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Backing term limits is the ultimate sucker play – the lowest of low-hanging fruit for aspiring officeholders (and career politicians pretending to have a populist streak). Why? Because people love them – and apparently love being hoodooed when it comes to them. The scam works like this: Politicians sign pledges during their campaigns saying they support term limits … they just never advance the issue once they get elected. More importantly, they universally fail to self-apply them.
“Term limits is all for show,” I wrote five-and-a-half years ago. “Politicians rush to embrace it – but then refuse to hold themselves accountable to the standard they claim to endorse. They use the issue for electoral gain, with no intention of ever passing term limits – and certainly no intention of ever limiting their own terms in office.”
And so term limits never happen …
More recently, I’ve ripped term limits as “opportunistic and hypocritical populist bloviation.” And I’ve called out politicians who talk the talk – but do not walk the walk.
Do career politicians suck? Duh. But term limits is not the answer. The answer is electing – and reelecting – better people. Seriously, give me 435 Ron Pauls in Washington, D.C. and 170 Joe Whites in Columbia, S.C. – for as long as they will stay. We would see a dramatically freer, safer, smarter and more prosperous nation and state.
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Anyway, term limits has become the issue du jour in South Carolina’s competitive fourth congressional district race – which features scandal-scarred incumbent William Timmons going for a fourth term against S.C. Freedom Caucus chairman Adam Morgan. Timmons is seeking reelection after nearly torpedoing his career via the self-initiated ‘Days of our Congressman‘ scandal. Morgan, meanwhile, is vowing to bring a more honest, consistently conservative voice to the D.C. Swamp.
Earlier this week, Timmons took to Facebook to express his support for term limits.
“I fully support term limits,” he wrote on Tuesday. “I introduced legislation to impose term limits and am the only candidate in the race who has publicly committed himself to term limits.”
The lemmings responded as only lemmings can …
“William Timmons you have my vote,” one wrote beneath his declaration.
“Appreciate your support!” Timmons responded.
The problem with his made-for-social-media exchange? As it turns out, Timmons is not the only candidate in the race who has “publicly committed himself to term limits.”
According to a news release from U.S. Term Limits, the nation’s leading advocacy group on this issue, Morgan signed the term limits pledge on February 13, 2024.
Take a look …
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Again, I’m not impressed by either candidate’s support for this issue … but the ease with which Timmons spouts falsehoods about Morgan’s view is something worth considering.
“Please do not lie about your opponent,” Morgan’s spokesperson Meagan Ingersoll noted in a response to Timmons’ pronouncement.
Timmons’ lie comes at a moment when he is asking fourth district voters to take his word on any number of things – including whether his chronic anger issues resurfaced during a recent run-in with officers of the U.S. Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) at the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport (GSP) last month.
Did they resurface? Timmons insists they did not … but we will have to wait to find out for sure.
Also worth considering? Timmons’ dishonesty raises questions about other things he’s insisted voters take him at his word on …
After limping through the 2022 election season against a trio of comparatively unknown challengers, Timmons is facing his toughest challenge yet from Morgan. Things have gotten so bad for the incumbent he’s been forced to use tax money to boost his tattered image – which was badly damaged by his aforementioned sex scandal and its ensuing fallout.
A fifth-generation member of an über-wealthy, über-influential family in Greenville, South Carolina, Timmons great-grandfather – William R. Timmons Sr. – built an empire in the Upstate beginning in the mid-1920s, focusing on the real estate, trucking and insurance industries. The family – which helped establish the city’s civic and philanthropic communities – is reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
It hasn’t bought Timmons class, however … or, for that matter, honesty.
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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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8 comments
SC4: William Timmons Caught Lying About His Opponent
And in other news, water is wet…
SC4: William Timmons Caught Lying Again
There, fixed that one for you too…
It looks like Morgan’s intent to support term limits is there, but technically, it looks like he failed to sign the form. There is only a date on the signature line. It was witnessed, but how much stock can you put in a witness that didn’t even catch that the form wasn’t signed. It’s like Carmen Mullen signing off on Murdaugh settlement agreements. No one seems to care about the details.
On one hand I academically agree that politicians’ term limit pledges are a farce, and an excuse for voter laziness. But then you see the reality that is Lindsey Graham, and before that, Strom Thurmond and Fritz Hollings. They get so entrenched that ever-so-polite SC GOP and DNC folks won’t rock the boat and challenge someone in a primary, and they amass so much power that it is like taking on Zeus atop Mt. Olympus. They just sit up there and hurl down lightening bolts. So its not so much the voters in SC, it’s the lack of folks willing and well- financed enough to take them on. So that brings you back full circle to term limit laws or constitutional amendments.
You end up with this dirty system where South Carolinians need to keep our sleazy veteran lawmakers in Washington so other states’ sleazy veterans don’t run over our naïve rookie politicians.
All Republicans lie. They have always lied to some extent, but in a post-Trump world, they just lie all the time and say whatever they think sounds good at the time they say it. They don’t even bother to lie consistently, because just like Trump they will just lie about lying, and when the lie is documented on tape, they just say it’s the media.
The Republican Party is totally worthless. They have no ethical or moral center. They need to go the way of the Whig Party.
Maybe Kristi Noem could take the Republican Party to the gravel pit, as they are untrainable and without hesitation will bite the hand that votes for them.
Democrats are not any better and do the same exact thing…Pelosi, Schumer, Biden, AOC, just to name a few. If you don’t see that, then you are living under a rock and need to get away from the mainstream media…MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc. and stop being brainwashed. Something the Democrats are so good at doing to the people they say they care about.
Isn’t lying pretty SOP for politicians these days? Particularly if they are GOP since that is Trump 24/7.