Midlands mailer grades school board candidates on ‘Christian Voter Index.’ Who sent it?
Voters in Lexington County are receiving a mailer purporting to offer an assessment of school board candidates from a Christian point of view, backed by a group that has pushed for more religious influence in education and government.
The campaign flier, titled the “Christian Voter Index,” is labeled as being from the City Elders of the Midlands. Besides a Gmail address listed on the mailer, the local group doesn’t seem to have any other online presence, but nationally, the City Elders are a growing organization of evangelical Christian political activists looking to increase religious conservative influence in local politics.
The State reached out Monday to the Midlands and national chapters of City Elders via email, but didn’t receive a response before publication.
City Elders started in Oklahoma with the goal of ”governing the gates of every city in America to establish the Kingdom of God with strength, honor, and courage,” according to their website. The group has been active in education in their home state, where the City Elders have worked with the state education superintendent who established the country’s first religious charter school until that effort was declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.
The group says it wants to bring together “spiritual, political, and business leaders who have joined together in the Abrahamic Covenant within the towns, cities, and states” to “Establish righteousness in governance” in “spiritual, civil, and economic systems” and “Draft civil laws which reflect and uphold Biblical values and Judeo-ecclesia ethics.”
Critics have accused City Elders of supporting Dominionism or Christian nationalism, a political stance that opposes the separation of church and state, and that calls on the state to enforce religious law.
The fliers being received by residents rate candidates on five “yes or no” categories and give each a percentage score from 0 to 100%
“At a time where children face many battles outside of the walls of their schools, it is imperative that school board governance is based in biblical values,” the mailer says. The Christian Voter Index should serve as “a guide to policy effecting families in our local elections,” it says.
The fliers note that its assessment is based on the results of a candidate survey done by the Lexington County Republican Party as well as “publicly available positions from news media, social media or candidate websites.” The county GOP has issued its own endorsements in local school board races this year, and the Christian Voter Index gives high marks to those candidates.
City Elders give the candidates in Lexington 1, Lexington 2 and Lexington-Richland 5 a rating based on “allowing classroom indoctrination,” “keeping inappropriate library books,” “keeping taxes low,” and “restrooms and gender policy.” The group also counts a strike against candidates who have been endorsed by the S.C. Education Association, which it says supports “students using whichever bathroom they please as well as access to all reading materials in libraries,” and “support teacher’s [sic] being able to teach the subject matter that they please without accountability.”
SCEA President Sherry East said that’s a mischaracterization of the views of her organization, which represents South Carolina teachers.
“We are so tired of the politicization of our teachers and attacks on teachers,” East said. “If somebody calls us a special interest group, our special interest is your children.”
She said there are no “rogue lessons” in schools outside of the standards set by the S.C. Department of Education, and the SCEA advocates so that “everyone who lives, learns or loves differently has a safe environment in which to do that.”
While the teachers’ organization supports access to reading material, it also supports parents’ safeguards on what their child can check out.
“You also have to check what’s on their laptop or on their phone,” she said of parents’ responsibilities.
She says there’s good reason not to have religion dictating public policy in a diverse country.
“There are too many religions in America to focus on just one, and no one should be persecuted for their religion in school,” she said. “They’re really trying to take us back to Britain where if you’re not a certain religion, you weren’t welcome. That’s what I learned in history.”
Although the flier ranks candidates in all three districts, it singles out candidates running for the Lexington County seats of Lexington-Richland 5 for additional comment. It praises school board incumbent Catherine Huddle for consistently voting to cut property taxes or against tax increases on the board, and to “strengthen policy against inappropriate library books and classroom indoctrination.”
It also praises Ken Loveless for voting to cut the millage rate when he served on the Lexington-Richland 5 board in 2021. But it says USC professor Scott Herring has supported a higher millage rate and opposes restrictions on classroom and library materials.
Herring told The State that he had supported increasing the operational millage rate when it was approved by the board in 2022, at the time when he was previously running for a seat on the Lexington-Richland 5 board. He also said he supported state-mandated rules that went into effect this school year on library and classroom materials, and “the way the district has been talking about this, which is trusting teachers to be the ones to vet their own materials,” Herring said. “There seems to be universal support among the board members, and I am in support.”
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