The Importance of Abiding by the Rules
In the spring of 1974, South Carolina witnessed for the first time in the state’s history a political campaign that depended primarily on an expensive blitz of television commercials. It was also a campaign predicated on the notion that legal or constitutional qualifications for the office being sought were meaningless.
Charles “Pug” Ravenel, a Charleston native, had left the state in 1956 to attend Phillip Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He subsequently earned from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, two degrees, including a Master’s in Business Administration, before going to work in New York City for a major investment firm. In 1972, he returned to Charleston with his family and opened an office of that investment firm.
The South Carolina Constitution says to serve as governor a person must have been a resident of the state for the five years previous to the day of election. Clearly, Ravenel did not meet this qualification, but he still entered the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination with the support of some party officials.
Ravenel conducted a vigorous campaign, relying significantly on the well-funded use of television advertisements. He was highly critical of the existing political power structure even though at the time it was still for the most part Democratic. Bemoaning the lack of leadership, he justified his own lack of any political record by claiming that “experience” did not matter. Some observers thought he had a Kennedyesque image.
His campaign was successful. After barely besting former congressman William J. B. Dorn in the first primary in early July 1974, Ravenel won the July 30 runoff handily with 54.8 percent of the vote. Almost immediately a suit challenging his eligibility was filed.
A sham suit had been filed in March 1974, in an attempt to inoculate Ravenel from any legal action over the question of his eligibility to serve, but it was given little standing when the SC Supreme Court issued its decision in September 1974. Presented evidence that during his 16-year absence from South Carolina Ravenel voted and paid taxes in New York until shortly before moving back to South Carolina in 1972, the court voted 5-0 that he was ineligible to serve as governor.
The South Carolina Democratic Party found itself in an awkward position. It had not thoroughly vetted Ravenel’s candidacy and had allowed him to run in the primary with his eligibility in question. Now there was not enough time to hold another primary before the general election in November, so the party decided to nominate a replacement candidate by convention. Dorn, who had run a credible race, was selected as the party’s nominee.
But Ravenel refused to give up. He elected to appeal to the US Supreme Court. When that failed, he concocted a scheme by which his supporters would write-in Dorn’s name instead of voting for him in the normal manner. As a result of the confusion, Dorn lost the general election by less than 18,000 votes to James B. Edwards, the first Republican to be elected as governor of South Carolina since Reconstruction.
Surprisingly, South Carolina finds itself in 2022 again possibly facing similar circumstances.
In 2018, as part of an effort to allow the governor to appoint the State Superintendent of Education, the S.C. General Assembly passed legislation to upgrade the qualifications required to serve in that position:
(1) the minimum of a master’s degree and substantive and broad-based experience in the field of public education including, but not limited to, service as a classroom teacher, principal, other school or school district administrator, school district superintendent, or other education policy making body at either the state or local level or any combination of them; or
(2) the minimum of a master’s degree and substantive and broad-based experience in operational and financial management in any field of expertise including, but not limited to, finance, economics, accounting, law, or business.
Although allowing the governor to appoint the superintendent was rejected by the voters that year in a referendum, the legislation upgrading the qualifications required remains intact.
The incumbent superintendent Molly Spearman easily meets the mandated requirements. Finishing her second term in office, she decided last fall not to seek re-election. Several would-be successors declared their candidacy even though they did not have the necessary credentials or experience, but most dropped out when the Charleston (SC) Post and Courier published a story in March 2022, drawing attention to the new qualifications.
One who did not was Ellen Weaver, President of Palmetto Promise Institute, a conservative think tank that lobbies for spending public dollars to support private schools including those with religious affiliations. When the Greenville (SC) native graduated from Bob Jones University with a degree in political science, she went to work for then US Senator Jim DeMint, a staunch conservative. After DeMint left the senate in 2013, he and Weaver co-founded Palmetto Promise Institute.
Although she has no experience as a teacher or as a school administrator, Weaver has served for four years on the SC Education Oversight Committee, an independent, nonpartisan group appointed by the legislature and the governor. The committee does not have managerial or policy-making responsibility.
Weaver has not dismissed the required qualifications as unnecessary. Instead, after questions were raised, she enrolled in a master’s degree program in educational leadership at her alma mater with the intention of completing all requirements by the end of the year. According to the university’s website, normal completion requires one to one and a half years.
Despite her obvious lack of the required qualifications, Weaver had no trouble convincing Republican Party officials to allow her to compete in the five-person GOP primary in June. She has also received endorsements from US. Senator Tim Scott, US Representative Jeff Duncan and more than two dozen state legislators. Apparently, none of these elected officials are concerned about honoring legally mandated qualifications for public office.
Weaver’s lack of the required qualifications also has not hampered her fundraising. Her prowess in attracting large contributions from wealthy donors was evident in the GOP primary. Her chief opponent in the primary was Kathy Maness, Executive Director of the Palmetto State Teachers Association, who taught elementary school for a decade before joining the advocacy group. The current superintendent Spearman endorsed Maness, but Weaver outraised her almost three to one.
Maness led the primary in early June, but she failed to get a majority of the vote. In the run-off, a Super PAC, the School Freedom Fund (SFF), hammered Maness with television attack ads, painting her as a liberal supported by national Democrats. The SFF is dedicated to expanding school voucher programs, and it seems to spend most of its money slamming Republican candidates viewed as not conservative enough.
Weaver won the run-off with sixty percent of the vote, although the turnout was barely more than fifty percent of the turnout in the initial primary. She is likely to employ the same strategy in the upcoming general election against the Democratic candidate, Lisa Ellis, a Blythewood High School teacher. Ellis founded SC for ED, a teachers’ advocacy group in 2019 that has campaigned for better teachers’ pay and working conditions.
Although Ellis has raised more money at this point in the race than any Democratic candidate for state superintendent since 2010, she expects to face a significant disparity in campaign dollars. On the other hand, while Weaver counts only eight K-12 educators among her more than 750 donors, Ellis has gotten nearly 700 contributions from teachers and other K-12 school employees.
It is instructive to compare Weaver’s campaign with that of Ravenel’s, but there is a significant difference. Ravenel was declared ineligible after winning the primary. Although his candidacy probably caused the Democratic Party to lose the governorship in 1974, the general election did produce a duly elected governor.
No one seems to have a clue as to what happens if Weaver wins the general election, but she does not complete the master’s degree program she’s enrolled in and is ineligible to serve. Will the students in SC’s system of public education be left without a leader?