1. Lee Bright was elected to the Spartanburg School District Six Board in 1999, and served on the board until his election to the South Carolina legislature.
26 Facts About Lee Bright
1. 2.
Lee Bright has since been employed in a number of salesmen roles and in 2014 he started The Lee Bright Agency, an independent insurance agency.
3.
In 2008, Lee Bright successfully challenged for the District 12 Senate seat.
4.
Lee Bright went on to win the general election as well.
5.
Lee Bright lost his 2016 re-election bid in a primary runoff to former State Representative Talley.
6.
Lee Bright announced on August 13,2013, that he would seek his party's nomination for United States Senate against incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham.
7.
Lee Bright ran in the 2018 Republican primary to replace retiring Republican incumbent Trey Gowdy in South Carolina's 4th congressional district.
8.
Lee Bright has been a strong opponent of abortion and has been a sponsor of the "Life Begins at Conception Act" for three years.
9.
In May 2013, Lee Bright was one of four senators who voted against a bill that would reduce government oversight of Clemson University.
10.
Lee Bright backed Mark Sanford in his 2006 race for Governor of South Carolina.
11.
Lee Bright described himself as troubled by the 2009 revelation that Sanford had flown to Argentina to meet with his mistress, but stopped short of joining calls for the governor's resignation.
12.
Lee Bright received the Friend of Taxpayer Award from the Spartanburg County Taxpayers Association.
13.
Lee Bright had the highest rating of the Palmetto Liberty PAC on its legislative scorecard, and was unanimously endorsed by The Republican Liberty Caucus of South Carolina In 2012, after Governor Nikki Haley vetoed funding for a private organizations, teacher pay raises, and funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission, Bright voted to sustain the veto.
14.
In 2010 Lee Bright sponsored legislation that would make any firearm produced in the state exempt from federal regulations, but the legislation stalled while being processed by committee.
15.
On December 13,2012, Lee Bright re-filed to reintroduce the legislation.
16.
On January 19,2013, Lee Bright proposed legislation that would allow public schools to offer a class in firearms marksmanship.
17.
Lee Bright is the author of the Constitutional Carry Act of 2013 which would allow citizens to carry firearms without a permit.
18.
Lee Bright was one of six senators to oppose the bi-partisan "Boland Bill", a bill that would make it easier for the state to track people found to be legally incompetent and make it more difficult for them to obtain a firearm.
19.
Lee Bright has been an outspoken opponent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health care reform championed by President Barack Obama.
20.
In 2012, Lee Bright sponsored a bill that would criminalize implementation of the Act, providing for penalties of up to two years for state officials who attempted to implement it and penalties of up to four years for federal officials who attempted to implement it.
21.
Lee Bright involved the discredited legal theory of nullification in support of the legislation.
22.
In 2016 Lee Bright introduced a bill in the South Carolina Senate that would have prevented any municipality in the state from passing or maintaining transgender equality ordinances.
23.
On June 23,2015, Lee Bright was one of three Senate members including Tom Corbin and Danny Verdin who voted against removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House grounds in the wake of the Charleston church shooting.
24.
Lee Bright publicly compared the call to remove the flag to a "Stalinist purge".
25.
Lee Bright is a member of Roebuck Baptist Church, Lee Bright is a member of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary's Board of Visitors.
26.
Lee Bright served as a member of the Palmetto Family Council's Board of Directors, and the South Carolina Attorney General's Commission on the Family 2001 advisory board.