May 28—The candidates seeking the Republican nomination in House District 81 have differing views on term limits and judge selection.

Charlie Hartz, Betsy Lamb and Mack Morris addressed those issues during a candidate forum held Tuesday afternoon by the Aiken County Republican Club.

House District 81 includes most of Aiken’s Southside.

Hartz and Morris both said they supported term limits.

Hartz, 64, said he didn’t want to be doing politics in his eighties, and that it takes a long time in Columbia before a representative has the power to change anything leading to long-serving representatives.

“We’ve got to change the way seniority works in Columbia,” Hartz said. “The longer you’re there, the higher you get up.”

Morris said “career politicians” are some of the biggest problems voters have on all levels of government.

“On top of term limits… I feel like we should enforce some sort of age limit,” Morris said. “As a 29-year-old myself, I see that I want members of my own generation and members of the generation above me and maybe two generations above me making decisions.”

Morris continued to say South Carolina is “rapidly evolving” and needs young people in politics to not discourage young voters.

“I think Bart Blackwell set a perfect expectation at eight years,” Morris said. “I don’t want to be doing it longer than that.”

S.C. Rep. Bart Blackwell, the current holder of the District 81 seat, announced earlier this year that he wouldn’t seek another term after serving for eight years.

Lamb said she was less concerned about term limits — “When you get somebody good in, it is hard to think that it might be a good idea to get him out,” she said. — but does have a problem with political action committees and big business funding campaigns.

She said when an incumbent, like Blackwell, faces a challenger, money from big business and political action committees “steamrolls” into the incumbent’s coffers, making it difficult for a challenger, like her in 2022, to win.

In the 2024 race, “Charlie [Hartz] is our GOP elected person — that’s who they want, there’s money that’s been just poured in this campaign,” Lamb said. “Most people like me — like Mack — would not stand a chance.”

Lamb added she felt her 2022 candidacy gave her a better chance than most candidates challenging monied interests.

Hartz addressed her comments the next time he responded to a question. He joked that Lamb was calling him the “sweetheart of the GOP.”

“I think most of the delegation would like to see me elected,” Hartz said. “So I’ll take that as an endorsement.”

Judge selection

The candidates also differ on how they believe judges should be elected.

South Carolina and Virginia are the only two states in which most judges are elected by the state legislature. In most other states, judges are elected by popular vote in either partisan or non-partisan elections.

Morris said he believes judges should be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, the same as the federal model.

“It’s a model we use in the federal government and give representation to both sides of the government by those checks and balances,” Morris said.

Hartz and Lamb said they would like to see judges elected by popular vote.

“They should not answer to people up at the statehouse,” Lamb said. “I don’t understand why we’re appointing them, but we do have a bunch of attorneys in office. We’ve seen what the corruption has done already — just look at the Murdaughs.”

Hartz said he agreed with Lamb. He also said around 47% of statehouse politicians are attorneys.

Early voting to determine the Republican nominee began Tuesday. The election will be held June 11.

If needed, a runoff would be held June 25.

The winner of the Republican nomination will face Democrat Jensen Jennings in the Nov. 5 general election.