Editorials from across South Carolina: open primaries, Greenville sheriff, GOP Caucus secrecy

Don’t require party allegiance

It appears the South Carolina Republican Party is taking an intermediate step toward a larger objective of ending the state's system of independence in the voting process for primaries.

At its most recent meeting, the S.C. Republican Party State Executive Committee unanimously passed a resolution calling for a partisan voter registration option on registration forms.

The resolution calls on the General Assembly to pass legislation that would add appropriate check boxes to voter registration forms enabling people to choose to affiliate with a political party if they wish when they register to vote or update their registration.…

RELATED: SC voters have one chance to make a difference, and it’s not in November

While South Carolina Democrats have not challenged the present system in the same way as the majority GOP, party regulars on both sides of the political fence always fear that voters loyal to the opposition will seek to manipulate results by voting in the opponent’s primary. There are examples of that happening, but it is not a problem that justifies scratching the present system.

We have faith in most voters casting ballots in the affirmative. And while there remains a need to protect the integrity of primaries by not turning them into an everyone-votes-in-every-race elimination round for the general election, there is good reason to maintain a system that stands to bring more people out to vote on primary day.

Stuck with the Greenville sheriff

(Greenville County Sheriff Will) Lewis has been accused of sexual assault and harassment in a civil lawsuit filed by former Sheriff's Office employee Savanah Nabors. The state's top law enforcement agency, SLED, is investigating the allegations and the lawsuit has been moved to federal court.

The sheriff says he is innocent of all criminal charges. He admits to having an affair with Nabors and audio recordings contained in the lawsuit appear to show that he may have used county resources to conduct the affair. His admission of an affair with a subordinate has caused a number of county and state officials to call for his resignation, including Gov. Henry McMaster.…

(Lt. Gov. Kevin Bryant said) the legal threshold of a criminal indictment for removing an elected official from office does not adequately address a case where, regardless of criminal activity, the public has lost confidence in the official.

But a recall would require a change to the state's constitution. Only 19 states and the District of Columbia allow recall elections and South Carolina is not among them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

What’s the GOP Caucus hiding?

(T)he House Republican Caucus, which should be a bastion of open government, transparency and adherence to the state’s Freedom of Information Act, is instead fighting hard to keep certain records related to a Statehouse corruption probe under wraps.…

The state open-records law already allows exemptions for correspondence of individual lawmakers as well as their staffs. It makes no exemption for caucuses.

All the Republican Caucus is doing is raising the level of suspicion of wrongdoing. Apparently it does not want the public, via the efforts of the media, to find out just how bad things really are in Columbia when it comes to the allegations of corruption. There seems room for little doubt they don’t want full and open reporting on what took place. Why? Perhaps it’s because there is a chance far more names than Quinn and Harrell will surface in the mire.

What else would explain their efforts to quash information getting into the public’s hands, especially if there is nothing to fear by doing so?

They, like so many in politics, stand on a foundation espousing principles of openness and transparency, only to quickly sink into the quicksand of hypocrisy when the light that would shine on them would reveal far too much.

This story was originally published November 6, 2017 at 11:35 AM with the headline "Editorials from across South Carolina: open primaries, Greenville sheriff, GOP Caucus secrecy."