By Nancy Yates – February 20, 2013Is freshman S.C. Representative Heather Crawford “reacting irresponsibly?” And if so, will she follow her own advice to “adequately rectify this situation?”
To quote the young lawmaker, “facts are stubborn things.” So what are the facts?
Earlier this month the Greenville Tea Party released a 2012 Veto Scorecard to members of the S.C. General Assembly. Rep. Crawford was erroneously included in this scorecard. When the mistake was recognized, members of the Greenville Tea Party immediately submitted a letter to Rep. Crawford apologizing for their error and explaining at length how it occurred. They also let her know of their intent to inform the S.C. General Assembly of the mistake.
Immediately thereafter, a memo was drafted and submitted to all members of the S.C. General Assembly with the following message:
Representative Heather Crawford was mistakenly included in the Greenville Tea Party VETO Scorecard 2012 that was distributed on February 6, 2013 to each member of the SC General Assembly. We regret this error and request that you mark your copy of this document.
In addition to these steps, every effort was made to contact Rep. Crawford using the contact information listed on her biography. This resulted in voicemails and automated email responses. Efforts were then made to contact Rep. Crawford utilizing information from SEI filing – and by sending a message to her personal email address.
Another flurry of telephone calls and emails were then sent to Rep. Crawford – none of which received a response. At least not immediately. After ignoring every effort to reach her, Rep. Crawford eventually responded with a blistering public condemnation of the Greenville Tea Party – one which was riddled with factual inaccuracies.
“For over a week now I have asked the leaders of this group where they received their voting information for this ‘scorecard’ and have yet to receive a single explanation,” Rep. Crawford wrote in a Facebook post which quickly went viral.
“Because the Greenville Tea Party has failed to adequately rectify this situation I am forced to believe that this is politics at its lowest – a foul attempt by a group from outside of Horry County to subvert the truth,” Rep. Crawford continued. “I could just let this flagrant attempt to distort my voting record pass, but I cannot and will not stand for the politics of distortion and deceit!”
Rep. Crawford’s claim that she did not receive an explanation for the error is not true. Not only that, in her Facebook response she erroneously associated the Greenville Tea Party with RINO Hunt – and accused both groups of coming after her in last year’s election. Again, this claim is not true. The Greenville Tea Party and RINO Hunt are separate entities.
Rep. Crawford has a choice: Will she continue to needlessly stoke the divide between the GOP establishment and South Carolina’s conservative grassroots? Or will she do the right thing and acknowledge her mistakes?
Those who erroneously listed her on this scorecard have taken responsibility and ownership of their actions – and done everything within their power to make things right. Will Rep. Crawford do the same?
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Nancy Yates is a conservative activist. Reach her on Twitter @NancyYates66.
