Talbert Black has been busy. He has made it his mission, and we’re HAPPY TO JOIN HIM! of identifying legislators who are not serving us well in Columbia. And grassroots organizations across South Carolina are going to take on the very serious responsibility of working in our own backyards to replace those legislators so our Very Red State can be governed by conservatives and not RINOs.
Here is an article Talbert wrote laying out part of his strategy which includes the Palmetto Liberty PAC. Talbert will be speaking tonight at RINO Hunt. Here is the beginning of his article (but please visit the link above, Talbert has embedded lots of information links in the original):
Tuesday, August 30th, 22 year old Republican Joshua Putnam won the race to represent State House District 10 that had been represented by the powerful Ways and Means committee chairman Republican Danny Cooper. This special election went largely unnoticed around the state, but Dan Cooper’s fall demonstrates the power of your voice! Dan Cooper played a central role in delaying a new law that requires the state legislature to record their votes, by roll call, as they make laws. As Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he was able to hold the bill that created this new law for two years without even allowing a vote on it. This may have been the beginning of his down fall.
Finally, the law passed earlier this spring. The roll call law requires that all legislators record their vote on every new law that is passed and on every section of the budget. Before this law was introduced, the South Carolina House and Senate recorded their votes only 5% of the time. Of course, the wheeling and dealing House leadership did not want to have their votes put on the record for all to see. This new law was opposed so strongly that its sponsor and chief co-sponsor were kicked off their committee assignments by the Speaker of the House in retaliation for introducing it.
In March of 2010, when it became critical to move this bill forward, Campaign for Liberty raised the money (from your donations) to run a radio ad in Cooper’s home district to inform his constituents that he was holding up this bill. You can listen to the 60 second spot by following this link.
Cooper was inundated with calls from angry constituents over his refusal to hold a vote, but he didn’t move. His secretary told callers that the bill would have to be recalled from his committee because he would not move it. Near the end of the 2010 session the House finally voted to recall the bill from his committee, but because of Cooper’s delaying tactics the law was not passed until 2011. Cooper thought he could ignore his constituents without consequences. I’m sure Cooper thought he would be protected by House Speaker Bobby Harrell. But his constituents thought otherwise.
Enter Joshua Putnam.
Putnam decided to run against Dan Cooper and entered the Republican primary in 2010. Now, I mean no disrespect to Mr. Putnam, but you need to understand the picture here. He was 21 years old, was not well funded (total contributions of $3,859.64), was not well organized, and his website and campaign video on YouTube looked… well… amateur.
Dan Cooper was the Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, well funded, well organized, and one of the four most powerful men in state government. By conventional wisdom, Cooper was not vulnerable and should have won this primary election by a landslide. I didn’t find out about that Joshua Putnam’s challenge to Dan Cooper until after the primary was over and I was scanning election results. Putnam, an underfunded, under-organized, youth lost the primary to a well-funded, well organized, chairman of one of the most powerful committees in the general assembly by 131 votes. Putnam got 49% of the vote.
Putnam lost that first race, but he exposed Dan Cooper’s weak position.
What I realized, as did many others, was that Dan Cooper was a political zombie. He was the walking dead. An organized campaign would put him out of his undead misery in very short order.
And here is a Senate Report Card that Talbert has researched and made available. I’m happy to report that our Senators Martin and Bright are representing us well!
I’ll keep you informed of Talbert’s work, and perhaps we can persuade him to come and speak with us in the coming months.