In efforts to rally the GOP base in Senate District 26, the S.C. GOP and Republican senate hopeful Jason Guerry are hitting state Rep. Russell Ott, D-Calhoun, on one vote from the Save Women’s Sports Act debate.
In 2022, lawmakers debated the Save Women’s Sports Act, which bans transgender females from participating in women’s or girls sports. Ott voted for the bill when it left the House.
The District 26 race is one of the handful of toss-up districts in the state. In the closing weeks of the race, Guerry has launched ads on transgender women playing in women’s sports, inflation, gun rights and anti-transgender legislation, all of which are hot topic Republican social issues.
Guerry posted an ad saying Ott was for allowing people who weren’t born female to participate in women’s sports.
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“Sports are based on biology and biology is not a social construct,” Guerry said in an ad. “California is spreading crazy all over this country, and Russell Ott is helping them.”
As part of the nuances in the state House, Ott voted to pass the Save Women’s Sports Act on second and third readings, the roll call votes that sent the legislation to the Senate.
“Either he’s intentionally lying, or he’s too lazy to actually go and do the research, and he’s just assuming that as a Democrat that I voted against it,” Ott said.
However, the Senate made a change to the bill, including on when a female can participate on a male team’s sport.
The Senate version of the bill only allowed women to play on men’s teams if a school did not offer a women’s team in the sport. The House version allowed women to play on a men’s team without any caveats.
Both versions banned males from playing on teams designated for females.
Ott even sent out a text message to voters showing them the roll call vote of him supporting the Save Women’s Sports Act in April 2022.
When the bill returned to the House the following month, Ott voted against the Senate change, and told The State Thursday he wanted the House to send the bill to a conference committee so the two chambers could negotiate differences. But the Republican-controlled House in the last week of the 2022 session went along with the Senate changes and sent the bill to the governor, who signed the bill.
“He’s playing loose with the truth when he’s saying that,” Ott said of Guerry’s efforts to knock him for voting against the Save Women’s Sports Act when it returned from the Senate.
Ott argues the April 2022 vote in the House that sent the legislation to the Senate was the key vote.
The state Republican Party shot back at Ott’s text message, arguing the final vote out of the House on the Senate version was the key vote.
“The simple fact is that when the final votes came to protect women’s sports, keep men out of women’s bathrooms, and protect children from dangerous transsexual drugs and operations, Russell Ott voted wrong. He voted with the radicals,” said S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick said.
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