitted.

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The Post & Courier

Many of the best and brightest — people who may actually have good ideas that could make the state better — wouldn’t run for office at any price for precisely the reason they’d be so good at it.

“People have asked me why I don’t run,” says Lynn Teague of the League of Women Voters. “It would drive me crazy to have people stop me in the grocery store, or at a restaurant.” That’s saying something, seeing as how one of the League’s goals is to get more people involved in the political process. But she’s right. Teague spends most of the session at the Statehouse, which means she gets to see all this regularly. She can confirm that although the divisive politics of the day has driven some people to run for office … it has driven more to run for the exits.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, “If progress continues at the rate of change since 1975, Arkansas and Georgia will be the first Southern states to have gender parity in their state legislature (both in 2066). Two Southern states— South Carolina and West Virginia—will have to wait over 200 years for parity." These and other indices should inform our League 2023 planning.