Tag: impeachment vote

Rice Fishes for Voters While Fry Fishes for Money

It’s been one year since Congressman Tom Rice’s vote to impeach former President Donald Trump.
That fateful January 13, 2021 vote marked the beginning of Rice’s rapid fall from grace with the Republican voters of the SC 7th Congressional District, who constitute a considerable majority of the total voters in the district.
The SC 7th Congressional District is one of the most pro-Trump Congressional districts in the nation. From a political standpoint, Rice could have done nothing worse than his betrayal of the president to the constituents he represents.
Shortly after Rice’s fatal vote, Rice’s political consultant, Walter Whetsell, the go to guy for the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, told news media that a week is like a lifetime in politics and the voters would forget about the impeachment vote in a couple of weeks.
Whetsell’s statement only goes to prove how out of touch Whetsell is with the realities of current day Republicanism in the 7th Congressional District.
Rice has chosen to run for reelection telling media representatives that the Republican Party must move on from Trump and that he (Rice) will run on his record of accomplishment for the nearly 10 years he has represented the 7th Congressional District.
But, Rice has no record of accomplishment in Washington. He went to Washington with two big goals – secure funding for Interstate 73 and bring “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” to the district. Despite working with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives for his first six years there, Rice was unable to secure any significant funding for I-73.
While Rice likes to point to the Dillon inland port as an example of his ability to create jobs, that project actually owes its existence considerably more to former state Sen. Hugh Leatherman than anything Rice produced.
I-73 will probably be at the core of Rice’s reelection effort. It was the Chamber and the cabal of would be ‘movers and shakers’ associated with it that first got Rice elected to Congress and has been as the center of his reelection efforts since. The thought was that Rice and lobbying efforts in Washington would secure funding for the road’s construction.
Whetsell is firmly attached to the I-73 project as the “poll(?)” he conducted last year on the project for the Chamber demonstrates. And Whetsell represents Chamber candidates such as Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune, state Reps. Case Brittain and Tim McGinnis and will represent Mark Lazarus’ attempt to win back the county chairman position he lost in 2018, all with the idea that local tax dollars must be dedicated to I-73.

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Rice Struggling to Re-invent Image While Fry Attempts to Find One

It is just under seven months until Republican primary voters will nominate a candidate for the SC 7th Congressional District election next November.
The two candidates most closely tied to the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, incumbent Tom Rice and state Rep. Russell Fry, are still searching for an image to project to voters in order to gain popularity and votes.
Rice is hampered by his January 13th vote to impeach former President Donald Trump. Trump support was strongest in 7th Congressional District among all the congressional districts in South Carolina. Rice won easy re-election, in the November 2020 general election, to his fifth term in office on Trump’s coattails.
Then Rice cast “THE VOTE” to side with Congressional Democrats in the House to file Articles of Impeachment against Trump.
As we all know, Trump was never going to be removed from office by an evenly split Senate (it takes a two-thirds vote from senators to impeach), especially considering Trump was due to leave office on January 20, 2021, and the Senate trial didn’t take place until after Trump was out of office.
What makes Rice’s vote to impeach even more incredible is that twice in the days before the actual voting on the Articles of Impeachment, Rice made public statements that he was NOT going to vote to impeach Trump. THEN HE DID!
One would have thought, after spending four full terms as a Congressman on Capitol Hill, Tommy would have absorbed, even if only by osmosis, enough political savvy to understand that his vote to impeach Trump would be a betrayal to the vast majority of people he represents in South Carolina’s 7th District.
Now Rice is trying to create a new image of himself as a faithful servant of Trump during the former president’s four years in office, citing a 94% voting record supporting Trump initiatives. Rice further claims he was defending the Constitution when he voted to impeach Trump, calling Trump a “very divisive man”, and claiming Trump’s actions (or inactions) incited a riot at the U. S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
What Rice is avoiding trying to explain is why twice, between the January 6th events and the January 13th vote to impeach, Tommy publicly stated he would not vote for impeachment, then did.
Rice claims a ‘new vision’ for the Republican Party that embraces everything Trump except Trump the person. He also claims he will run on his ‘record of accomplishments.’

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Wife’s Email Complicates Rice Reelection Chances

An email authored by Wrenzie Rice, wife of Congressman Tom Rice, further complicates Rice’s already tenuous chances for reelection next year.
Responding to an email from a supporter, but reportedly not a constituent, of Rice’s vote to impeach former President Donald Trump. Rice’s email was dated February 8, 2021, nearly one month after her husband’s vote to impeach and after her husband tried to explain away his vote to impeach the president as a vote of conscience and after Tom Rice was formally censured by the SCGOP.
According to a number of sources who received forwarded copies, the email was shared among Republican voters in South Carolina for several months eventually making its way to South Carolina GOP officials.
Nationfile.com broke a story about the email last week including a verbatim transcript of the contents with the name of the recipient redacted. According to that story, Nationalfile.com received a copy of the email from “a senior South Carolina Republican Party official.”
Wrenzie Rice used two references in the email that will not sit well with Republican voters in her husband’s South Carolina 7th Congressional District.
“Tom has not wavered one bit on his vote (to impeach), but the Trump cult runs strong,” Wrenzie Rice wrote. “Sometimes I wonder if this is how Hitler came to power…”
The use of the words “Trump cult” was ill advised. Using the definition of cult as a group that is defined by common interest in a particular personality, it brings to mind Jim Jones and his kool aid drinkers or Charles Manson and his group.
Is cult really the proper term to use to describe a substantial group of voters in the 7th District who have cast ballots for her husband in the past?
Tom Rice said he voted to impeach Trump because “what he (Trump) did in my mind is what dictators do.” Wrenzie Rice added the name “Hitler”, one of the most ruthless and despised dictators in modern history who, among other atrocities, initiated the Holocaust of Europe’s Jewish people and others Hitler described as sub-human.
Any reference linking Trump and Hitler does not play well with the legion of steadfast Trump supporters in the 7th Congressional District and nationwide.

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Rice’s Vote to Impeach Trump Continues to be an Issue with Voters

Rep. Tom Rice’s vote to impeach former President Donald Trump remains at the forefront of many voters’ minds.

The issue surfaced again in Surfside Beach this week when a Tom Rice campaign sign was seen hanging from a tree with the word “traitor” written across it.

The sign caused discussions of the issue up to the city council level about whether it was legal for the sign to be in the yard. However, that is not the real issue.

Homeowners certainly have the right to express their feelings about political officeholders in their own yards.

Rice’s vote upset many of the Republicans in his district who have loyally voted for Rice in the past.

This reporter has personally seen several Rice campaign signs with a black “X” painted over them at different locations throughout the county.

The issue is Rice’s vote to impeach is still in the forefront of voters’ minds.

Walter Whetsell, the veteran political consultant who has run Rice’s congressional campaigns said, back in January, that thoughts of Rice’s vote would soon go away. Whetsell misread this issue because it is not going away.

Whenever Rice posts something to his Facebook page, the comments are approximately 80 percent negative towards him. When the commenters are analyzed, it appears that approximately half of the 20 percent who support Rice are Democrats.

Rice said several times that he voted his conscience back in January when he cast a vote to impeach Trump. He properly commented on the Surfside Beach sign that this is a free country and people have a right to express their opinion.

But, those opinions are hard against Rice now and it’s going to be very difficult for him to turn a majority of Republican primary voters around in the next year. It will be interesting to see the reception he receives, if he decides to run for his Congressional seat again, when he meets with voters in live campaign events.

It is also interesting that the same yard where the Rice sign was hung from a tree had a Russell Fry sign for the S. C. House.

Fry has been mentioned as a possible opponent to Rice in next year’s Republican primary for the nomination for the S.C. 7th Congressional District.

According to local media, Fry had no comment about the sign issue. To date, Fry has voiced no support for Trump on the impeachment issue nor support for Rice’s vote.

If he wants to be considered a serious candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress, Fry is going to have to get off the fence and take one side or the other of the impeachment issue. What he has done in the S. C. House of Representatives is not going to matter to voters.

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Richardson Gaining National Attention as Potential Challenger to Rice

Horry County School Board Chairman Ken Richardson hit the national news spotlight recently when the New York Times ran an article mentioning Richardson as a potential challenger to Rice in the upcoming June 2022 Republican Primary for Rice’s SC 7th Congressional District seat.

Richardson said he was surprised at getting a call from the New York Times reporter. “When my phone rang and it was the New York Times on the other end wanting to talk about me challenging Rice for Congress I was very surprised,” said Richardson.

Richardson said his entire focus right now is on getting Horry County students safely back into the classroom five days a week.

Toward that goal, the school district is in the final stages of surrounding each student desk with Plexiglas shields. Richardson said meetings are ongoing with administrators, cafeteria staff and maintenance staff on what additional steps will be required to provide a safe learning environment when the district shifts to full-time, in-school classes.

“My number one priority right now is getting the kids back in school full-time,” Richardson said.

However, making a future run at Rice’s seat is not out of the question for Richardson.

“When the 7th district was first created in 2012, I considered running for the seat then,” Richardson said. “But, I was involved in negotiations to sell my car dealership (Fowler Motors) at the time and I didn’t feel I could give the attention necessary to run a Congressional race at the same time.”

Richardson said he ran for the position of school board chairman because there were things he wanted to accomplish for the students of Horry County, but the thought of running for Congress has never completely left his mind.

In June 2019, Richardson released a statement that Rice needed to do more to help local schools impacted by hurricanes.

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Tom Rice Voted His Retirement Wednesday

By voting to impeach President Donald Trump on Wednesday, South Carolina 7th Congressional District Representative Tom Rice effectively announced his retirement from Congress.

Representing one of the most solidly pro-Trump districts in the nation, Rice’s vote drew nearly 3,000 Facebook comments in a matter of a few hours after his vote. The overwhelming majority of those comments were telling Rice he would never get their vote again and he should immediately retire.

There has always been a debate about whether a Congressman’s vote should represent the wishes of his constituents or that by electing him, his constituents effectively give him permission to vote as he determines proper.

Most congressmen do some of both, but occasionally an issue arises that most congressmen understand that they must vote the wishes of their constituents or suffer the consequences. The question of whether or not to impeach the president was just such an issue in the 7th Congressional District and Rice either didn’t understand the mood of his constituents or just didn’t care.

It’s interesting to note that local officeholders who rush to get Rice’s endorsement at election time and always show up for a photo op with him when he is in town, Luke Rankin, Heather Ammons Crawford, Cam Crawford, Russel Fry and newly elected Case Brittain quickly come to mind, have offered no defense of Rice on this issue.

They understand discretion is the better part of valor on this issue and defending Rice’s vote would only serve to put their future election prospects in peril.

While the overwhelming number of Republican voters in Horry County, who also happen to be the overwhelming number of voters in the county, condemned Rice’s vote, he did garner thanks from the county Democrats.

A press release by the Horry County Democratic Party said in part, “Jan. 13, 2021 — The Horry County Democratic Party today thanked Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC-7) for joining nine other Republicans and every Democrat in the House of Representatives to impeach President Donald Trump.”

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