Templeton, Yuhas speak at monthly Beaufort TEA Party meeting
By Mike McCombs
The Island News
PORT ROYAL – Catherine Templeton, Republican candidate for the S.C. 1st Congressional District seat currently held by Rep. Nancy Mace, and Republican Shelley Gay Yuhas, who is trying to unseat incumbent Democrat Michael Rivers in S.C. House District 121, were the special guests at the meeting of the Beaufort TEA Party on Monday evening, April 15 at AMVETS Post 70.
The candidates introduced themselves, explaining their priorities, before taking questions from the roughly two dozen people in attendance.
A political newcomer
Yuhas, a Beaufort native, spent the past couple decades working with nonprofits, such as the Lowcountry Food Bank, and raising four children, now adults, in the Charleston area before returning home. She made the decision to run after she and her husband had dinner with Rep. Shannon Erickson (R-124) and her husband.
“I was inspired by what she was doing,” Yuhas said, expressing the disappointment she says she has in the representation of her district.
Her three priorities were protection, preservation and promotion. As for protection, she emphasizes keeping our families safe. She advocates judicial reform, enforcing the laws we have and fine tuning those laws.
Yuhas is in favor of preserving the delicate environment that makes the Lowcountry special. Things like the Cultural Protection Overlay on St. Helena Island – she believes we should support ideas like that.
And in terms of promotion, speaking of parts of her district, particularly the I-95 corridor and Colleton County, she said, “Smart growth is important to me. We have an area that is ripe for development.”
Yuhas calls herself a caring, compassionate, conservative leader – “a unicorn,” she said.
“We can do better to open the doors of prosperity to everyone,” she said. “I believe generational poverty can be broken in just one generation.”
In the end, she said she’s eager to find solutions and to make ideas work.
“You know your issues,” she told the crowd, “and I know how to fight for them.”
The bureaucracy buster
Templeton, who was president of U.S. Brick and director of the S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation and later the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) chief under former S.C. Governor Nikki Haley, embraced her reputation as a bureaucracy buster, talked about how tough she was on illegal immigration and joked she could add.
“It’s not what you make, it’s what you spend.” she told the crowd. “The federal government hasn’t learned that, yet.”
Templeton said residents of the 1st District need to stop apologizing for their conservative values.
“This is not a purple district,” she said.
The Mount Pleasant resident, who ran for Governor of S.C. in 2018 and finished fifth in the Republican primary, was loud and clear about why she was running for Mace’s seat.
“Because I’m a conservative,” she said. “The person I’m running against voted with the Democrats 36 times. What good does it do to preserve our majority in the House if you’re just going to give it away.”
Longtime Beaufort County Republican Party stalwart and former House District 124 Representative Edie Rodgers, 90, asked for the microphone during the question-and-answer portion of the event to comment on Templeton’s opponent.
“I’m sick and tired of being embarrassed by Rep. Mace in Washington,” Rodgers said. “I want you to promise you will never discuss your sex life on the House floor. And use the appropriate language in committee meetings.”
After the meeting, Templeton expanded her take on Mace.
“Nancy Mace broke the Republican majority in a way that made our country stand still,” she said. “We had no speaker. No bill could be passed. No one could be paid. There was no pay for our military. There was no support for Israel.
“I would prefer to have a serious adult representing our district.”
A federal court has found the 1st District, as it was drawn by the S.C. General Assembly for the 2022 election to be illegally gerrymandered. If that decision is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, where a decision could be handed down anytime, the district will have to be redrawn, though not until after the 2024 election.
Templeton said it won’t matter.
“Even if you change the numbers to whatever, this is a conservative district,” she said. “This district wants a conservative.”
Whoever holds the 1st District, Templeton said Republicans in the House have to find a way to work together and govern.
“I don’t run to the camera,” she said. “I run to work.”
Beaufort TEA Party Candidate Forum
The Beaufort TEA Party (BTP) will host a forum Monday, May 20 for the three Republican candidates for the S.C. 1st Congressional District seat, according to Beaufort TEA Party President Annie Ubelis.
The event, which will be held in a forum format – no debate – will be held at 5:30 p.m. and AMVETS Post 70 at 1831 Ribaut Road in Port Royal. In addition to the BTP, the event will be sponsored by the Beaufort County Republican Party and the Men’s Republican Federation.
Mount Pleasant’s Catherine Templeton and Charleston’s Bill Young are running in the June 11 GOP Primary against incumbent Rep. Nancy Mace. All three are invited to participate in the event.
– Mike McCombs
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
