Here's who has filed to run for Spartanburg County Sheriff: List
SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) — The filing period for the special election to fill the seat of Spartanburg County Sheriff opened Friday.
Five candidates have filed paperwork with South Carolina Election Commission, all of whom have filed as Republicans in the August 5 primary.
Sheriff salaries in the Upstate: Where does your county rank?
Candidates running in the special election had to pay a filing fee of about $3,000, which is prorated because of the partial term.
Candidates are listed below in alphabetical order.
In his letter announcing his bid for the seat of sheriff, Clark said he wants to help citizens, residents and visitors throughout Spartanburg County.
Clark started his career with the Spartanburg Police Department in March 2002, serving as a senior patrol officer and a field patrol officer. In October 2005, Clark began working with the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office, working as a property crimes investigator, a software systems administrator and records supervisor.
'I have the experience and knowledge to lead the sheriff's office and continue its mission to provide services to citizens that meet or exceed professional law enforcement standards, ensuring equal enforcement, and protection of the law without prejudice,' Clark said.
Clevenger, who has served as coroner since 2009, announced his candidacy for Spartanburg County Sheriff on Monday.
'I have dedicated my adult life to serving the people of Spartanburg County with transparency, compassion, and professionalism.' said Clevenger in a news release. 'The brave men and women of the Spartanburg Sheriff's Office deserve a leader who protects their integrity and shields them from politics so they can focus on protecting our community.'
Clevenger said his campaign for sheriff will focus on restoring trust in law enforcement, increasing transparency, supporting deputies and ensuring public safety is 'free from political agendas.'
Nick Duncan, a Laurens County native, worked as a paramedic with Spartanburg County EMS before he joined the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office in 2014. He announced a run for sheriff in March 2024, but lost the primary election in June.
Duncan previously said that, if elected, he would focus on drug issues impacting the county as well as working on community relations and transparency in the office.
Duncan encouraged voters to decide what they want from their elected leaders.
'Just look at everybody, figure out what you want from your elected officials, and what beliefs most align with yours and make a good, educated decision.' Duncan said.
Bill Rhyne announced his bid for the seat of sheriff on June 3.
A northern Spartanburg County native, Rhyne joined the U.S. Marine Corps after graduating from Chapman High School. He worked for the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office as a resident deputy and then for the South Carolina Highway Patrol in the Upstate as a public information officer and community relations officer. Rhyne retired as lieutenant and executive commander.
After retirement, he became the director of training for American Services. He also was able to return to SCHP as a community outreach coordinator.
'This campaign isn't about politics. It's about people,' Rhyne said. 'It's about making sure our communities are safe, heard, and respected. It's about being present, well-reasoned in our actions, and building a sheriff's office that truly serves every corner of Spartanburg County.'
Richard 'Ric' Stephens served in the Army National Guard from 1982-1992, according to his website. Later, Stephens worked for the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office from 1996-2002 in various positions. He retired from work in law enforcement in 2015.
'In doing this, I learned the complexity of the sheriff's office and how extremely important it is for you as an employee to understand and use all the county resources allocated,' Stephens said.
In an interview with 7NEWS, Stephens explained that his bid for sheriff is personal, after losing a family member was killed by a drug dealer in Spartanburg County.
'The sheriff's office has a dedicated professional workforce, with my leadership we will focus on issues that affect the taxpayers the most (traffic, drugs, and crime) I will give immediate results,' he added.
The primary will be held on August 5 while the special election is set to be held on November 4, which is the date of the 2025 general election.
Early voting for the primary will be held from July 21 through August 1 while early voting for the special election will run from October 20 through October 31.
A primary runoff would be held on August 19, if necessary, with early voting from August 13 to August 15.
Full schedule for special election:
June 13 – Candidate filing opens
June 21 – Candidate filing closes
July 21 – Early primary voting begins
August 1 – Early primary voting ends
August 5 – Primary election
August 13 – Primary runoff early voting begins (if necessary)
August 15 – Primary runoff early voting ends (if necessary)
August 19 – Primary runoff election
October 20 – Special election early voting begins
October 31 – Special election early voting ends
November 4 – Special Election
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘A Total Sham': Michelle Obama's Nutrition Adviser Lets Loose on MAHA
Before there was MAHA, there was Michelle. Anyone following the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement can't help but recall former First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to improve Americans' diets — and the vitriol she faced in response. Now, many of the same Republicans who skewered Michelle Obama as a 'nanny state' warrior have embraced the MAHA movement. To explore this head-spinning turn, I called up Sam Kass, the former White House chef under President Barack Obama and a food policy adviser wholed the first lady's 'Let's Move' initiative. Kass said he was happy to find common ground with Kennedy and his MAHA brigade where possible. But he argued Kennedy's HHS has done little to actually improve the health of the public so far, and was instead mostly taking steps that would do real damage, including by undermining the use of vaccines. Kass also warned potentially MAHA-curious food advocates against legitimizing the Trump administration by offering support for Kennedy. 'Those who are lending their voice for the things that they support are going to ultimately help enable outcomes that are going to be quite devastating for this country and for our kids,' he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. At the same time, Kass is not surprised with MAHA's growing popularity. In the 10-plus years since Kass left the White House, the issues of diet-related chronic disease haven't abated and Americans are more anxious about their health than ever. Wellness is a trillion-dollar industry, and MAHA influencers have filled the gap left by Democrats. 'The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue,' he said. 'We're getting what we deserve here in some ways.' This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How do you square the earlier conservative criticism of the 'Let's Move' initiative with the rise of MAHA? Are you surprised by the seeming contradiction? I think most of that is because Republicans are fearful of President Trump. And therefore, if he is putting somebody in a position of great power and backing him, there's a huge part of the party that's going to go along with whatever that may be. I don't think this is actually about the Republican Party taking this up. This is actually about a Democrat, traditionally, who had built up a pretty strong following on these issues, and decided to join forces with President Trump. It's not like any of these ideas are coming from the GOP platform. This is an RFK-led effort that they're now supporting. So are they hypocrites for that? Certainly. But I welcome Republican support on trying to genuinely improve the health of the nation. Frankly, if we had had that for the last 20 years, I think that cultural retention would be far better. The reality, though, is what they're actually doing I don't think is going to have any positive impact, or very little. Even what they're saying is problematic on some levels, but what they're doing is a far cry from anything that's going to create the health outcomes this country needs. When you say that, do you mean banning soda from SNAP or the food dyes issue? Are there specific things that come to mind? It's a long list. There's the critique that MAHA brings at the highest level, that chronic disease has exploded in our country. Nobody can refute that, and what we're eating is a big driver of poor health outcomes on many different levels. That is absolutely true. What we grow, how we're growing it, and what's being made out of it is quite literally killing people. That is something that First Lady Michelle Obama said way back when. I've been saying it for a couple of decades. After that, everything falls apart in my mind. We can start with food dyes as the biggest announcement they made thus far. I'm all for getting food dyes out of food. There's just not a basis of evidence that most of the ones that are being used are actually the drivers of many of these health conditions. It was reported that they were banning food dyes. Sadly, what they did was a total sham. It was a farce of an event. There was no policy at all that was announced. There was no guidance, there was no regulatory proposal, there wasn't even a request for information. There was absolutely nothing put forward to revoke the approvals of these dyes. And the reason I believe is that to revoke an approval, you have to show that it's harming the public health. That's what we did for trans fats. Trans fats had been approved for consumption. There was plenty of evidence to show that that food was really driving death and disease in the country, and we banned it through a regulatory mechanism. I could not fathom making an announcement like that without actually having a real policy to put in place. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry about what they did. Also, you see a bunch of the influencers holding up bags of Fruit Loops and saying, 'In Europe or Canada, these have no [synthetic] food dyes and ours do.' But the fact of the matter is Fruit Loops aren't good for you either way. Part of the danger of RFK is he keeps talking about gold standard science and rebooting our public policy and science. The reality is he's doing the exact opposite. He's going to fast food restaurants, touting them on national television as the head of Health and Human Services, [saying that] a cheeseburger and french fries is good for you now because it's cooked in beef fat which is just the most insane thing on literally every single level. It has absolutely no basis in science. We're focusing on issues that are absolutely not going to make an iota of difference in public health. It's absolutely shocking. They have a platform that is fear-based on certain issues, like these food dyes or seed oils, which are absolutely not addressing the core of what we're eating and the core of what's really harming our health. The problem is the fries and the cheeseburger. It's not the oil that it's fried in. It's actually quite scary to me to see what's playing out. Why do you think the politics of food have changed in the years since you were in the White House, and why do you think MAHA ideas have such appeal? I don't exactly know for sure. In the age of social media, the thing that gets the algorithms the most activity is more extreme views. I think people are very vulnerable to very compelling, very scientifically sounding narratives that [MAHA influencers] all have, based on one study here or another study there, that can weave a narrative of fear. It's not like food dyes are good, I'm happy to see them go. But you get people scared of what they're eating to the point where people stop eating vegetables because they're worried about the pesticides, which is just not good for their health. This fear is definitely taking hold. I think it's because the mediums on which this information travels are exacerbating that fear. You already mentioned the food dye announcement and why that was concerning to you. What are some of the other actions that you think aren't necessarily achieving the stated goals? If you step back and start to look at what actions have actually been taken, what you're actually seeing is a full-on assault on science throughout HHS. You're seeing a complete gutting of NIH, which funds much of the research needed to understand what in hyper-processed foods is undermining people's health and how to actually identify those correlations so you can regulate it very aggressively. You're seeing the complete gutting or elimination of departments within CDC and FDA that oversee the safety of our food. Food toxicologists have been fired. There's a department in CDC that's in charge of assessing chronic health and environmental exposures to toxins. Those offices have been eliminated. The idea that somehow you're going to be more aggressively regulating based on the best science, while you're absolutely wholesale cutting scientific research and gutting the people who are in charge of overseeing the very industry that you're trying to clamp down on is a joke. Then look at the 'big, beautiful bill' that is being supported by this administration, and it's catastrophic to the public health of the United States of America. Eight million people are going to lose access to health care. Three million plus are going to lose SNAP assistance. Then we can get into USDA and EPA. Everybody's got to remember that the number one threat to the public health of the United States of America is climate change. If we continue on this path of pulling back every regulatory effort that's been made to try to transition our society to a much more sustainable, lower-carbon world, that's also preparing itself to deal with the volatility that's coming from the climate, we're not going to have food to eat. This idea that you're going to have big announcements about food dyes and Fruit Loops, while you completely roll back every effort to prepare our agricultural system and our food system to deal with climate change, you're gaslighting the American public. Have you spoken to the former first lady about MAHA at all? Not in any kind of depth. Have you ever been in touch with Kennedy? Have you ever talked to him about these issues? He's very close to a number of people I'm good friends with, but no, I have not. You noted Kennedy used to be a Democrat. His issues — his opposition to pesticides, his support for healthy nutrition, with all the caveats that we just discussed — these were Democratic issues. Now, this MAHA coalition helped Trump win the White House. Why do you think Democrats have ceded this terrain? The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue. These are kitchen table issues. Our very well-being, our ability to eat food that's not harming ourselves and our kids, is fundamental to life on planet Earth and what it means to have a vibrant society. The fact that Democrats, much to my chagrin, definitely not because of lack of trying, have not taken this issue up with great effort over the last 15 years is shameful. We're getting what we deserve here in some ways. I'm deeply critical of Democrats, with some exceptions. Sen. Cory Booker has been amazing on these issues. [Former Sen.] Jon Tester is also great. But it was never part of the platform, and it absolutely always should have been. If there's some common ground to be found with Republicans, then great. We could get a lot done. But we can't just turn over the keys to this issue to people who are not serious. When you worked in the Obama White House, you pushed better nutrition labeling, active living, bans on unhealthy foods in school meals and trans fat. The recent MAHA report pointed the finger at similar programs for chronic illness. Is that a place where you and MAHA advocates are on the same page, and how do you balance that with the concerns you've raised? There's no clean answer to that. We largely, not entirely, share the same critique when it comes to food. Vaccines are another thing which are important to also talk about. People are trying to pick the issue that they like and can get around and pretend like the rest isn't happening. It would be great if we got food dyes out, but it would pale in comparison to if he continues down the path to undermine vaccines as the foundation of public health and people start dying, like they are, with measles. That is not even close to a trade. For all of my food friends who read this, or everybody in policy who are like, 'Oh yeah, I can work with him on this issue, but I'm going to turn a blind eye to that,' that doesn't work. That's going to lead to devastating outcomes. On the report, I share the general critique of the problem. I spent my life saying those things and working on these issues. That's the easy part. What matters is what you do about it. How do you actually change what people are eating, and what is it going to take to really put the country on a different trajectory when it comes to health? So far, I've seen absolutely no indication that the issues that they're focused on are going to have any meaningful or measurable impact on public health. Frankly, there's many other things that I think are going to be extremely detrimental. We will see. We're only a few months in. I could, depending on what happens, have a different perspective in six months or 12 months. RFK has blamed the food industry for Americans' poor health. He's argued that government institutions are overwrought with corporate influence. Do you think he's right? And what do you think about RFK's approach to trying to curb corporate influence? I'm all for curbing corporate influence. I had some big fights with industry. I won some of them, and sometimes I got my ass kicked. It's the nature of Washington when you're threatening the basic interests of an industry. What's stunning to me is that the food industry so far has been silent. They haven't done anything to fight back, which says to me that they're not feeling threatened yet. I think they're waiting to see what's going to happen. I'm sure they're doing some stuff in the background, but this is nothing like what we were dealing with. I agree that we should put the public's best interest first, not succumb to industry influence. I think the way that RFK talks about it is a real overstatement down a very dark conspiracy theory. The idea that JAMA and the American Medical Association and the New England Journal are just like corporate journals that just put corporate, completely distorted research out for the sake of making profits, it's just not serious. He starts to discredit the very institutions, like HHS, that you actually need to do the work to rein in industry. The way that industry does make inroads is that they fund a lot of research. If you want to reduce industry influence, you should dramatically increase [government] investment in funding of scientific research on agriculture and climate change, on food and nutrition. One of the biggest fights in the Obama era was over stricter nutrition standards for school lunches. The administration won some of those battles, but quite a few children still have obesity, according to the latest data. Is there anything you wish the Obama administration had done differently? Are there things policymakers should be doing differently? School nutrition is just one part of a young person's diet. You're not going to solve kids' health issues just through school nutrition, but obviously it's a huge lever to pull. If we really want to make progress, you have to look much more holistically at the food environment that people are living in. This is generational work. It's going to take literally decades of work to shift, not just the policies, but our culture, our businesses, to change how people are eating. I think the one thing we missed would have been a much stricter restriction on sugar across the board. We had it for drinks,, but we didn't [apply it across the board], and that was a miss. We should have pushed harder on sugar. I think the policy was a really important start. It can always be improved and strengthened. Both the first Trump administration and this one are looking to roll back some of that. The thing that we have to not forget — and this is true for schools, and certainly true for SNAP and WIC — is the biggest problem is not enough money for these programs. I started doing a lot of work on finding ways to restrict sugary drinks as an example from the SNAP program. But if you want to do that and actually get the health outcomes you need, you need to also increase the total dollar amount that people have so they can purchase healthier food. Part of the reason why people are drinking these things is they're the cheapest available drink. Coke is cheaper than water sometimes. RFK recently called sugar 'poison.' Do you agree with that? One of their tactics to obfuscate truth in science is dosage, right? The amount that we're consuming matters. If you had a birthday cake on your birthday and you have a cookie — my kids eat a cookie, they're not dying, they're not being poisoned to death. They're fine. I think the problem is the amount of sugar we're consuming and the sizes of the portions we have. It's the cumulative amount of sugar. It's probably technically not exactly the right word, poison. But I don't take issue with that. I think the levels of sugar consumption for young people are deeply alarming and are absolutely going to drive preventable death and disease for millions and millions of people. It already is and will continue to do so. It is a very serious problem. But what do you do? I can't wait to see the policy proposals here. It's a tough problem to solve. It is not a problem that can be solved overnight, and it's going to take a very comprehensive effort to really shift the amount of sugar we're consuming, but it should be the goal of this administration. They should work very hard at it in a very serious and science-based way. Thus far, I have not seen that.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
More Americans support than oppose Trump's Army celebration parade: Poll
As President Donald Trump hosts events on Saturday to celebrate the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, a new national poll indicates more Americans are likely to approve than disapprove of the president's decision to hold a military parade. But six in 10 Americans are concerned about the cost of the parade, saying it's "not a good use" of government money, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey. Trump, who is marking his 79th birthday on Saturday, is scheduled to give a speech during the parade, which will take place Saturday evening along the National Mall in Washington D.C. Defense officials say roughly 6,600 soldiers will march in the parade, with some 50 military aircraft and 150 vehicles, including tanks, rocket launchers, and missiles. The Army says it's spending $25-$45 million to pay for the parade, which includes fixing D.C. streets damaged by the tanks. Trump Warns Any Protesters At His Military Parade Will Be 'Met With Very Big Force' Trump has defended the cost of the parade, saying last month in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" that it would be "peanuts compared to the value of doing it." Read On The Fox News App "We have the greatest missiles in the world. We have the greatest submarines in the world. We have the greatest army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we're going to celebrate it," the president said. Trump To Host Military Parade To Celebrate Army's 250Th Birthday But some in Congress are criticizing the parade, saying the money could be better spent. "If it was really about celebrating military families, we could put $30 million toward helping them offset the cost of their child care, food assistance and tuition," Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran who lost both of her legs in combat while piloting an Army Black Hawk helicopter during the Iraq War, said in a social media post. "But it isn't. Trump is throwing himself a $30 million birthday parade just to stroke his own ego," Duckworth argued. According to the poll, 40% of adults nationwide approved of the military parade, with 29% disapproving, and three in 10 neither approving nor disapproving. There was an expected partisan divide, with two-thirds of Republicans approving of the president's move to hold the parade, and half of Democrats disapproving. But in a separate question, 60% of those surveyed said holding the parade was not a good use of government funds, with 38% disagreeing. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans said holding the parade was a good use of government funds, while eight in 10 Democrats disagreed. The White House, in a statement, said that the parade "will be a unifying celebration for not only the thousands in attendance, but Americans across the country who can participate in honoring our active-duty servicemembers, Veterans, and fallen heroes." Pro-democracy, progressive, and labor activists are planning protests in all 50 states on Saturday that will coincide with Trump's military parade. Many are part of a series of "No Kings" protests across the country, with more than 1,500 rallies scheduled for this weekend. But organizers decided against holding a major protest in the nation's capital and instead will hold their main event in Philadelphia. The poll, which was conducted June 5-9, also indicates that 39% of those questioned approve of the job Trump's doing in the White House, with six in ten giving the president a thumbs down. The survey had an overall margin of error of plus or minus four percentage article source: More Americans support than oppose Trump's Army celebration parade: Poll
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
An old Capitol Hill troublemaker is trying to clinch a megabill deal
It's a scene jarringly familiar to many Republicans on Capitol Hill: a high-stakes piece of legislation, a tense standoff between GOP leaders and conservative hard-liners — and Mark Meadows in the middle of it all. The former North Carolina congressman and Donald Trump chief of staff has been lying low in recent years. But he's re-emerged as a behind-the-scenes sounding board for Republican hard-liners, who view him as an informal conduit with the White House as they try to shape the president's 'big, beautiful bill.' It's just the latest turn for Meadows, who played a central role in ousting John Boehner as speaker, then served as conservative gadfly in Paul Ryan's House GOP before leaving for the White House. He was at Trump's side through 2020 until the ignominious end of his first term. His most recent headlines have concerned his role in the 'stop the steal' efforts that followed the 2020 election and his interactions with Trump during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Reports of an immunity deal and his testimony to a federal grand jury made him persona non grata in some MAGA circles. But Meadows, who declined to comment for this story, has maintained a foothold on the hard right as a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute — a conservative think tank in Washington headed by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. It's where the current iteration of the House Freedom Caucus, which Meadows once led, huddles for its weekly meetings, and he keeps in frequent touch with the group's members. Those conversations have heated up in recent weeks as the GOP megabill has moved to the top of the Capitol Hill agenda. This past Tuesday evening, for instance, Meadows ventured into the Capitol complex to meet with a small cadre of hard-liners from both chambers: GOP Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. The meeting in Lee's office, which was first reported by POLITICO, focused on how the right flank could hang onto some of its biggest priorities in the House version of the megabill, while trying to eke out some new wins in the Senate. 'He's just trying to figure out how to thread the needle here,' Johnson said in an interview. Added Scott, 'Mark is trying to help get a deal done.' All five sitting lawmakers who attended the Tuesday evening meeting have threatened to oppose Trump's domestic-policy package if it doesn't meet their demands, a strategy Meadows is no stranger to. He played a key role, for instance, in shaping the first attempt at major party-line legislation in Trump's first term — a 2017 attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He pushed as Freedom Caucus chair to make the bill much more aggressive in undoing the 2010 law's mandates. Meadows helped broker deals that ultimately got a bill through the House, but it went too far for key senators, and the effort fizzled. Now, according to Republicans who have spoken with him, Meadows has been helpful in brainstorming ideas for hard-liners as they seek to force as many of their demands into the bill as possible. He's also viewed by others as eager to stay in the mix on Capitol Hill — akin to a sort of MAGA Zelig who likes to be where the action is. 'He wants to be involved,' said one House Republican, who was skeptical that Meadows is serving a GOP interest larger than himself. It's unclear whether Meadows' role has been blessed by the White House, where opinions about 'The Chief's Chief' — as Meadows titled his memoir — vary widely. Administration officials are aware of Meadows' quiet shuttle diplomacy in the name of the president's signature policy item. Even if the Trump administration hasn't formally sanctioned his role, GOP lawmakers see him as someone who still has the ear of the president and his advisors. Scott noted that Meadows has 'a good working relationship with the White House.' Johnson said it was his impression that Meadows is still actively engaged with the administration, even though he's technically out of government. 'It's my understanding that President Trump's former chiefs stay in touch with him,' Johnson said, adding that Meadows is trying to play a 'helpful role.' Meadows grew so loyal at one point that Trump publicly lauded Meadows during a 2020 rally for physically staying by his side when he contracted Covid. But after Trump lost the election and amid the post-Jan. 6 flurry of congressional and federal investigations, the president and some top MAGA figures increasingly saw Meadows as an unreliable ally given reports about a possible federal immunity deal. 'Some people would make [an immunity] deal, but they are weaklings and cowards,' Trump wrote in 2023. 'I don't think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?' In the end, Meadows was never charged federally and Trump's indictment on conspiracy changes related to the 2020 election never went to trial. Then, after Trump's re-election, Meadows assumed his quiet role as power broker. Meadows has popped up in the House at several big moments in recent months. He huddled with hard-liners and House GOP leaders separately during speaker election fights, including when a small group of conservatives ousted Kevin McCarthy in October 2023. He emerged from Speaker Mike Johnson's office just a few days before Trump's inauguration before being spotted on the House side of the Capitol multiple times later in the spring. Asked if he was working on Trump's behalf, Meadows replied: 'Oh no, I'm just here for a brief meeting.' He headed into the speaker's office late last month hours before the Louisiana Republican pulled off what many believed to be impossible — passing the House version of the megabill with the support of every Freedom Caucus member, save Chair Andy Harris of Maryland, who voted present. Unlike with Boehner, Ryan and McCarthy, Meadows is more ideologically aligned with Mike Johnson. The two men were both part of a group of House Republicans who took on the role of Trump's unofficial defenders during his first Senate impeachment trial, and Johnson — while never a member — has long had close ties to the Freedom Caucus, including when Meadows chaired the group. Now members of the Freedom Caucus are still in regular contact with Meadows, and the House GOP is studded with old Meadows allies, such as fellow HFC co-founder and current Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who estimated he still talks to Meadows once a week. Many of them see his low-key involvement in megabill talks as being in line with his general approach. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who said he sees Meadows regularly, said he wouldn't be surprised if Meadows was 'facilitating' conversations, summing up his general approach as 'like, how do you get this done?' Rachael Bade contributed to this report.
