As the dust settles on another political skirmish, Spartanburg's own Rob Harris, a nurse with his heart in the operating room and his eyes on the political horizon, steps into our conversation today. Nurse by day, freedom fighter by twilight, Rob brings to the table a unique blend of Christian faith and constitutional conservatism that's as refreshing as it is rare. Sit back and journey with us through Rob's evolution from a precinct executive committeeman to a vital cog in the machine of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, where he battles legislative corruption and champions fiscal responsibility with the tenacity of a father defending his family's future.
This episode is not just a window into the soul of a political hopeful; it's a rallying cry for those who believe that integrity still has a place in our halls of power. Amidst slanderous attack ads and party conflicts, Rob and his Freedom Caucus compatriots stand unfazed, bolstered by the swelling ranks of volunteers and donors who share their vision. Listen closely as we peel back the layers of political bravado to reveal a collective heart beating for change, driven by a faith that insists on a brighter, more accountable future for the constituents of District 36 and beyond.
As the dust settles on another political skirmish, Spartanburg's own Rob Harris, a nurse with his heart in the operating room and his eyes on the political horizon, steps into our conversation today. Nurse by day, freedom fighter by twilight, Rob brings to the table a unique blend of Christian faith and constitutional conservatism that's as refreshing as it is rare. Sit back and journey with us through Rob's evolution from a precinct executive committeeman to a vital cog in the machine of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, where he battles legislative corruption and champions fiscal responsibility with the tenacity of a father defending his family's future.
This episode is not just a window into the soul of a political hopeful; it's a rallying cry for those who believe that integrity still has a place in our halls of power. Amidst slanderous attack ads and party conflicts, Rob and his Freedom Caucus compatriots stand unfazed, bolstered by the swelling ranks of volunteers and donors who share their vision. Listen closely as we peel back the layers of political bravado to reveal a collective heart beating for change, driven by a faith that insists on a brighter, more accountable future for the constituents of District 36 and beyond.
Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up, because the doctor is in.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, I'm continuing this week by interviewing folks running for political office. As you know, the June 11th primary is just around the corner and this week I'm privileged to have online with me Rob Harris, who's running for District.
Speaker 3:
What, rob, District 36 in Spartanburg.
Speaker 2:
District 36. So, rob, tell my listening audience a little bit about yourself and your work and your family. Just introduce yourself to my listening audience, sure.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, emily, just introduce yourself to my listening audience. Sure, yeah, so District 36 covers the towns of Welford, duncan, lyman and the east part of Greer, and so that's my district that I represent. I've been married for 38 long years my poor wife 38 years, and we have 10 children. And, yes, we know what causes it. No, we don't. We don't have cable and, yes, we drive a big van, uh, but that, uh, those 10 children have already produced, uh, nine grandchildren. So we love babies, we love kids, we love family and uh.
Speaker 2:
So I'm just smiling all over, listening to you, my face face is cracking.
Speaker 3:
Right, so I provide for them by being an operating room nurse. I've done that for almost 30 years, and so that's what I do. When I'm not down in Columbia, I work in the operating room and I kind of got my start with political matters I guess you could say becoming a precinct executive committeeman. A couple of years back I got involved in the Spartanburg GOP that way, and so I thought, hey, you know what we need some good constitutional conservatives down there in Columbia. And I ran for office and won two years ago. So I'm a freshman.
Speaker 3:
I was actually part of the third largest freshman class ever in South Carolina history, and I think that's kind of a testimony to the fact that people are waking up to the fact that South Carolina is not maybe going exactly in the right direction. And there's been a lot of turnover, but some big fish lost their seats in the legislature during that term, and so things are starting. You know things are starting to change. I think the tide's turning, and so when I did win, I did uh get invited to join the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, which I'm a proud member of, and we've been doing some great work to shine the light on all the corporate uh connections to the legislature and all the the, the pork, the excess of spending and all the nonsense just in general that they've been.
Speaker 2:
You mean no corporations have offered to give you big money.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so it's rampant down there, unfortunately. So you know, we've been able to do that with the numbers. We have hoping to gain in numbers, of course, the next round of elections. But the Freedom Caucus has done some heavy lifting and has really shined a light on a lot of corruption down there. So I'm proud to be part of that.
Speaker 2:
I hear you Just tell our listeners one example of what the Freedom Caucus has been able to accomplish.
Speaker 3:
Well, for one, it's a constant ability to offer good amendments on all kinds of legislation and it whether it's constitutional, carry or this you know, health czar bill that's been in the news, or um, just you know, even even um, like the, the scout vw deal that went down early last year a lot, of, a lot of wasted money and and taxpayer money. And so we, just when we get up to to the well during session, we can offer amendments and they're really good amendments to try to make things better, and they just keep shutting us down. But we get roll call votes and so we get these legislators voting Right. They vote badly against really good ideas and that just tells you where they're at politically and who they're loyal to. So we've been able to do that.
Speaker 3:
Again, you're not getting too much into the weeds but our bills. A lot of times that we put out our good bills we want to put forth, they just sit in committee, of course, because the chairman and the speaker don't want our bills to be heard. But so we bring the same concepts out to the floor in the form of amendments when we can. We've been very effective doing that and it sends a message about what we're about and what the other side's about.
Speaker 2:
That's right. And it exposes the rhinos in Columbia. So people know, hey, my representative is not with the Freedom Caucus, they're not with the constitutionalists. Exactly I hear you, I hear you, I hear you. Well, now, what are the things that you're passionate about, rob Harris?
Speaker 3:
Well, you know, kind of adjacent to the connected to why I even ran for office is that you know I'm a Christian and actually this September will be 40 years that the Lord Jesus saved my soul. And I was in church, I heard the gospel preached and I recognized I'm in big trouble, I need a savior. And when I recognized my need for a savior, Jesus came into my heart and saved me forever. So that changed my life. It's changed my family life, it's changed my work life, it's changed everything about my life and my political life. And I've come to realize over the years that actually politics is not the answer. Changed hearts is the answer to man's problems.
Speaker 3:
And so I know you know this. But 2 Chronicles, 7, 14, famous verse If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. And we, this land, this state, needs healed. We are going in the wrong direction, but it's it's. It's having people's hearts changed that is going to translate into people wanting to do the right thing. We're reminded again in Proverbs 29 too when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn and a lot of people are upset about the situation here, and I feel, like you know, we Christian conservatives like myself, we should have a seat at the table too. People want to separate church from state, but we are a Christian nation and it's okay for Christians to get involved and get engaged in this. I want to have my hand on the steering wheel, so that's what motivated me to get involved in it.
Speaker 3:
Christianity is not something we just leave at church and or, you know, just with our friends and our neighbors we are to. It should pervade all of our life and everything we touch should be different because we touched it. So I'm trying to do that in a real way by running for office. So the secular government that we are under right now they don't really recognize any higher authority. There's nobody to answer to. When they're crafting legislation they don't have God in mind. They just think there's some corporate interests or maybe a couple of constituents who make a racket about something, but they don't have a pervasive overarching authority that they would submit to and even recognize the principles there. So you know that guides their legislative decisions and my higher me I should say my God informs my decisions. It frankly does, and so I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2:
Sure you are, sure you are. You got a biblical worldview and your decision making is fundamentally made by looking into the word of God and understanding biblical authority. And that's so vastly different from the way most people think. But you know, when you get down to brass tacks, most people want a legislator who submits himself and subordinates himself under the authority of God's word, because that man is not going to cheat or lie or spend his tax money in a corrupt way. And they'll trust a man like that.
Speaker 3:
Right, and I think the problem is most people think, well, the Republicans are like the good Christian conservative group, right.
Speaker 3:
So the problem in our state, though, is we have a super majority of those Republicans, which should be conservatives, right In both chambers, and yet for the last three years, we have been ranked the most liberal, republican controlled state, liberal, republican controlled state, and, and it's you can look at, like uh, you know, if you don't believe me, I know some people may be familiar with some of these groups that like kind of give people report cards.
Speaker 3:
So there's one like cpac is one uh, club for growth, um, even john birch society, this se policy council, some of these gun groups like how about a gun rights and government gun owners of america? You look at, you look at how these republicans are ranked by these folks. Just, you know, average. I mean not to pick one particular one, but, like you look at the freedom caucus, they're all piled up on the right hand side of that graph in the a rating, and all the other legislators are, have b's and c's and d's and f's, frankly, and they're republicans and it's the. You know. That just tells you, tells it all, you know we don't have they're not.
Speaker 3:
They're not really what they appear to be.
Speaker 2:
They're just Democrats and Republican. Exactly, yep Exactly and that's hurtful, it really is hurtful.
Speaker 3:
But you know that's what people trust them and they tell them what they want to hear at the door and they go down to Columbia and they fight against us. Frankly, they they don't even vote according to. You know my, when I go down there, you know I, you know the House Republicans. They tried to get us as the old. The buck stops with them and they want a loyalty pledge to them that we don't campaign against anybody who's a sitting member. I am able to represent my constituents by the way I do. That is I honor God first, I honor my constitution next, and even the South Carolina GOP platform. Lots of those principles in that platform are what everybody believes in and that's what informs, that's what guides my decision-making when I'm down there and that's how I represent my constituents. But they just they answer to their corporate cronies and all the kickbacks they get or, you know, favors and whatnot. That's what guides them.
Speaker 2:
Well, what were some of the successes that you enjoyed in last year's legislative session that you feel the most excited about?
Speaker 3:
Well, you know we did. We had I had actually a personal hand in helping that constitutional carry bill. Everybody wants constitutional carry. We sent a pretty clean bill over to the Senate. We did fight to get Section 16 removed but it remained included to this day. But then when it came back from the Senate it was ruined really and nobody liked it except the establishment. The leadership was pretty excited about it.
Speaker 3:
When it came back they were going to vote and then all the grassroots piled in and they pushed back against it and me and some of my Freedom Caucus colleagues put some amendments, got amendments on early. I put four amendments of my own personally that would have stripped those bad Senate amendments. And so they saw that piled up and they kind of panicked. So they kind of changed gears like, oh well, no, we got to fight against it because the grassroots isn't for this. And so they went to a Democrat who had an amendment in front of ours and asked if they could substitute theirs for his. His was some minor thing about how the permit size and all that stuff KC Weapons Permit. But the point is they went to them to substitute Could we use your spot to put our bill, our amendment in to clean it up and put it back to the way the House sent over. Fair enough, I don't care whose credit, um, you know, I just want a good deal. So, uh, they did that and so it did pass, and so I'm I'm proud to have at least we were ready, we had our amendments there, we're going to fight for it and and it got through, cleaned it up, and I'm glad because south carolina deserves that. We have one of the best constitutional carry bills in the state. Now Other things we got Help, not Harm passed recently. That was very important for everybody and so happy to help with that. And I'm proud that we actually fought against this Health Czar bill.
Speaker 3:
I know most of your listeners may know what happened at the very end of session there. I know most of your listeners may know what happened at the very end of session there but Josiah Magnuson and being able to use a procedural rule to kill that. But we fought about it all the whole way decide policy for South Carolina, forcing excuse me, forcing sheriffs to, you know, go under an elected official, to go under the governor and have to enforce any mandates they put down. And so you know we fought about, we fought against all those things the whole time and they still managed to pass. It came back, and so it has to a bill like that, that anything that comes back to each house has to be on the calendar for a couple days on the way around. That is, to ask for unanimous consent, and Josiah recognized the ability to not give consent and objected, and so that killed it. So I mean you know why, if it's so important, why that it was 20 minutes to 5 when we had to adjourn, why are they waiting till the last minute then, if it, you know they, just they, whoever you know powers, that be leadership. They got to figure it out and have some honest debate, but they wait till the last minute and we said no. So you know, I know the governor's for it and and some leadership. So you know you probably they're going to probably try to amend the sine die when we come back and try to squeeze that in some way.
Speaker 3:
But people are against it. I mean you don't even that's not even talking about all the wasted rental issues with buildings. We already own and housing these new agencies and rented buildings and all the hundreds of millions of dollars we would waste on that. We fought against all that. You know, spoke about it at the well. So I'm just, you know I'm proud to have fought that. You know we're, we're up against it. It's a numbers game. We don't. We don't get a lot of wins because we don't have the numbers, but but I'm proud to shine the light on these crooks and I'm proud to be in the fight Right.
Speaker 2:
I appreciate you fighting for us. I want you to know that, in fact, all of you guys in the Freedom Caucus are heroes to those of us who are taxpayers and we want you guys to know that and I don't get to tell you guys that enough that there are folks of us who are rank-and-file taxpayers who really, really appreciate guys like you and Josiah and Adam Morgan and all the rest of you. We really appreciate the heat that you take and the insults that you take, because the taxpayers love you. Rob Harris, right, I got you.
Speaker 3:
The rhinos down there may hate you, but the taxpayers love you, right, well and speaking of getting a tax, you know we had a record number of people. We dared to vote against the budget. You know 15 members voted against the budget. That's more than voted against the budget in South Carolina in over 50 years. Okay, so again, and we had a record number last year it was 11, I think. So you know we have dared to push back against these, these rhinos, and they don't like it. So what's happened?
Speaker 3:
I know some of your listeners are probably already aware that they are sending out attack ads left and right on us text messages, phone calls, you know, maybe Facebook ads I'm not sure about that, but it's from this Palmetto Truth Project. And what has just come out in the news recently is that the House Freedom Caucus same ones who wanted us to, same ones who wanted us to, the same ones who wanted us to file that loyalty sign, that loyalty pledge they have an advisor who also works for Starboard Consulting Group, which is most of the rhinos. A lot of them use Starboard for their campaigns and the same guy who owns that is also helping this Palmetto Truth Project. He admitted it. So these ads are basically not coming from Democrats. These attack ads are coming from Republicans. Is that insane or what?
Speaker 2:
So that's what they wanted you all to do Sign a pledge they would. You wouldn't do that.
Speaker 3:
Exactly, and so now they're spending all this money attacking us, and it's like a truth project is is basically basically Republican backed attacks on us, basically Republican backed.
Speaker 3:
You know, attacks on us. So you know, because we voted against the budget, they just accused us of being against everything that's in the budget, like teacher pay and law enforcement and helping infrastructure and all this nonsense. You know, just because it's in the, we voted against the budget. We're not against those things, we're against all the waste in the budget. We spent 10% more this year on the budget than we did last year. Last year we spent 13 and a half percent more than the year before. We're spending more than you could even account for with population increase in the state and inflation. It's way above that. They're spending money hand over fist and it's reckless and so yeah, so we're against it and that's why they're blowing us up. But you know what that means we're over the target.
Speaker 2:
I'm fine with that.
Speaker 3:
I sleep fine at night. I know I'm doing the right thing.
Speaker 2:
That's exactly right, and I can't wait till you guys have enough members of the Freedom Caucus to just knock the horn off the rhino.
Speaker 3:
Exactly Amen, exactly right. So I'm good, I think it's going to happen. We're working as hard as we can here at Harris4SCcom. If you all want to pile in and help, I'm okay taking financial help or prayer help or volunteer help. You can go in there and sign up to be a volunteer. We have so many volunteers, we have to manage them. It's terrific, and we haven't.
Speaker 3:
We didn't have that issue last time, it was just our family. We have tons of volunteers and, praise the Lord, good people have piled in from all over helping us financially and I think it's mostly because, you know, people recognize the fight, the Freedom Caucus, yes, but when they see a legislator that came to their door and said I going to do this and then went down there and actually did what they said, that I think. I think it resonates with people and so it's just going fabulous as far as I can tell. I mean we are working. We're not taking anything for granted running through the tape. We are working as hard or harder than we did last time and I just want you know it says the horse. God's word says the horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord. We're ready, we're good soldiers, we're doing everything we can. But it's in Lord's hands and what I will be okay with. Whatever he chooses, it's fine, but I'm going to be. I can't say it won't be because I didn't do my part.
Speaker 2:
I hear you, I hear you, brother, I hear you. Well, listen, I want you to know there's a lot of folks praying for you, for your campaign, praying for all you guys in the Freedom Caucus Awesome, and we're just excited. I told you before we started I've been praying for years for God to raise up men of valor who will run for office and who will faithfully represent the Constitution and represent the Word of God. And men like you are a blessing to all of us God-fearing, right-thinking citizens who pay our taxes and just pray for folks down in Columbia who will faithfully represent us. Amen, and I appreciate you, rob, I want you to know that.
Speaker 3:
Well, I thank you for that.
Speaker 2:
I'm thankful for all of you guys and gals in the Freedom Caucus.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, well, I appreciate that, and so please, everybody who's listening, don't be shy about going to harris4sccom. I could use the help financially. Again, prayers, and if you want to volunteer you're pretty close to where I'm at you sign up for that too. There's opportunities to help there, so don't forget about that, thanks.
Speaker 2:
All right. Well, you're listening to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson. My guest today is Rob Harris, who's running for Senate District which one 36. Senate, district 36. And that wraps up our program for today. We'll be back again next week. May the Lord bless you real good.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry, dr Jackson's books, or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production at bobsloancom.
