Who do you pick for SC’s 1st Congressional District, a reader asks? Andrews or Mace

Andrews or Mace?

Incumbent Nancy Mace and challenger Dr. Annie Andrews are Congressional candidates for the 1st District. Here are the issues and where each stands:

Andrews believes women are capable of making scientifically and medically informed decisions about their own bodies; Mace thinks lawmakers should make those medical decisions.

Andrews believes too many children have died from insufficient regulation of guns. She supports universal background checks and specific training, so that those who qualify to own a gun will know and respect its use; Mace has an NRA rating of 92% and promotes guns in photo ops.

Andrews believes in affordable health care, protecting the right to vote, equal rights and banning assault weapons; Mace voted “NO” for legislation to address each of those issues.

Andrews believes that each child is unique and has dedicated her life to working with parents to determine their child’s best medical care; Mace indicates that lawmakers should make those decisions.

Andrews believes in the rule of law and that no single individual is above it; Mace votes with those who are working to undermine our constitutional democracy and threatens the foundation of our republic.

Barbara Hammes, Hilton Head

Where’s Erickson?

Shannon Erickson has been invited to participate in more than one forum with her opponent Barb Nash. Shannon always has previous commitments that prevent her from attending and apparently does not offer alternate dates for such an event. What is she afraid of? Perhaps that people will realize that her voting record is staggeringly extreme? That she is no longer (if she ever was) in touch with the people that she is supposed to be representing? It seems the only time Shannon shows up is when there is a feel-good photo op happening around town and runs on the “she’s a nice lady” platform. She might be a nice lady but it appears that some of her supporters are not so nice when large Barb Nash signs disappear within days of them being placed. When our rights and freedoms and even our democracy are on the line, being a nice lady isn’t enough.

Denise Sullivan, St. Helena

Tainted jury

I was taken aback about an article on the Murdaugh case and the reportedly “failed” lie detector of Curtis Eddie Smith. As a former prosecutor and defense attorney who tried cases for 47 years, I hope you researched the Frye doctrine regarding polygraph tests and their admissibility as evidence. I am aware that by agreement of the parties, polygraph evidence can be admitted. In all my years, I only had two cases where there was an agreement. In both, it was done pretrial as there was some doubt on the part of the prosecutor regarding his primary witness. We agreed to abide by the results and whoever was successful, either the State would dismiss or my client would plead. That was pretrial. If there is no statutory allowance or an agreement, which in this case I deem unlikely, the defense team has now tainted the entire jury pool who is aware of this polygraph. No instructions by the court will be adequate to find a fair and impartial jury. In the jurisdictions where I practiced, again without agreement of the defense and prosecutor, I would have found myself appearing in front of the State Disciplinary Administrator.

John Gerstle, Hilton Head

PFAS need addressing

Pausing in the frenzy of politics, war, weather and latest football scores, David Travis Bland, interim editorial editor of the Island Packet, alerted readers in last Sunday’s opinion piece to a more important subject, PFAS. Ever heard of them?

These are pervasive chemicals in our environment, especially water supplies, coming from the manufacture of cleaning products, paints, fire-fighting foams, water and stain-resistant products, food packing and more. Mr. Bland calls on South Carolina local and state governments to act aggressively to identify and remove these chemicals NOW.

Mr. Bland ends with a truism, stating “Providing clean drinking water is one of the moral issues of our time.” Yes, thought-provoking pieces like this, connecting water issues with morality, should be the talk of the town. Thanks, Mr. Bland, for talking.

Debby Boots, Hilton Head

This story was originally published October 30, 2022 at 5:00 AM.