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Three South Carolina Republicans elected as delegates to the party’s state convention this spring were booted from their posts after it was discovered they contributed money to the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The delegates – Keith Blandford and Olga Blandford of Mount Pleasant, S.C. and Lauren Martel of Beaufort, S.C. – were unanimously removed by the rules committee of the S.C. Republican Party (SCGOP) for the contributions, which were purportedly “in opposition to our party’s efforts to re-take the White House.”
“The committee finds that all Republican Party offices held by these individuals were voluntarily vacated upon their contributions of $500 each to Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s presidential campaign,” a letter from SCGOP rules committee chairman Tony Denny noted.
Denny’s letter was dated last Friday (April 26, 2024).
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As justification for the decision, Denny cited SCGOP rule 16-C, which holds that “any officer, delegate or alternate who publicly endorses or financially supports a candidate for partisan office other than a duly nominated Republican candidate, unless there is no Republican nominee in the relevant race, shall immediately vacate their Republican Party office.”
“It should go without saying that one cannot hold an elected office in the SCGOP and contribute to a Democrat presidential campaign,” Denny added.
The decision to vacate the three delegate posts was upheld by SCGOP chairman Drew McKissick.
“I completely concur with the unanimous opinions of the committee,” McKissick wrote in an email to party leaders.
In a scatching response (.pdf) to the ruling, Martel made it clear she has no intention of going away quietly – accusing SCGOP leaders of “a gross misapplication” of the rules and of engaging in “a pattern of behavior that is incompetent at best, deceptive and illegal at worst.”
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“I am not going to step down,” Martel wrote. “I am a duly elected state and national delegate and I plan to attend the national convention in July of 2024.”
Martel acknowledged that she donated money to Kennedy while he was still campaigning as a Democrat, but insisted the SCGOP rule did not apply at that time because there was not yet a Republican nominee.
Martel’s contribution to RFK Jr. was made on June 26, 2023 – a little more than two months before he abandoned his Democratic primary bid to run for president as an independent. Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump did not secure a sufficient number of delegates to clinch the GOP nomination until March 12, 2024.
“You are absolutely erroneous in your conclusion that I have not abided by this rule,” Martel wrote in her letter to the party.
Martel, an attorney, ran unsuccessfully for GOP attorney general nomination in 2022 – garnering 34.3 percent of the vote against incumbent Alan Wilson. Keith Blandford ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state, receiving 24.9 percent of the vote against incumbent Mark Hammond.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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3 comments
Remember when RFK Jr. was supposed to be a threat to Biden’s re-election?
Reminds me of the time in 2018 when the SC GOP attempted to throw myself and two other women out of the party for supporting a Libertarian. Of course that attempt backfired on them.
Seriously..How TF did they NOT KNOW what they were doing? $500 for dinner and drinks? C’mon Man, No Joke.