GOOSE CREEK, S.C.—For the last twelve years, Mark Hammond of Lancaster has served as South Carolina’s Secretary of State. However, in the upcoming General Election he is facing new competition from a Democratic candidate hailing from the lowcountry—Ginny Deerin.
“I decided to run for office because for the last couple of years I’ve been very interested in traveling around the state and talking to women about the importance of getting more women to run for office,” Deerin stated. “About nine months ago I woke up and thought, ‘You know, I should walk that talk, and I should run for office.'”
If elected, she would become only the fifth woman, including Governor Nikki Haley, to hold a statewide office in South Carolina.
“I’m a believer that the more representative our government is, the better government we will have. Women are underrepresented. We are 49th in the country in terms of representation in our legislature,” she stated.
Since announcing her candidacy, the Sullivan’s Island resident has spent much of her time campaigning across the state. This is her first time running for a political office.
“They (voters) like that. They think people are staying in office too long. They get comfortable. They really want to have people who have fresh, new ideas and can operate really independently—which I think circles back around as to people who normally vote republican are voting for me because they think it’s time for a change in that office.”
Although she is running as a Democrat against Hammond, who is a Republican, several conservative groups have recently endorsed her, including the South Carolina Club for Growth, a network of fiscal conservatives.
“First, her plan to cut the budget, cut the fees and cut regulations in the Secretary of State’s office compellingly aligns with our commitment to fiscal conservatism,” stated S.C. Club for Growth Chairman Dave Ellison. “Second, her opponent – the 12-year incumbent – has allowed the Secretary of State’s office to become a bloated bureaucracy that wastes taxpayers’ money and makes doing business in our state more cumbersome for South Carolina companies and charities.”
Deerin, a businesswoman with experience in the corporate and non-profit worlds, is the first person ever belonging to another party to also recently be endorsed by the South Carolina Libertarian Party.
According to Michael Carmany, chairman of the party, “Deerin’s platform of cutting the budget, cutting regulations and improving customer service is totally in line with the Libertarian objectives of reducing government size and waste.”
Deerin says the founder and president of the RINO Hunt in Greenville has also endorsed her in her efforts to run for S.C. Secretary of State. When asked why she believed several groups who traditionally vote Republican were throwing their support to her, she responded with the following:
“I think it’s because they (conservatives) feel so strongly that change is needed in that office because there is an enormous amount of waste and bureaucracy,” stated Deerin. “Another reason conservatives like me is because I am a believer that the office should become an appointed office. I don’t believe it should be elected.”
Deerin acknowledges that very few people know what the secretary of state is or even who the secretary of state is.
“It’s just purely paperwork, taking in applications and fees and organizing them. So in my view it should become an appointed office. While it’s elected I’d like to be it because I’d really like to streamline it and get it prepared to bring it into the administration of government,” stated Deering. “Nobody likes to waste taxpayer dollars, and when you operate an office that is so yesterday, you know, most of the transactions that you do, you still have to do them with paper and snail mail. It’s very inefficient and wasteful of taxpayer dollars.”
Deerin has compared the current S.C. Secretary of State administration to the DMV a little more than a decade ago.
“You go into the department of motor vehicles, and you think, ‘Oh, my God, how can this be any less efficient?’ Then somebody decides to fix it, and a year later it’s a different experience,” she said. “In my view, that’s what needs to be happening with the secretary of state’s office by getting rid of a bunch of waste, inefficiencies, and I think I am the person to take care of that.”
Recently, Hammond has come under fire for reportedly earning $92,000 a year but only attending work three days a week. In a recent article by The State, Hammond went to his State House complex office 2.9 days a week from July 2013 to July 2014, according to an automated garage system that reads the placard in the incumbent’s state-issued 2007 Dodge Durango.
Hammond did tell the newspaper that “simply because he was not in Columbia did not mean he was not on the job. Hammond said he works around the state as part of his job, adding he has done so successfully for the past 12 years.”
For Deerin, his work ethic still leads a lot to be desired.
“There are certain types of jobs that telecommuting works. This is not one of them. The secretary of state’s office is a business,” she stated. “In early 2003, he hired his campaign manager, no big deal there, but the person has been a temp employee for twelve years. It was reported in the newspapers that he makes almost as much as our secretary of state–$82,000 a year, and the secretary of state has said that the guy works two days a week.”
You can listen to more of Deerin’s interview, by viewing the above video.
To learn more about her, click here.
To learn more about her opponent, click here.
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