On February 8 th , the Clarendon County Republican Party (CCGOP) met for its regularly scheduled monthly meeting. The meeting was opened with prayer and CCGOP Chairman Moye Graham gave remarks and led the Pledge of Allegiance. Next, members recited the Republican Creed, led by Cindy Risher from the Executive Committee. June Brailsford, Treasurer, gave her report and Secretary Maureen Calvo followed with an update. This month's meeting included several special guests. House Representative
District 64 Fawn Pedalino and South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette were in attendance as speakers.
Pedalino gave a brief rundown about the agreement that she and State Senator Kevin Johnson had come to regarding the school board trustees election map before moving on to more recent issues. Pedalino continued, “It is an election year with a lot of things to do, mostly focusing right now on our children, which I think is important.”
Pedalino explained the social media regulation bill and that it mandates age verification, requires parental consent, and provider/parental accounts. The intended goal is to take proactive steps to protect youth from potentially harmful online content. From there, Pedalino said that the committee went further and took the initiative to create the Child Online Safety Act. The COSA is designed to protect children from inappropriate online content such as pornographic material. “Most of you know it is everywhere and they can literally just login. Some of the kids already know what a VPN is and they can bypass it, but the goal was to stop as many as we could,” Pedalino noted.
The Help Not Harm bill, Pedalino describes, fights gender transition procedures to anyone under the age of 18. That would include surgeries as well as puberty blockers and hormone therapy. It restricts South Carolina Medicaid from covering these procedures for anyone under the age of 26. The bill also requires schools to notify parents that their children are making statements about being transgender as well as
holding doctors criminally accountable if they perform these procedures. “I was on this one the whole way, from beginning to end. I was on the committee,” Pedalino touted.
Another bill that passed recently was the maximum potential unemployment benefit bill. “Our state's unemployment benefits seem to benefit our workforce businesses' economy,“ Pedalino explained, “essentially the number of our number of weeks of unemployment benefits that a claimant may receive will be tied to the economic conditions.” She then gave the example that when jobs are readily available,
indicating a strong economy, benefits would be limited in an effort to encourage employment and workforce participation.
Lastly, Pedalino discussed a bill that was close to her heart. “Another one we worked on, and it is sentimental to me, obviously, coming from an EMS background, [is] we created a position for fallen first responder’s survivors.” The bill is designed to assist families of deceased first responders with benefits and support. “When you are grieving the loss of a loved one, you don't know how to move forward. We want to be able to help with that process. It helps guide them through obtaining health insurance … and educational and financial benefits. This was something that we wanted to take to the Senate."
After her update, Pedalino formally introduced Lieutenant Governor Evette. After thanking Graham and the crowd for inviting her to the meeting, Evette began to summarize her office’s accomplishments and future goals.
Evette described how she and Governor Henry McMaster “want to bring more opportunities to South Carolina.” She reported 1.7 billion in revenue in 2022 with BMW. “That was our largest economic development announcement that we had … we were so excited only to have that record broken 30 days later when Redway did a $3.5 billion economic development.” Evette was confident in many more businesses establishing themselves in South Carolina. “Let me tell you why they're coming. Why? Because
we are a great red conservative state. Businesses want the opportunity to be able to govern their own businesses.”
Next, Evette spoke regarding high school seniors, including her own, choosing technical colleges over traditional four-year universities. “You can go to one of our technical colleges here in South Carolina. You can get a really cool degree and you'll go for two years. You will start out at $55,000 and in three years, if you prove yourself to be a good employee, which we all have to do, you can be making six figures. But the
best part of that is you will have zero college debt.”
Evette touched on school choice and voter ID before moving on the national election. “I'm very passionate about school choice. I want every parent to be able to guide where their children go to school.”
“We want fair elections. And here in South Carolina. We have made it easier to vote and harder to cheat. Right? There is no excuse to not show up in person you have two weeks before any election with your ID with your driver's license or state issued ID card with your picture on it,” Evette expressed.
A loyal Trump supporter, Evette continually endorses the former president. “We have a presidential primary coming up next Saturday, the 24th , and I'm here to tell you, just to let the cat out of the bag, I've been supporting President Trump since 2015. I've been supporting him because he brings a sense of strength, peace through strength.”
Evette closed her speech for the evening with a quick question and answer session. A member from the CCGOP took the opportunity to ask the Lt. Governor if she planned to “follow Governor McMaster.”
Evette replied, “Right now, I'm just working really hard to get President Trump elected [and] to make sure we take back the Senate … I really love what I do. I can't tell you what an honor it is to serve as your lieutenant governor.” She then left the crowd with a simple, “Look for me. I’m not going to be run off.”
