South Carolina state Sen. Matt Leber (R) has called for the termination of Charleston Library Board members over their refusal to pledge to the U.S. Constitution, telling Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle that “there’s something just fundamentally wrong with someone who just refuses to swear an oath to the Constitution.”
Leber explained to Boyle, hosting Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM Patriot, that South Carolina’s “unique sort of governing system that goes back to Reconstruction” allows for boards to be created to “handle just about any issue that the taxpayers will be interested in.”
“The county council establishes many of these boards, and the Charleston legislative delegation also establishes quite a few of them,” the state legislator said. “Again, it’s an old sort of system, and oftentimes, depending on who’s in power — if the Democrats have a long couple of decades where they’re in power — then they get to set the members of this board.”
While Republicans have had a successful last few elections, including Leber flipping a seat in the South Carolina statehouse in 2022 and defeating a Democrat in the state senate in November, he said “we have all these carryovers, sort of bureaucrats from years and years.”
After “finally” getting a “couple of conservatives” onto the Charleston Library Board in the newest session, Leber said a debacle ensued concerning the public officials’ swearing-in ceremony, which, per state law, requires board members to swear an oath to both the South Carolina and U.S. Constitution.
“They go to swear a pledge to some pledge that was made up… You can imagine, made up by leftists,” he told Boyle. “It has the rainbows and the unicorns, and ‘I’ll be a great member of the community, blah, blah, blah.’”
Leber verified with South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson that the state’s constitution requires public officials to pledge an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, a law that the new conservative members of the board wanted to follow.
“I requested an opinion from the South Carolina Attorney General. He said, ‘Oh, it’s, it’s definitely in the law. These folks have to swear an oath to the Constitution.’ And I started to insist on that, and as you can imagine, it just devolved from there,” the state senator said.
Due to eight of the 11 members of the board refusing to pledge an oath to the Constitution, Leber has called for their termination:
It’s not partisan at all, in my mind — I’ve had some Democrat senators and legislators that expressed support in my effort here. You know, there’s something just fundamentally wrong with someone who says, ‘Well, I can’t swear an oath to a Constitution that doesn’t really favor people like me.’ So if someone states that sort of opinion, going forward as they govern, you know as they handle taxpayer money, set policy, that they’re going to be setting policy that runs contrary to what normal Americans would be in favor of. And that’s the problem: If you can’t swear an oath to the Constitution, there’s a lot of other problems that you have.
Explaining why he has taken such a vocal stand, Leber said the board has been swearing in on the “wrong” oath for decades.
So, the local media, of course, it’s basically attacking me for this. I’m, you know, ‘targeting these low level government officials.’ And why am I doing this? They’ve been taking the same pledge for 50 years, and my opinion on that is, just because you are doing something wrong for 50 years and setting a precedent doesn’t mean you get to continue doing it. And with the Trump era, we’re being bold. We’re governing with boldness, and I’m calling this out.
Boyle then switched gears to ask about Senate Resolution 225, a piece of legislation that Leber recently introduced to “try to make South Carolina emerging tech friendly and AI tech friendly” as artificial intelligence (AI) grows in prevalence.
“The South Carolina Emerging Technology Association is backing up what I’m doing, helping me draft these resolutions, and we’ve got more to come. And I think this is gonna be great for South Carolina,” Leber stated.
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