(LifeSiteNews) — The rush to appoint Senator Lindsey Graham’s relatively unknown sister to a U.S. Senate seat for the next six months raises serious questions about good governance and the will of the people.
Within a day or so of the South Carolina Republican’s sudden death on Saturday, July 11, President Donad Trump called on Governor Henry McMaster to appoint Darline Graham Nordone to the seat. Governor McMaster soon followed suit, and within a week, Nordone has been sworn in for the remainder of Graham’s term that runs until January 2027.
While this was portrayed by sympathetic media and Republican politicians as a nice way to honor Graham, the appointment goes beyond a mere figurehead gesture, like when NBA teams sign a former star player to a one-day contract before retirement.
Media reports often focus on the tough fight Lindsey and Darline had growing up as orphans and how the late U.S. senator became his sister’s guardian. Darline also has a history of working with the disabled, including blind people. Those are all commendable life experiences, but they don’t directly speak to her ability to be a U.S. senator.
Nordone now will be able to introduce legislation, question committee hearing witnesses, receive intelligence briefings, and vote on bills. Yet no one has ever voted on her to represent them as a governor, representative, or senator. We know very little about her views on crucial topics such as abortion, transgenderism, and foreign policy.
Note that this is different from past Senate appointments to fill empty seats. In 2013, Republican South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint retired in order to take a job as president of the Heritage Foundation. Then-Governor Nikki Haley appointed U.S. Rep. Tim Scott to the Senate, a seat that he subsequently kept through re-election. But he had a voting record, and at least his own district had voted him in to an office.
Similarly, while Haley has her own faults, she did have a record as governor of South Carolina and then United Nations ambassador for McMaster to consider.
Curiously only left-leaning outlets like The Washington Post and Al-Jazeera have seriously raised questions about how Nordone is qualified to serve as a senator for the next six months at least, and then potentially run as an incumbent.
Graham’s death came as a surprise and so it seems unlikely that Trump or McMaster seriously vetted Nordone before appointing her. No one knows anything about her and what she believes, beyond that she was close to her brother. Despite this closeness, she does not appear to have even donated to his senate or presidential campaigns, according to a search of Federal Election Commission data.
LifeSiteNews searched through all available donation records for “Darline Graham,” “Darline Nordone,” as well as “Darleen Nordone” and “Darleen Graham,” as that is originally how she spelled her name. Her husband, Larry Nordone, does not appear to have donated to Graham, either.
Nordone and her brother may have been close and battled adversity to achieve success.
That does not mean she is qualified to serve as a senator or should have been pushed throughout without any vetting.
