The Moderates Strike Back

They're using caucus rules to divide conservatives

House Leadership spent millions of dollars in the past two years attempting to defeat members of the Freedom Caucus. In every single instance, House Leadership lost, and the Freedom Caucus won. The same House leadership that gave away billions of our tax dollars to woke corporations to build electric trucks and hundreds of thousands of dollars for Orangutans and football podcasts just did something even more audacious.

Despite their negative campaign, the Freedom Caucus recently extended an olive branch in good faith to the House leadership in order to work together to advance conservative policy in the state. We suspected that SC House leadership would dig in their heels on the loyalty pledge that they implemented into the last session’s caucus rules, but they have done more than that…they've escalated.

Yes, you read that right. As if commanding loyalty from fellow Republicans to not post pictures of the public voting board and endorsing Republicans who are not supporting the party platform wasn’t enough. SC House leadership, led by Speaker Murrell Smith, is now requiring any member of the Republican Caucus to leave any other Caucus that may campaign against a Republican House Caucus member in the future. It was also explicitly stated in the meeting that the same rule would apply if a member of the Family Caucus tried to oppose an anti-life Republican. Notably, however, this clause does not apply to liberal Representative Neal Collins, who recently campaigned for a liberal Democrat for SC Senate over a Republican.

This new and more strident pledge is a direct attempt to benefit moderates in power who largely control the chamber while weakening and dividing conservatives fighting for conservative principles. It protects incumbents who have voted to kill legislation to keep boys out of women's sports, opposed life from conception bills, who have refused to bring closed primaries to the floor for years, and who continue to allow Democrats to chair Budget and Judiciary committees.

The SC Freedom Caucus members once again refused to bow down to the Establishment. Rather, we will continue to oppose Leadership's attempt to bully conservatives into silence and subjection. We've been sent to Columbia by you, the voters, with a mandate to protect your rights, shrink government, cut taxes, crush corruption, fix the roads, and make our state a free and fair place to do business for everyone, not just the powerful and well-connected.

We urge everyone to contact their State Representative and demand they revoke their signature of this dictatorial loyalty pledge. The moderates in the Republican Caucus have used this pledge to divide the conservatives in the legislature for too long. Tell your Representative that you want them to vote for what they campaigned on but also to be courageous in the fight, no matter what. Tell them not to give into the Moderate’s play. Tell them to ditch Rule 16!