Bostic Hopes Deep Ties to SC1 Can Carry Him to Victory

Editor's Note: The story below has been edited, following review of interview notes, and one quote from Curtis Bostic has been corrected and another paraphrased.

In a race with 16 candidates, voters have no shortage of choices. But few members of the Republican field have ties as deep in Congressional District One as Curtis Bostic.

Those ties are just a part of the reason why Bostic says he is running for Congress. “I believe this country is going in the tank and it’s going to take people standing up to prevent it from happening.”

If there is any doubt about what Bostic thinks is causing the country’s woes, it’s erased by a visit to his campaign website, stopspending.com.

“We need to stop creating new spending,” Bostic told Patch. “We can’t support what we have already. We need to flatten our spending and apply Constitutional principles to our appropriations.”

The Constitution, Bostic said, is a guide for how to spend tax dollars. “The problem is that we haven’t had direction. We need a north star, and I believe the north star is the Constitution of the United States,” Bostic explained.  “If we measured our spending by the Constitution, we wouldn’t have $16.5 trillion dollars of debt. We wouldn’t be talking about the collapse of Medicare or Medicaid.”

Bostic’s view on spending does not mean he is against using tax dollars to help make the Port of Charleston more competitive. “Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution defines what the country can spend money on and the advancement of commerce is core to that,” he said.

One of the unique aspects of a congressional seat is that it acts as a bridge between local and federal interests. In some districts that might be a challenge, but Bostic believes that SC1 is not one of them. “It’s not hard to find overlap (in local and national interests),” Bostic said. “What’s good for District One is good for the country.”

Bostic is quick to point out that he did not vote to raise taxes while serving on the Charleston County Council from 2001-2009. But he also recognizes the importance of the District One to the rest of the state’s economy.

“We need to take a sustained, focused, and prioritized view of economic in South Carolina. We need to put the issue of job creation and economic development at the forefront,” Bostic said. “We’re hampered by the current economic climate and the need to cut spending, so what the government needs to be about is putting its money into core functions, two of which are commerce and defense.”

Aside from the economy, Bostic believes another key issue in the race is education, specifically school choice. Bostic opposes H.3478, a school choice bill filed in the state House of Representatives. He thinks it’s a strong issue for him, especially since he home schools his own children. “We’ve been endorsed by every major home-school organization in Charleston County,” Bostic said. “I’ve been in the trenches fighting for school choice long before this campaign.”

Long before this campaign Bostic served as Marine on Parris Island. Over the years, he built relationships across District One. “We have—I hate the word because it’s so overused—a strong grassroots connection. I’ve represented 90 churches in the tri-county area. I have a farm that we’ve allowed non-profits of all stripes to use.”

Bostic created a non-profit called Remember, which assists widows and orphans in six different countries worldwide. Locally, Bostic has also worked with non-profit groups including the Harvest Free Medical Clinic, the Charleston Bible Church, and Appalachian Bible College.

Another of the non-profits Bostic worked with was Christian World Adoption (CWA), an international adoption agency which Bostic represented.

CWA was the subject of serious charges with respect to some of its adoption practices, none of which was ever proven. The organization was profiled by CBS News and ABC News of Australia in 2010 and 2009 respectively. Both programs interviewed Bostic on camera (He appeared on camera at roughly the 4:00 minute mark on CBS and the 10:30 mark on ABC).

After the program aired on ABC, CWA issued a lengthy rebuttal (attached to this article).

According to tax records (attached to this article), CWA paid Bostic’s law firm $466,073 in 2011 and $189,845 in 2010.

When asked about his relationship with CWA by Patch, Bostic said he was not at liberty to go into details, due to attorney-client privileges. But he did say lawyers must represent clients with varying degrees of culpability.

CWA filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy earlier this month and posted a message on its website saying that a “’perfect storm’ of circumstances that has made it difficult and in some cases impossible to continue.”

Among those circumstances was an “unrelenting campaign against international adoption” by UNICEF.

Bostic said he did not believe his representation of CWA should be an issue in the race. “I don’t represent drunk drivers, but if I represented a drunk driver, I really don't know ... that that makes you unfit for public office..”

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