A ruling over a Myrtle Beach storage unit may have ended an Horry County GOP fight

After months of name calling, bitter meetings and fiery speeches over who is running the GOP in South Carolina’s largest county, the contents of a Myrtle Beach storage unit may finally bring closure.

A computer printer, several tables, old campaign buttons and some political memorabilia — along with digital epherema like social media passwords and financial ledgers in former party elders’ possession — will be turned over to Horry County Republican chairman Reese Boyd’s leadership team. Magistrate Judge Bradley D. Meyers made the ruling Jan. 30 after nearly four hours of testimony and legal arguments.

Meyers’ decree adds judicial clout to the S.C. GOP and Boyd’s position that when former chairman Roger Slagle and his slate of officers resigned in mid-September, they pushed themselves out of power. Slagle tried unsuccessfully to rescind the move two weeks later.

Boyd, an attorney, sued Slagle and other former Horry County GOP leaders on Dec. 6 after the group refused to hand over materials, including front-facing social media accounts, voter rolls and the furniture.

A seamless transfer of power has “been done umpteen times before,” Meyers said.

“I don’t know why it’s been so hard now,” Meyers said. “Obviously, because the two parties aren’t in agreement.”

More at stake

Magistrate civil trials typically settle disputes over small personal property claims of up to $7,500. But lawyers for both sides argued more was at stake ahead of Meyers’ decision.

“This is 100% for a dog-and-pony show,” said William Von Hermann, Slagle’s attorney. “This is an expedient play to get before a court to get a ruling, which is just typically a rubber stamp situation.”

At one point, Boyd spent nearly 10 minutes questioning Slagle, asking him whether he lives full-time at his Myrtle Beach residence and why he didn’t attend the Oct. 11 meeting where Boyd was elected chairman.

“For starters, one of the positions that was intended to be filled was a position that I was currently maintaining,” Slagle said. “Why would I go to a meeting where somebody’s trying to fill a position that I was filling? That’s simple logic to me.”

But Slagle had announced his resignation on Sept. 12, which the S.C. GOP accepted three days later. On Sept. 26, he told the county GOP’s executive committee that he changed his mind and would stay on as chairman during a profanity-laced meeting cut short by what Slagle later called “disrupters.”

Boyd was then picked Oct. 11 as the Horry County GOP’s new leader at a special meeting with 47 of 80 executive committee members voting for him.

State party leaders soon affirmed that Boyd was the county’s duly elected GOP chairman.

However, Slagle and his supporters said Boyd’s election was illegitimate under county party bylaws. They alleged that a quorum wasn’t present to vote him for him as chairman.

In court, Boyd said Slagle and other GOP leaders couldn’t operate outside the rules set by the S.C. GOP.

“The S.C. GOP is one entity, and you as the chairman of the local Republican party do not get to go your own way and declare yourself an independent republic,” Boyd said. “Even though we have that in Horry County, it’s a longstanding tradition, I admire it, but unfortunately that’s not the way the rules of the party work.”

Gerri McDaniel, a longtime Horry County Republican activist and former state director of former President Trump’s campaign, blasted many of former local party members from the stand.

“What’s happened in Horry County these last two years is vile. It is absolutely vile, and I think that something needs to be changed about it,” she said.

On the same day the Horry County Republican Party sued Slagle, his supporters filed a “petition of pre-suit discovery” against former party chairwoman Dreama Perdue, alleging she left behind nearly $25,000 worth of “undocumented expenses” between Jan. 2, 2017 and May 19, 2021.

Michael Reed, an attorney for Perdue, filed a motion to dismiss on Jan. 30, according to court records. The case has a March 30 date set for alternative dispute resolution.