Aiken County precincts for Republican primary for County Council chairman | News

Read article : Aiken County precincts for Republican primary for County Council chairman | News

AIKEN 001: Aiken No. 1 – City Auditorium 214 Park Ave SW - Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 002: Aiken No. 2 – American Legion Post 602 Hampton Ave NWAiken SC 29801

AIKEN 003: Aiken No. 3 – Aiken High School Annex 123 Rutland Dr, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 004: Aiken No. 4 – Smith Hazel Rec Center 400 Kershaw St NE, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 005: Aiken No. 5 – St Mary's Smith Hall 125 Park Ave SE, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 006: Aiken No. 6 – Odell Weeks Ctr 1700 Whiskey Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 007: Bath – L-B-C Middle School 29 Lions Trl, Warrenville SC 29851

AIKEN 008: Beech Island – Beech Island Fire Dept. 1565 Sand Bar Ferry Rd, Beech Island SC 29842

AIKEN 009: Belvedere No. 9 – Nancy Carson Library 135 Edgefield Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 010: Carolina Heights – American Legion Post 232 6070 Broadcast Dr, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 011: China Springs – Center Fire Substation 7 T And S Dr, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 012: Clearwater Elementary Sch 4552 Augusta Rd, Beech Island SC 29842

AIKEN 013: College Acre Mercy 2700 Whiskey Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 014: Eureka – Old Time Gospel Church 1231 Luke Bridge Rd, Trenton SC 29847

AIKEN 015: Gloverville – First Baptist Church Gloverville 2220 Augusta Rd, Gloverville SC 29828

AIKEN 016: Graniteville – Leavelle McCampbell Sch 82 Canal St, Graniteville SC 29829

AIKEN 017: Jackson – Jackson Town Hall 106 Main St, Jackson SC 29831

AIKEN 018: Langley – Langley Community Center 2724 Augusta Rd, Warrenville SC 29851

AIKEN 019: Lynwood Burnettown Municipal Bldg 3187 Augusta Rd, Warrenville SC 29851

AIKEN 020: Millbrook – Aiken Elementary School 2050 Pine Log Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 021: Monetta – Monetta Community Center 266 Academy St, Monetta SC 29105

AIKEN 022: Montmorenci 22 – Montmorenci First Bapt Ch 44 Old Barnwell Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 023: New Ellenton – New Ellenton Community Center 212 Pine Hill Ave, New Ellenton SC 29809

AIKEN 024: New Holland – New Holland Baptist Church 2279 New Holland Rd, Wagener SC 29164

AIKEN 025: N Augusta No 25 – N A Community Center 495 Brookside Ave, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 026: N Augusta No 26 – St Bartholomew's Epis Ch 471 W Martintown Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 027: N Augusta No 27 – N Augusta High School 2000 Knobcone Ave, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 028: N Augusta No 28 – Hammond Hill Elem School 901 W Woodlawn Ave, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 029: N Augusta No 29 – First Baptist Church 602 Georgia Ave, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 030: Oak Grove – Oak Grove Baptist Church 1721 Old 96 Indian Trl, Batesburg SC 29006

AIKEN 031: Perry – Perry Town Hall 1075 E Railroad Ave N, Perry SC 29137

AIKEN 032: Salley Old Crescent Voc School 240 Pine St NW, Salley SC 29137

AIKEN 033: Shaws Fork – Shaws Fork Baptist Church 1085 Shaws Fork Rd, Aiken SC 29805

AIKEN 034: Shiloh J D Lever Elementary 2404 Columbia Hwy N, Aiken SC 29805

AIKEN 035: Six Points No. 35 USC A Convocation Center 2049 Champion Way, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 036: Tabernacle – Couchton Fire Subst No. 2 4765 Wagener Rd, Wagener SC 29164

AIKEN 037: Talatha – New Ellen. Middle Sch 814 S Main St, New Ellenton SC 29809

AIKEN 038: Vaucluse – 1St Bapt Ch Vaucluse 2 Church St, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 039: Wagener – Wagener Town Hall 113 Railroad Ave W, Wagener SC 29164

AIKEN 040: Ward – Jerusalem Baptist Church 4185 Columbia Hwy N., Ridge Spring SC 29129

AIKEN 041: Warrenville – 1St Bapt Ch Warrenville 1012 Aiken Blvd, Warrenville SC 29851

AIKEN 042: White Pond – White Pond Community Ctr. 321 White Pond Rd, Williston SC 29853

AIKEN 043: Windsor–  Oakwood-Windsor Elementary School 3773 Charleston Hwy, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 044: Belvedere No 44 – Belv United Methodist Ch 202 Rhomboid Pl, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 045: Misty Lakes – Mims Grove Baptist Church 843 Ridge Rd, North Augusta SC 29860

AIKEN 046: Six Points No. 46 – Ctr. of Innovative Learning@ Pinecrest 1050 Pinecrest Ave, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 047: Aiken No. 47 – Odell Weeks Ctr 1700 Whiskey Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 048: Hammond – New Beginning Ministries 317 Williston Rd, Beech Island SC 29842

AIKEN 049: Willow Sprgs – Clearwater Elem Sch 4552 Augusta Rd, Beech Island SC 29842

AIKEN 050: Breezy Hill – Byrd Adult Learning Center-Temporary loc 1 Willis Cir, Graniteville SC 29829

AIKEN 051: Mid Valley No.51 – Aiken County Career Center 2455 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Warrenville SC 29851

AIKEN 052: Levels No. 52 – Kennedy Middle School 274 E Pine Log Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 053: Hollow Creek Mercy 2700 Whiskey Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 054: N Augusta No 54 – N Augusta Middle School 725 Old Edgefield Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 055: N Augusta No 55 – Holy Trinity Lutheran Ch 1002 Carolina Ave, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 056: Couchton – Aiken Electric Coop 2790 Wagener Rd, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 057: Redd's Branch – E. Aiken School Of the Arts 223 Old Wagener Rd, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 058: Fox Creek No 58 – N. Aug. Public Safety 501 W Five Notch Rd, North Augusta SC 29860

AIKEN 059: Pine Forest – Pine Forest Bpt Ch Annex 2827 Pine Log Rd, Warrenville SC 29851

AIKEN 060: Gem Lakes No 60 – Warrenville Elementary 569 Howlandville Rd, Warrenville SC 29851

AIKEN 061: Silver Bluff – Silver Bluff High Sch. 64 Desoto Dr, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 062: Belvedere No 62 – 1St Baptist Ch Belvedere 421 Edgefield Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 063: Ascauga Lake – Mt Transfiguration Bap Ch 350 Blanchard Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 064: Cedar Creek No.64 – Cedar Creek Church 3001 Banks Mill Rd SE, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 065: Sleepy Hollow 65 – St Aug Of Cant Epis Ch 1630 Silver Bluff Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 066: Hitchcock No.66 – St Paul Lutheran Church 961 Trail Ridge Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 067: N Augusta No.67 – RiverView Park Activity Bldg 100 Riverview Park Dr, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 068: N Augusta No.68 – Mossy Creek Elem School 421 W Five Notch Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 069: Anderson Pond 69 – Harbor Chase 1385 Silver Bluff Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 070: Sandstone No.70 Columbus Club 1003 Spaulding Dr, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 071: Mid Valley No.71 – Midland Valley Church Of the Nazarene 3526 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Graniteville SC 29829

AIKEN 072: Levels No.72 – Horse Creek Academy 1200 Toolebeck Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 073: Fox Creek No. 73 – Grace Fellowship Church 507 W Five Notch Rd, North Augusta SC 29860

AIKEN 074: Belvedere No 74 – 1St Baptist Ch Belvedere 421 Edgefield Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 075: South Aiken No. 75 – Cedar Creek Church 3001 Banks Mill Rd SE, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 076: South Aiken No. 76 – Living Hope 2550 Old Dominion Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 077: Gem Lakes No. 77 – Hitchcock Place 102 Crepe Myrtle Dr, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 078: Montmorenci No. 78 – Montmorenci First Bapt Ch 44 Old Barnwell Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 079: Sandstone No. 79 – Columbus Club 1003 Spaulding Dr, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 080: N Augusta No 80 – St Bartholomew's Epis Ch 471 W Martintown Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 081: Hammond No. 81 – New Beginning Ministries 317 Williston Rd, Beech Island SC 29842

AIKEN 082: Windsor No. 82 – Oakwood - Windsor Elementary School 3773 Charleston Hwy, Aiken SC 29801

AIKEN 083: Levels No 83 – Kennedy Middle School 274 E Pine Log Rd, Aiken SC 29803

AIKEN 084: Ascauga Lake No. 84 – GVW Fire Department Station 3 1284 Ascauga Lake Rd, North Augusta SC 29841

AIKEN 999: Barrier Free Reg And Elections Office 1930 University Pkwy Ste 1200, Aiken SC 29801

With Bathroom Bill Dead, Houston-Founded Pastor Council Looks To Future Fights

Read article : With Bathroom Bill Dead, Houston-Founded Pastor Council Looks To Future Fights

Dave Welch speaks during a press conference in favor of a bathroom bill at the Texas Capitol near the end of the special session on August 14, 2017.

A day before the Texas Legislature ended its special session this week, a session that included a high-profile fight over a “bathroom bill” that appeared almost certainly dead, David Welch had a message for Gov. Greg Abbott: call lawmakers back to Austin. Again.

For years, Welch, executive director of the Texas Pastor Council, has worked to pass a bill that would ban local policies that ensured transgender individuals’ right to use restrooms in public schools and government buildings that match their gender identity. The summer special session, which was quickly coming to a close, had been Welch and other social conservatives’ second chance, an overtime round after the bill — denounced by critics as discriminatory and unnecessary — failed during the regular session that ended in May.  

But with the Texas House unlikely to vote on a bathroom bill, Welch gathered with some of the most conservative Republicans in that chamber to make a final plea. The bill, they argued without any evidence, would prevent men from entering bathrooms to sexually assault or harass women.

“If this does not pass during this special session, we are asking for, urgently on behalf of all these pastors across the state of Texas, that we do hold a second special session until the job is done,” Welch said at the press event, hosted by Texas Values, a socially conservative group.

 Though the group of lawmakers, religious leaders and activists were still coming to terms with their failure to get a bill to Abbott’s desk, for Welch’s Pastor Council, the years-long fight over bathroom restrictions has nonetheless been a galvanizing campaign.

The group, which Welch founded in 2003, has grown from a local organization to a burgeoning statewide apparatus with eyes on someday becoming a nationwide force, one able to mobilize conservative Christians around the country into future political battles. If Abbott doesn’t call lawmakers back for another special session to pass a bathroom bill, the group is likely to shift its attention to the 2018 elections. 

“Our role in this process shouldn’t be restricted just because people attend church,” Welch told The Texas Tribune. “Active voting, informed voting, is a legitimate ministry of the church.”

A pastor for pastors

Welch has made a career out of mixing the religious and the political. Before founding the Pastors Council, he spent time at the Christian Coalition and Vision America, a controversial national evangelical group led by Rick Scarborough, a Texas pastor. And just before he founded the Pastor Council, Welch briefly worked as the executive director of the Republican Party in Harris County, where he would get to know many of the politicians that would animate his later campaigns. Welch said he has known Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, one of the most outspoken proponents of a bathroom bill in state government, since he was a radio host in Houston.

But it was with the Pastor Council — at first a small group of Houston pastors — that Welch would begin to make his deepest mark in Texas politics.

“We formed the Houston area pastor council in 2003 as a group of 12 pastors, across racial and denominational lines, to engage together on a variety of social moral cultural issues,” he said.

 

That initial group has since expanded into two additional entities, the Texas Pastor Council and the US Pastor Council, though the distinctions between the groups can be murky. Welch — who himself no longer preaches, instead referring to himself as a “pastor for pastors” — leads all three groups, and the main phone number for the US Pastor Council is a direct line to Welch.

The group, according to Welch, has taken on a range of issues, from criminal justice reform to child foster care. But over the course of his career, Welch and the group have had a decided preoccupation with attacking LGBT rights, what Welch describes as “the continued tide of the radical political LGBTQ movement trying to work to undermine traditional marriage and traditional family.” On the US Pastor Council website, the only “current issue” listed is “Woman’s Privacy Protection,” a page that features a number of talking points in favor of a bathroom bill.

“They have made anti-LGBT activism their primary focus,” said Dan Quinn, communications director for Texas Freedom Network, a liberal watchdog group. “They’ve had their most public efforts trying to defeat anything that protects equality for LGBT Texans.”

Over the course of several years as a columnist for World Net Daily, a far-right website known for hosting conspiracy theories, Welch railed against same-sex marriage and legal protections for LGBT individuals. In a 2009 post titled “When the Wicked Rule,” Welch attacked a new federal law that protected LGBT individuals from hate crimes as condoning “every possible form of sexual deviancy.” He denounced the “radical sexual-deviancy jihad” in a post called “My Gay America” in 2010.

“Lesbian Mayor Annise Parker has gone above and beyond to now extend protection through executive orders to ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression,’” he wrote at the time. “Keep your wives and daughters out of Houston city restrooms.”

That rhetoric against Parker – the first openly gay mayor of a large American city — and legal protections for LGBT individuals in Houston would eventually become talking points against the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which would have made it illegal to discriminate against someone based on 15 different “protected characteristics,” including sex, race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.

During that fight — which concluded with Houston residents voting overwhelmingly to strike down the nondiscrimination ordinance — Welch played a leading role in both the electoral and legal campaigns against the city. Jared Woodfill, one of the lead organizers against the HERO ordinance in Houston, said that Welch and his organization were “extremely instrumental” in gathering the signatures that would ultimately prompt the lawsuit and referendum overturning the ordinance.

Indeed, organizing and mobilizing voters is a key part of the Pastor Council’s mission. Its website boasts pages titled “Every Christian Votes” and the “AMERICA plan.” Under the “AMERICA plan,” pastors are encouraged to communicate with congregants about political issues, distribute voter guides and register “every eligible adult” to vote.

In other words, Welch had already established an infrastructure for turning out voters before the HERO referendum — a battle that helped elevate his organization and its platform. Randy Wilson, national field director for Church Ministries for the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, which has worked with the Pastor Council, said this is easier said than done.

“Dave has to have an established and billed credibility with the pastors, a very untrusting demographic, really,” he said.

That credibility and visibility would only grow when the city issued subpoenas for sermons and other statements Welch and other members of the Pastors Council had made in support of a 2014 failed petition drive aimed at repealing HERO. That incident drew national attention, energizing conservatives across Texas and the country and landing Welch on national media. (In response to that incident, the Texas Legislature passed a lawearlier this year shielding pastors’ sermons from government subpoena power.)

“It certainly escalated some elements of what we do to a much higher level because of the visibility of that Houston battle,” Welch said. “That achieved national attention.”

With that momentum, Welch, Woodfill and other conservative activists began to look to the the Legislature as the next battleground for the issue. Welch would begin to use tactics that had worked in Houston — hosting workshops to educate pastors, blasting out emails on the issues and hosting rallies — on a statewide level.

“The network of churches that has become involved in this issue has become very, very important,” Woodfill said.“The same model is being used across the state of Texas.”

But that model has had its limits. In the Legislature, efforts to pass a bathroom bill have failed against stiff opposition from the House, in particular that of House Speaker Joe Straus.

Despite those setbacks, the US Pastor Council itself has continued to grow, Welch said. According to tax documents on a database maintained by ProPublica, the US Pastor Council, which is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization and does not disclose its donors, saw its revenue more than double from $329,696 to $833,749 between 2014 and 2015, the last year for which data is available and the year of the HERO ordinance vote in Houston.

Welch said the group does not buy large ad campaigns, instead focusing resources on hosting workshops and organizing among pastors.

“There aren’t many religious groups that overtly have this partisan affiliation or policy preference as pronounced as the Pastors Council,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “That’s been a major change we’ve seen since 2013 or 2014.”

With primary season approaching, members of the Pastor Council are preparing to take their campaign to the ballot box and unseat Republicans who did not do enough to challenge Straus’ opposition to a “bathroom bill.”Steve Riggle, a pastor to a congregation of more than 20,000 at Grace Community Church in Houston and a member of the Pastor Council, said he and others are talking about “how in the world do we have 90-some Republicans [in the 150-member Texas House] who won’t stand behind what they say they believe.”

“They’re more afraid of Straus than they are of us,” he said. “It’s about time they’re more afraid of us.”

“This is not over”

In early August, in the midst of the special session, Welch and dozens of other pastors descended on Austin. Hundreds of pastors had signed a letter in support of the bathroom legislation, and before heading inside, the group that had made the trip gathered on the Capitol steps for a brief rally.

Throughout his campaign for a bathroom bill, Welch has enjoyed easy access to the state’s elected officials. He hosted a policy briefing in February that featured, among others, Patrick and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The August rally, which the Texas Pastor Council had promoted as a response to “opponents of God’s created order,” was no exception.

State Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, and state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, the authors of bathroom bills in their chambers, both spoke to the importance of the bill as Welch acted as the effective emcee of the event, leading the crowd in chants of “Let the House vote.”  

“We’re going to take this letter to the House as the voice of the state of Texas and our churches today,” Welch said.

But even as he represents pastors across the state, Welch and his work enjoy far from unanimous support from Christian and other religious leaders. During the regular session, about 50 faith leaders of various denominations lined the stairs outside the Texas House in protest of bills targeting LGBT Texans.

And just days before Welch arrived in Austin for the rally this month, dozens of religious leaders gathered in the very same spot to denounce the bill as discriminatory and hypocritical. In front of a crowd of more than one hundred supporters, an imam from Austin, as well as pastors and rabbis from across the state spoke about how their faith led them to oppose the legislation.

For Steve Wells, a self-described conservative pastor at the South Main Baptist Church in Houston, the campaign for the “bathroom bill” represents “bad theology.” He says he wishes that Welch and other like-minded pastors would focus more on the common dignity granted human beings.

“You will never in your lifetime meet someone who was not created in the image of God,” he said.

And in July, leaders of the national Episcopal Church sent a letter to Strausasking him to remain “steadfast” in his opposition to the legislation, also denouncing it as discriminatory.

Terri Burke, the executive director of the ACLU in Texas, described the “bathroom bill” as the latest frontier for far-right groups opposed to LGBT rights. Now that sexual orientation is largely protected under the law, she said, gender identity has become a target.

“I think those who want to discriminate have figured out LGB are hard to discriminate against, so they’ve pulled the T out,” she said.

To Welch and his fellow members on the Pastor Council, though, the group’s positions are is well in line with the teachings of the Bible. And even if the death of the “bathroom bill” in the special session represents the loss of a single battle, the broader war continues. 

“This is not over,” Riggle said.

Disclosure: The Texas Freedom Network has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors is available here.