South Carolina State Sen. Matt Leber Continues Fight to Uphold Constitution in Charleston

South Carolina State Sen. Matt Leber (R) is continuing his fight to obligate local officials to follow the existing law and swear an oath to the United States Constitution after county council members reversed their decision to do so, telling Breitbart News that this is “the cutting edge of the culture wars at this point.”

Joining Breitbart News Saturday with Washington bureau chief Matt Boyle, Leber spoke on how he is escalating the legislative battle to make the Charleston County Public Library’s Board of Trustees uphold the Constitution.

“I called as many senators I could get on the phone on the weekend, which is sort of difficult sometimes, but 14 signed a letter with me stating that there was not going to be any new legislation coming. The law suffices. The only new legislation we were going to do is we were going to double down on the penalties and have trigger mechanisms that come into effect immediately. If you do not take the oath, you lose your job that second. And if the county doesn’t remove them, then the county loses their state funding until they do remove them. So the fight goes on. The fight goes on.”

In an episode of Breitbart News Saturday earlier in March, Leber reported that he verified with South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson that the state’s constitution requires public officials to take the oath, a law that the few conservative members of the board wanted to follow. 

“I requested an opinion from the South Carolina Attorney General. He said, ‘Oh, 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.

The Charleston County Council has gone back and forth on the issue, switching their votes from no, to yes, to no again on Thursday.

The next vote will occur next Tuesday to solidify that decision.

Councilman Brantley Moody (R) told WCBD he agrees with enforcing the oath policy, but needs guidance from state legislators on how to implement it:

We learned through the last week and a half, that our clerk has been spending 24 hours a day trying to do the state’s work, trying to figure out how to implement this policy of taking the oath, which we all support. Our position tonight is we need to have the general assembly and folks in Columbia give direction to all 46 counties. Charleston County should not be writing legislation for the entire. Everybody up there is in favor of taking the oath; we just need to know how to do it.

Leber stated that eight of the 11 members of the library board have refused to pledge to uphold the Constitution, prompting him to call for their termination:

According to the lawmaker, the problem is much deeper than the library board:

I mean, think of it this way. If you have someone that says ‘I cannot swear an oath to this Constitution because it’s not always favored me’ — That person is a trustee of the library. What’s the chance that they’re actually going to vote for a book that praises the Constitution or talks about founding fathers? That’s – no, they’re never going to support those books. So it’s bigger. It’s bigger than just not taking the oath. But they have taught these people for decades to hate America, to hate our founding fathers, to hate our sacred documents, and then when they get into power, this is how they’re going to use that education of hating America, and I’m calling them out. This is bigger than just not taking the oath. This is the cutting edge of the culture wars at this point.

The battle is certainly not over, he added. 

“We’re going to fight this all the way through, and they are going to be forced to either take the oath or not,” Leber said. “And I think the left is most fearful that they’re going to have hundreds of people throughout the state that are going to say no to the oath. It’s a great reform.”

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.