Mark Sanford wins election for South Carolina House seat

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (Richard Ellis/Getty Images)

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. --Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford defeated Democratic businesswoman Elizabeth Colbert Busch in a special House election for South Carolina's first congressional district, despite an expansive effort among Democrats to turn the district blue for the first time in more than 30 years.

The district seat, which was left open when former Republican Rep. Tim Scott was appointed to the Senate earlier this year, will remain in Republican hands. Before the results came in Tuesday, the seat appeared closer to going Democratic than at any time in the past thirty years.

Sanford, a candidate plagued by scandal after he admitted using public funds to leave the country to visit an Argentine mistress while governor, defeated 15 Republicans earlier this year to secure the party nomination. Aided by running in a solidly Republican district, Sanford overcame his past by arguing that the race was a referendum on President Barack Obama's policies, and that a vote for Colbert Busch would be synonymous with support for liberal Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Because of Sanford's blemished past, Democrats saw a rare opportunity to take control of the seat and poured significant resources into the effort. Had they been successful, the victory would have been an important symbolic victory that would have provided momentum for Democrats working to rebuild their majority in the House.

By winning the seat, Sanford will be returning to familiar territory: Before his first term as governor, he represented the district in the House from 1995 to 2001.

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North Carolina Won't Establish State Religion

North Carolina Wont Establish State Religion

It turns out North Carolina won't be establishing its own religion after all. A resolution proposed this week by GOP state lawmakers that said the state has the right to declare an official religion will never come to a vote.

The legislation, House Joint Resolution 494, filed Monday by two GOP legislators and co-signed by 12 others, says the Supreme Court cannot block a state "from making laws respecting an establishment of religion." But on Thursday, House Speaker Thom Tillis' said the resolution was dead, according to WRAL.

The bill was initially filed in response to a lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, which, the ACLU said, opened 97 percent of its meetings in 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers. Filing the lawsuit on behalf of three residents, the ACLU wrote in a press release, "the commissioners, who deliver the prayers themselves, routinely call on Jesus Christ and refer to other sectarian beliefs during invocations."

The legislation filed by Reps. Harry Warren and Carl Ford stated the "North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion."

Warren and Ford did not return several requests for comment, but Warren told The Salisbury Post he never really expected the bill to go too far.

"I didn't expect it to go anywhere," Warren told the newspaper, noting that the bill was referred to the committee for Rules, Calendar and Operations of the House. "Quite often bills go there and never come out."

Co-signer Rep. Phil Shepard said in an interview before the bill was killed, "I don't support anything that would maintain a state religion, but … we have the right to assemble and pray."

"I wouldn't want anyone to say we would be an all Catholic state, an all Episcopalian state, an all Baptist state … there may be some that feel that way but I don't."

The crux of the resolution lay in the 10th Amendment, which leaves to the states powers not explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution. In recent years states have used this "nullification" argument in attempts to defy federal laws and Supreme Court rulings, most recently about gun control and the Affordable Care Act.

The bill wouldn't have actually created a religion. But it would have made an argument that they could. And the bridge between arguing and doing is key.

University of North Carolina constitutional law professor Michael Gerhardt said "people can believe what they want to believe."

"They are entitled to believe it, they are entitled to think it, they are entitled to say it, but they aren't entitled to act on it," Gerhardt said. "However they are not entitled to reject applicable Supreme Court opinion."

"The issue they are raising is settled by constitutional law," Gerhardt said. "They are trying to turn the clock back on the First Amendment."

And now that won't happen.

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Comeback Watch: Mark Sanford Wins South Carolina Primary

Stage two of Mark Sanford's political comeback is complete.

The former South Carolina governor, who ended his term tarnished by one of the most sensational political sex scandals in recent memory, has won the Republican primary to become the party's candidate for the U.S. House seat he represented in the 1990s.

Sanford bested attorney and former Charleston County Council member Curtis Bostic, The Associated Press has determined.

With 97 percent reporting, Sanford took 57 percent to Bostic's 43 percent.

Sanford will face Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of Comedy Central personality Stephen Colbert, in a May 7 general election, which isn't considered a lock, despite the First District's Republican voting tradition.

It's tough to know whether this was a good, great, or mediocre night for Sanford, who enjoys near-universal recognition after serving as governor, but who topped his main GOP rival by 13 percentage points.

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Comeback Watch: Mark Sanford Wins South Carolina Primary

Stage two of Mark Sanford's political comeback is complete.

The former South Carolina governor, who ended his term tarnished by one of the most sensational political sex scandals in recent memory, has won the Republican primary to become the party's candidate for the U.S. House seat he represented in the 1990s.

Sanford bested attorney and former Charleston County Council member Curtis Bostic, The Associated Press has determined.

With 97 percent reporting, Sanford took 57 percent to Bostic's 43 percent.

Sanford will face Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of Comedy Central personality Stephen Colbert, in a May 7 general election, which isn't considered a lock, despite the First District's Republican voting tradition.

It's tough to know whether this was a good, great, or mediocre night for Sanford, who enjoys near-universal recognition after serving as governor, but who topped his main GOP rival by 13 percentage points.

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Sanford headed for runoff in S. Carolina Republican primary: TV

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Former Governor Mark Sanford advanced to a Republican Party runoff in a special primary election to fill one of South Carolina's seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, WCBD-TV projected on Tuesday.

The primary runoff is set for April 2.

The winner of the runoff will face Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of TV comedian and political satirist Stephen Colbert, who easily won the Democratic Party nomination on Tuesday in her first run for political office.

The general election is set for May 7.

Sanford comfortably led the Republican field of candidates with 37 percent of ballots, according to results posted on official website of the State Election Commission, but not enough to avoid a runoff. It was not clear who he will face in the runoff with two other candidates tied for second place.

Colbert Busch won the Democratic contest by a landslide taking more than 95 percent of ballots cast. During the campaign she touted her experience as director of sales for a shipping line and a leader in advocating science and math education in South Carolina.

Her famous brother, host of the late night TV political comedy show, The Colbert Report, campaigned on her behalf.

Sanford says he is seeking redemption after an affair in office that ended his marriage. Sanford's wife divorced him when the affair became public in 2009, after aides said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail while he was in fact visiting Argentina.

He is now engaged to his former mistress Maria Belen Chapur, an Argentine journalist.

The congressional seat was vacated by Republican Tim Scott, who was appointed to replace Republican Jim DeMint in the U.S. Senate after he resigned in December to head the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

The district, which was redrawn after the 2010 Census, encompasses the city of Charleston and parts of four nearby rural counties and stretches south along the coast to include wealthy Hilton Head Island.

(Editing by Dan Trotta, David Adams and Lisa Shumaker)

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