SC House speaker re-elected over Freedom Caucus opposition

Editor’s note: This article was updated Wednesday following House committee assignments.

COLUMBIA — The challenged re-election Tuesday of House Speaker Murrell Smith indicates the civil war between the majority Republicans and an uber-conservative faction isn’t subsiding.

The re-election of the Sumter Republican to a second full term leading the South Carolina House was never really in question.

But the 102-17 vote during the post-election organizational session hinted at fights to come, even as Smith and other House leaders urged their newly sworn-in colleagues to keep Washington’s dysfunction out of the Statehouse.

“Here, we respect one another. We debate vigorously, but we do not disparage,” Smith said in his acceptance speech. “Let us reaffirm today that we will continue to uphold civility and decorum in this chamber. … It is our duty to show the people of South Carolina that their government works for them — that we can disagree without being disagreeable, and that collaboration, not division, is the foundation of our success.”

Rep. Jordan Pace, the new chairman of the Freedom Caucus, countered that voters gave Republicans in the Statehouse — who now hold a supermajority in both chambers — a mandate to push further to the right.

In the House, Republicans maintained the 88-member supermajority they gained in 2022. Since then, floor debates have increasingly devolved into intra-party fights.

“I’m all about being congenial and civil,” said Pace, R-Goose Creek, who was unopposed for a second term.

However, he said, it took a Legislature fully controlled by Republicans since 2000 far too long to pass laws like permit-less carry of handguns, which was signed into law in March.

He offered Rep. Bill Chumley of Woodruff as a speaker who would “move the conservative needle in the right direction” and do so quickly. First elected in 2010, Chumley has sat on the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. He’s been a Freedom Caucus member since its inception in South Carolina in spring 2022. But he’s not held a leadership role in the chamber.

After the lopsided vote, Pace told the SC Daily Gazette it was important for House members to have an option for the chamber’s top spot. What the Nov. 5 election showed, he said, is that voters nationwide want a “disruption of the status quo,” and the Freedom Caucus intends to provide that in South Carolina.

While he declined to give a tally or list of the caucus, saying membership could grow, the vote suggests its numbers haven’t budged.

The Freedom Caucus had 17 members ahead of this year’s elections. The four who didn’t seek re-election to the House — two of them lost bids for Congress — were replaced by Republicans who joined the invitation-only group, despite efforts by the majority caucus to shrink the hardline caucus. But as of Tuesday, it appeared their ranks hadn’t grown in strength either.

Among the 17 voting for Chumley as speaker was Rep. RJ May, a co-founder of South Carolina’s affiliate of the congressional Freedom Caucus, who could soon face federal criminal charges, according to court documents.

The court filing in late October was the first public confirmation that the federal government seized electronics from the West Columbia Republican on Aug. 5 as part of an investigation.

May’s attendance at Tuesday’s organizational session surprised his fellow legislators. Re-elected with no opposition on the ballot, May has not returned phone calls or text messages in months.

“I was elected to do a job,” May told reporters about his presence.

Asked if he had any comment on the investigation or its timeline, he repeatedly said, “I am looking forward to doing the work the people of District 88 elected me to do.”

May hasn’t had a leadership role in the caucus since it held officer elections in July. As for his continued role in the caucus, he said, “I continue to be one of the most conservative members of the House.”

That the Freedom Caucus challenged Smith at all, despite May’s legal woes, may show they plan to step up their public fights with leadership.

Two years ago, Smith was formally elected speaker by acclamation with no opposition — twice.

The first time was in April 2022, after former Speaker Jay Lucas announced he wasn’t seeking re-election to the chamber and stepped down from the leadership role. Smith, who previously chaired the House’s budget-writing committee, was elected again to the House’s top post in that December’s post-election organizational session.

Even as the now-24-year veteran of the chamber urged legislators to work together to better the lives of South Carolinians, the sniping over social media continued.

In his acceptance speech, House Speaker Pro-Tem Tommy Pope directly addressed the chamber’s slide to partisan Washington antics.

Disagreement is expected among 124 people, but “let’s disagree in truth. I’ve seen us spiral into half-truths,” said the York Republican, who was unopposed for the post he’s held since 2014. “Just today, there was a text complaining about rules we haven’t even started on.”

Another text, he said, was one telling him to vote for Chumley for speaker “or I’ll assume you still remain on the side of the satanic deep state.”

“I don’t have any doubt that whoever sent that was heartfelt to them, but they’re basing it on misinformation,” Pope said, adding he did not think the text was connected to Chumley himself.

“On both sides, all sides, we’ve got to quit letting these fires of misinformation burn up the time and energy for the work we can do for the people we were sent here to serve,” he said to a loud round of applause. “Quit battling the battles in social media and half-truths and slights and let’s focus on doing our work here.”

Committee reshuffling

The organizational session continued Wednesday, when House members received their committee assignments, then adjourned from the chamber to elect committee chairs.

One chairman position was open after Republican Bill Sandifer, longtime chairman of the Labor Commerce and Industry Committee, was ousted in the GOP primary by just 62 votes.

Replacing him is Rep. Bill Herbkersman, R-Bluffton, who has been the Ways and Means subcommittee chairman for health agencies’ budgets. A 22-year veteran of the House, Herbkersman was transferred to the committee known as LCI, where its members unanimously elected him chairman.

“This is second to none. I think we have a great opportunity to make big changes in South Carolina,” Herbkersman said in accepting the job. “I look forward to working with every single one of you and I think we can all make that difference.”

He said he intends to take a less heavy-handed approach as chairman.

“Through the years, LCI had one direction, and I think we need to broaden it a little bit, “Herbkersman said about giving subcommittees more autonomy. “We’ve got people from different backgrounds who can add to this, who can broaden what LCI can do.”

The reshuffling is a biennial and sometimes unpopular job for the speaker following elections. This year, it involved finding a spot for 19 freshmen. Smith said he continued to receive members’ requests late into the night Tuesday.

None of the 17 members who voted against Smith (or, as usual, any freshmen) got a seat on Ways and Means, the powerful budget-writing committee. They were largely divided between three committees that take up bills concerning agriculture, education, and medical and military affairs.

One Freedom Caucus member got a seat on the Judiciary Committee: Rep. Ryan McCabe, a Lexington attorney starting this third term, got transferred from agriculture to the committee that is arguably second in power only to Way and Means. May and Chumley remain on the agriculture committee with four other Freedom Caucus members.

The Senate also met Wednesday for a one-day organizational session.

SC Daily Gazette reporter Jessica Holdman contributed to this article. 

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that Rep. RJ May is a co-founder of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus.