COLUMBIA, SC (AP) — Joe Cunningham has tapped Tally Parham Casey, a civil litigator who flew fighter jets during three combat tours over Iraq, as his running mate in his bid to become South Carolina’s first Democratic governor in 20 years.
“She’s one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met,” said Cunningham, who previewed his pick for lieutenant governor to The Associated Press before Monday’s official announcement. “She’s fought for our freedoms overseas and she wants to continue to fight for those freedoms, so I put her on the ticket and she agreed to do it.”
Cunningham, 40, planned to introduce Casey, 52, at an event in Greenville, her hometown.
“I have long admired Joe’s bipartisan approach to governing and believe he is exactly what South Carolina needs as governor,” Casey said in a statement provided by the campaign, calling his election “an incredible honor and privilege.”
“Joe is an ordinary person who has the courage to say what we are all thinking,” she added in the statement.
This is the second gubernatorial election cycle in which contenders for South Carolina’s top two executive jobs are running on the same ticket. In past years, governors and their lieutenant governors were elected separately, meaning that politicians sometimes clashed ideologically or were from different parties.
Last week, Gov. Henry McMaster and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evett, 54, became the first South Carolina gubernatorial candidate to file for re-election, with McMaster calling the payroll company founder “thoroughly familiar with the trials, tribulations and challenges of business.” Those skills, the governor said, complement his decades in law and politics.
Since her election in 2018, Evett has spent many months traveling the state meeting with businesses and fostering their relationships with South Carolina technical schools. Both she and the governor say keeping them strong is key to the state’s manufacturing economy.
Cunningham also points to the diverse experience of his opponent. Casey’s military service, legal skills and the fact that she is a woman make her a good fit for where he would like to take the state, he said.
“Tali is the best man for the job, period,” Cunningham told the AP. “And the fact that she’s a woman brings that perspective to the ticket, especially in light of everything that’s happened with Governor McMaster’s attack on our liberties and his attack on women’s rights.” It makes it that much more personal for Tally.”
The Republican-dominated Legislature is poised to make abortions even more difficult to obtain in South Carolina after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn its nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling upholding the constitutional right to the procedure.
While abortion rights groups challenge the state’s current law, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy but includes some exceptions, a special legislative committee advanced a proposal last week to ban nearly all abortions except when the mother’s life is at risk.
McMaster, who said he would “immediately” work with those lawmakers, said last week that the six-week ban included “good exceptions” and was “pretty reasonable.”
“If there are other steps, if there are other things that they think should be done after a thorough investigation, then I’d like to hear about that,” McMaster said.
Cunningham urged lawmakers to delay debating the measure this fall until after the November election.
Casey was South Carolina’s first female fighter pilot, enlisted in the state’s Air National Guard’s 157th Fighter Squadron in 1996 and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. She has nearly 1,500 hours in the F-16, more than 100 of them in combat, and has received numerous service-related awards.
Casey has also been an attorney for over two decades, most of that time at Wyche PA in Columbia, where she was elected Chair in 2017 and focuses on commercial litigation, product liability, insurance and aerospace law. The graduate of Princeton University and the University of Virginia School of Law also served as a federal lawyer.
Like Cunningham, Casey is significantly younger than McMaster, who, at 75, is the state’s oldest governor and who the Democrat says is too old to adequately represent South Carolinians.
“He’s been in politics literally longer than I’ve been alive, and you look where that’s gotten us,” Cunningham said. “What Tally is proposing is a much needed change and it will be a refreshing look at politics.”
Cunningham has proposed an age limit of 72 for South Carolina officials, a change that would require voters to approve a constitutional amendment. He signaled readiness for a similar federal age limit that would apply to House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, 82, and President Joe Biden, 79.
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