Trump impeachment vote questions kick-off debate in competitive SC7 primary fight

It was a night of public reckoning for Republican Congressman Tom Rice.

Standing in the middle of a stage Thursday night, the sometimes soft-spoken attorney who’s represented South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District for a decade found himself once again answering for the moment that some have called his greatest political sin. His Jan. 13, 2021 vote to impeach former President Donald Trump — one of 10 House Republicans to do so.

“I was furious that the president who supposedly is for law enforcement sat there and watched the Capitol police being beaten, and did not lift a finger,” Rice said inside Florence’s Francis Marion University Performing Arts Center in the first debate of the 7th Congressional District primary.

About 20 minutes of the two-hour debate was focused on the impeachment topic.

On both sides of him stood two GOP rivals each, who all called him names and questioned his conservative principles.

“He was weaponized by the Democrats, and they use him all the time at this point,” state Rep. Russell Fry, a Surfside Beach attorney endorsed by Trump said. He alluded to an attack ad his campaign cut in February painting Rice as a villain and linking him to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other Democrats.

“At that moment, Tom Rice shattered our trust, he shattered the trust that Republican placed in him,” Fry said. “Trump was leaving office and he voted on the most reckless, speedy, factually bereft impeachment in American history.”

But they weren’t his only trouble during the two-hour long debate.

Just as the evening started, a member of the audience shouted at Rice and called him a traitor.

Horry County Schools board chairman Ken Richardson said constituents remain angry at Rice for his rebuke of Trump.

“I really believe Tom, you did what you felt was right, but what you felt like was right was wrong because you’re not sent to Washington to do that,” Richardson said. “You’re sent to Washington to do what the constituents in your area want you to do. I’m here to tell you they have not forgotten and they have not forgiven.”

Rice’s other contenders — Cheraw physician Dr. Garrett Barton and Christian educator Barbara Arthur — offered themselves as nontraditional alternatives ready to carry Trump-era policies into the future.

“What you did, sir, was unforgivable. There was no reason for it. There was no need,” Arthur, who has called the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion a Democrat-led false flag, said.

Barton said his career as a doctor positions him to remain calm under pressure — a trait currently lacking inside South Carolina’s 7th congressional district.

“We do not need a fragile congressman who is scared,” he said. “You don’t want your leaders scared. We need people up there that are going to fight and make the difference that our country needs.”

Rice said his vote to impeach was based out of fear, but his oath to the Constitution.

“I took it five times. The last time I took it was a week before Jan. 6, when a bunch of rioters broke into the House of Representatives and broke into the Senate,” he said. “I never turned my back on you. What I did was I protected your freedom by protecting the Constitution.”

Moderator Ken Ard, a former lieutenant governor during the Nikki Haley administration, asked each candidate who they’d support in a runoff if they couldn’t vote for themselves. That led to a sharp exchange between Fry and Rice.

Fry said he’d vote for anyone except Rice.

Meanwhile, ”the one person I wouldn’t support is Russell Fry,” Rice said.

“I wouldn’t want your endorsement, “Fry fired back.”

Voters will go the polls June 14.

This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 9:30 PM.