Priorities

The Constitution is not a suggestion, and individual rights should not depend on which political party is in power.

Bentley Oliver believes constitutional rights may be restricted only in narrow circumstances involving a specific harm, clear legal authority, meaningful due process, and genuine judicial review. Government should never weaken fundamental protections merely because doing so is politically convenient.

Protect Speech, Religion, and Freedom of Conscience

Americans must remain free to express political, religious, and personal views without government censorship or retaliation.

Bentley will oppose efforts to suppress lawful speech because it is unpopular, offensive, or critical of those in power. Government may act against direct threats, fraud, defamation, or intentional incitement to immediate violence, but it should not use vague claims of harm or misinformation to silence lawful disagreement.

Government must remain separate from religion and may neither establish a religion nor punish people for practicing one.

Private businesses should generally be free to make their own commercial and organizational decisions, but that freedom does not include denying ordinary access to goods, services, or employment solely because someone belongs to a legally protected class.

At the same time, government should not compel individuals or privately owned businesses to create expressive work, endorse political or religious messages, or communicate beliefs they do not hold.

Preserve Due Process and Equal Protection

Government should never deprive a person of liberty, property, or constitutional rights without clear evidence and a fair process.

Bentley will oppose selective enforcement, politically motivated prosecution, secret proceedings, indefinite restrictions, and laws that presume guilt before a person has had a meaningful opportunity to respond.

Any restriction based on a claim that someone presents a danger must include prompt notice, access to evidence, an impartial court, and a real opportunity to challenge the government’s case.

Constitutional protections must be applied consistently, including when doing so is inconvenient to Bentley’s own party.

Protect Privacy from Government Surveillance

Technology does not erase the Fourth Amendment.

Bentley is especially concerned about government agencies using private companies, data brokers, financial institutions, telecommunications providers, or other third parties to collect information they could not constitutionally obtain directly.

She supports warrants based on probable cause before government searches private homes, devices, communications, records, or location data, except during genuine emergencies subject to prompt judicial review.

Government should not be allowed to buy its way around the Constitution.

Defend Property Rights

Private property is a fundamental part of personal freedom and economic independence.

Government may take property only for a legitimate public use, through lawful procedures, and with fair compensation based on the property’s real value, not the lowest figure officials can justify on paper.

Bentley will oppose using eminent domain primarily to transfer property from one private owner to another private developer simply because the new project may generate more tax revenue.

Protect the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

The Second Amendment protects an individual right and should not be treated as a privilege granted by government.

Bentley supports background checks for commercial firearm sales when used to enforce lawful restrictions on violent felons and others properly found dangerous through due process.

She opposes mandatory waiting periods for law-abiding citizens.

A nonviolent felon who has completed the sentence should be able to petition a court through a straightforward process. Firearm rights should be restored when the person can show they do not present a threat to the public.

Respect the Rights of States and the People

The federal government should exercise only the powers granted to it by the Constitution. Powers not delegated to the federal government remain with the states and the people.

Bentley believes states should have broad authority to govern their own affairs, even when a state adopts a policy she may not personally support, provided that policy does not violate the United States Constitution.

She will oppose one-size-fits-all federal mandates that ignore regional differences and prevent states or local communities from addressing their own needs.

Constitutional rights belong to everyone. Government power should remain limited, legal protections should be applied consistently, and the rights of the people should come before political convenience.

A strong economy should help working people build a future, not merely survive from one bill to the next.

Bentley Oliver wants South Carolina to be a place where families can save money, own homes, start businesses, and create lasting financial security. Economic growth should benefit the people who live here, not only large corporations receiving incentives.

Help Families Recover from Financial Disasters

Bentley understands that many families are one serious illness, job loss, accident, natural disaster, or unexpected expense away from losing everything they have built.

She supports targeted tax-relief programs for South Carolinians facing major financial hardship. These programs should be accessible, temporary, and designed to help families recover without forcing them into permanent dependency.

The goal should be to give people enough breathing room to rebuild, remain in their homes, and return to financial stability.

Support Locally Defined Housing Needs

Housing needs vary greatly across South Carolina.

The federal government should support the state and local communities in addressing their own housing priorities rather than impose one national solution. Depending on local need, that support may include infrastructure, financing tools, redevelopment assistance, or programs that help communities increase access to safe and affordable housing.

Local communities should determine what kind of housing growth fits their needs and capacity.

Strengthen Local Businesses and Skilled Employment

Locally owned businesses keep money in communities, create jobs, and give people a direct stake in the places where they live.

Bentley supports reducing unnecessary barriers to starting and growing a business, improving access to capital, and expanding skilled employment through a flexible mix of apprenticeships, trade schools, community colleges, employer-led training, and military-to-civilian career pathways.

Training programs should respond to local employers and community needs rather than follow a rigid federal model.

Require Community Benefit from Corporate Incentives

Public incentives should produce measurable value for the communities funding them.

Bentley supports stronger disclosure, performance requirements, and repayment provisions for companies receiving tax incentives, subsidies, grants, or other public support.

Community benefit may include:

• Good wages and benefits
• Local hiring
• Workforce training
• Long-term investment
• Infrastructure improvements
• Environmental responsibility
• Support for local suppliers
• Reliable job creation

Companies that fail to deliver what they promised should not keep public benefits without consequence.

Measure Economic Growth by Household Security

Economic success should not be measured only by corporate announcements, statewide averages, or the number of incentive packages approved.

Bentley believes growth should be measured by whether South Carolinians can:

• Build savings
• Afford housing
• Recover from emergencies
• Find skilled employment
• Start and grow businesses
• Support their families
• Remain in their communities
• Build something lasting for the next generation

A strong economy should create opportunity, reward work, and give people a realistic path toward independence and long-term security.

Public office is a responsibility, not a career entitlement.

Bentley Oliver believes elected officials should answer to the people they represent, not political parties, wealthy donors, lobbyists, federal bureaucracies, or their own ambitions. Conservative leadership should mean responsible spending, limited and effective government, equal treatment under the law, and clear accountability for how public power is used.

Support Congressional Term Limits

Public office should not become a permanent profession.

Bentley supports congressional term limits to reduce entrenched political power and encourage new leadership. She does not believe the exact limits should be chosen carelessly, because overly short terms could shift even more power to unelected staff, lobbyists, and federal agencies.

The goal should be to prevent political entitlement without weakening the ability of elected representatives to govern effectively.

Make Spending Transparent and Responsible

Taxpayers should be able to see where their money goes, why it is being spent, and whether it produces results.

Bentley supports stronger public reporting, independent audits, enforceable spending controls, regular reviews of existing programs, and greater use of zero-based budgeting.

Federal programs should not receive automatic increases simply because they received funding the previous year. Wasteful, duplicative, and ineffective programs should be reformed, consolidated, or ended.

She also supports serious consideration of a balanced-budget amendment, tighter limits on emergency spending, and clear justification for earmarks and special appropriations.

Expose Donor and Lobbyist Influence

Voters have a right to know who is financing candidates and attempting to influence public policy.

Bentley supports full donor transparency, stronger disclosure requirements, restrictions on lobbyist contributions, and serious enforcement of campaign-finance laws.

Substantive meetings between elected officials, major donors, and registered lobbyists should be disclosed when they involve legislation, contracts, regulations, funding, or appointments.

Political spending should not be hidden through shell organizations, reporting loopholes, or layers of entities designed to conceal the true source of influence.

Stop Members of Congress from Profiting from Office

Members of Congress should not use confidential or market-sensitive information obtained through public service for personal financial gain.

Bentley supports strong restrictions on individual stock trading by members of Congress and senior officials. Appropriate safeguards may include diversified funds, qualified blind trusts, or similar arrangements that prevent officials from personally directing trades affected by their government responsibilities.

The rules should also apply where necessary to spouses and dependent accounts so they cannot be bypassed through conveniently relocated financial activity.

Require Time to Read Legislation

Members of Congress should not vote on major legislation they have not had a reasonable opportunity to read and understand.

Bentley supports requiring bills, major amendments, and conference agreements to be publicly available for a defined review period before final votes.

Emergency exceptions should be narrow and publicly explained. Major legislation should also include plain-language summaries describing its purpose, cost, new authorities, mandates, penalties, and changes to existing law.

Guarantee Equal Treatment and Due Process

The law should apply equally regardless of political affiliation, wealth, influence, race, position, or personal connections.

Bentley will oppose selective prosecution, political targeting, unequal sentencing, regulatory favoritism, abuse of civil-asset forfeiture, and the use of federal agencies as political weapons.

Government should not permanently seize property without proving its connection to a crime. Individuals must receive prompt notice, access to evidence, judicial review, and a meaningful opportunity to challenge a seizure.

The burden should remain on the government to prove its case.

Limit Government and Put Constituents First

Limited government does not mean ineffective government. It means government should act only where it has lawful authority, a legitimate purpose, and a reasonable ability to produce results.

Federal programs should be reviewed for necessity, cost, effectiveness, duplication, constitutional authority, and whether the responsibility belongs at the federal, state, local, or private level.

Bentley’s responsibility would be to every South Carolinian, not only party leadership or those who supported her campaign. She will work across party lines when doing so benefits South Carolina and oppose members of her own party when they misuse power, waste public money, or place politics ahead of the people they represent.

Accountability means explaining decisions, accepting responsibility for failures, and remembering that public authority belongs to the people.

South Carolina deserves strong representation and a fair return from Washington.

Bentley Oliver believes success should be measured by what improves life across the state, not by speeches, television appearances, or years spent in office. Federal representation should produce visible, measurable results for South Carolina’s people and communities.

Secure South Carolina’s Fair Share

South Carolinians send tax dollars to Washington and deserve a fair share of the federal funding, contracts, grants, infrastructure investment, disaster assistance, and military resources they already help fund.

Bentley will work to ensure South Carolina is not overlooked while also supporting stronger oversight, reduced waste, and the elimination of ineffective federal spending.

A fair return does not mean defending waste simply because some of the money comes back to the state. It means securing useful investment, demanding accountability, and ensuring that federal resources produce real value.

Build Around Local Needs

South Carolina is not one uniform community, and Bentley does not support one-size-fits-all solutions for the state.

The needs of rural counties, small towns, growing cities, coastal communities, military communities, and agricultural regions are different. Local residents and leaders should have a central role in identifying their priorities.

The federal government should help South Carolina build the funding structures, planning capacity, technical support, and infrastructure needed to address those priorities without dictating the same solution to every community.

Strengthen Infrastructure Where It Is Needed

Infrastructure should be driven by documented local need.

Depending on the community, that may include:

• Roads and bridges
• Water and sewer systems
• Broadband
• Power-grid reliability
• Ports and freight networks
• Flood mitigation and drainage
• Public transportation
• Emergency communications
• Healthcare, education, or workforce facilities

Bentley will support federal investment that gives South Carolina and its communities the flexibility to build what they actually need, rather than forcing them to chase funding for projects designed in Washington.

Support Military Communities and Economic Growth

South Carolina’s military installations are critical to national defense and to the communities surrounding them.

Bentley will support service members and military families, stronger coordination between installations and local governments, and efforts to expand appropriate missions, investment, and employment in South Carolina.

Communities supporting military growth should also receive the infrastructure and planning assistance necessary to manage that growth responsibly.

Strengthen Small Towns and Rural Communities

Smaller communities often struggle to compete for federal resources because they lack grant writers, technical staff, planning capacity, or matching funds.

Bentley will support systems that help rural counties and small towns identify needs, develop viable projects, and compete fairly for available funding.

Federal assistance should strengthen local capacity, not replace local decision-making.

Measure Results Across the State

Bentley supports clear public reporting showing where federal resources are going and what they are accomplishing.

Where practical, data should be reported by county, region, and community, including:

• Funds awarded
• Projects started and completed
• Jobs created or retained
• Infrastructure improved
• Services expanded
• Costs reduced
• Project delays and overruns
• Communities repeatedly overlooked

The public should be able to see whether federal investment is reaching the entire state and whether promised results were actually delivered.

Real representation means identifying South Carolina’s needs, securing useful resources, removing unnecessary barriers, and showing the public exactly what was accomplished.

South Carolina’s rural communities and small towns should not be remembered only during election season.

Bentley Oliver lives in a rural farming community and understands that these places face challenges that are often misunderstood or ignored in Washington. Policies should strengthen local families, protect working farms, support small businesses, and give communities more control over the decisions that shape their future.

Protect Family Farms

Family farms face rising land prices, taxes, equipment and fuel costs, labor shortages, market pressure, development threats, inheritance challenges, and federal regulations that often fail to reflect the realities of small and midsized operations.

Bentley will support policies that help family farms remain productive, competitive, and locally owned. Federal programs should be practical, accessible, and flexible enough to serve South Carolina agriculture rather than being designed only around the country’s largest producers.

She will also support efforts to improve market access, strengthen agricultural infrastructure, assist with disaster recovery, and reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens.

Preserve Farmland and Rural Communities

Once farmland is lost, it is rarely restored.

Bentley supports protecting agricultural land and rural communities from reckless development, abusive eminent domain, and large-scale purchases that undermine local ownership or threaten food security.

She supports greater scrutiny and transparency concerning foreign ownership and institutional acquisition of farmland, while respecting the property rights of individual landowners.

Growth should be planned with local communities, not imposed on them by outside interests with little concern for the long-term consequences.

Build Essential Services Around Community Needs

Rural communities need access to healthcare, schools, broadband, transportation, emergency services, childcare, and reliable utilities, but those needs differ from one community to another.

Bentley does not support a single federal model for every town or county. The federal government should provide flexible resources, technical assistance, and infrastructure support while allowing communities to determine what they need most.

Local people should define the problem before Washington defines the solution.

Give Parents a Stronger Voice

Parents should have meaningful access to the information and decisions affecting their children.

Bentley supports:

• Curriculum transparency
• Access to school records and instructional materials
• Parental consent where appropriate
• Strong local school-board authority
• School-choice options
• Clear communication between schools and families

Public schools must follow the law, but they should also remain accountable to the families and communities they serve.

Support Small-Town Businesses

Small businesses are often the economic and social backbone of rural communities.

Bentley supports a locally chosen mix of policies that may include access to capital, workforce development, simpler regulations, federal contracting opportunities, downtown redevelopment, infrastructure improvements, and support for local supply chains.

Communities should be able to decide which tools fit their economy rather than compete for narrow programs designed around larger cities.

Keep Decisions Close to the People

The people who live in rural communities understand their strengths, needs, and limitations better than distant agencies do.

Bentley will support policies that return more decision-making authority to states, counties, towns, school boards, families, farmers, and local institutions.

Strong families, productive farms, and thriving small towns are not side issues. They are essential to South Carolina’s economy, culture, and future.

America must remain strong enough to protect its people, secure its borders, support those who serve, and respond effectively to threats at home and abroad.

Bentley Oliver believes national strength should be used responsibly, with clear goals, strong oversight, and respect for constitutional limits. Security should never become an excuse for unlimited spending, permanent war, or unchecked surveillance.

Secure the Border and Reform Immigration

The United States has both the right and the responsibility to control its borders.

Bentley supports faster asylum decisions, stronger enforcement against employers who knowingly exploit unauthorized labor, and a legal immigration system that is efficient, transparent, and responsive to the country’s needs.

She also supports an earned path beginning with legal residency for undocumented immigrants who have lived peacefully and productively in the United States, maintained a clean criminal record, paid taxes, passed a background check, and demonstrated basic English proficiency.

Applicants should not bypass those already following the legal process. Required taxes, fees, or penalties should be repaid through an income-based system that does not make legal status available only to the wealthy.

Maintain Military Strength with Clear Limits

America must maintain a military capable of deterring aggression, defending the country, and honoring treaty obligations.

Bentley supports military action following a direct attack, to stop a credible and imminent threat, or to defend treaty allies when required. Other uses of force should be evaluated individually based on lawful authority, national interest, likelihood of success, human cost, and financial cost.

Military operations should have clear objectives, realistic measures of success, regular congressional oversight, and an honest plan for ending or reassessing the mission.

Support Allies with Accountability

America should support allies when doing so advances a clear national-security interest, but foreign military assistance should not become an unlimited commitment.

Bentley supports conditions, spending limits, defined strategic goals, and regular review of major aid packages.

For each major conflict requiring substantial American support, she favors a temporary bipartisan task force composed of military, intelligence, diplomatic, legal, and financial experts to evaluate the purpose, cost, effectiveness, risks, and conditions for continuing or ending that support.

Strengthen Public Safety and Critical Infrastructure

The federal government should focus on threats that cross state or national boundaries or exceed local capacity.

Bentley supports federal coordination and assistance to address:

• Human trafficking
• Drug trafficking
• Organized crime
• Interstate criminal networks
• Cybercrime
• Terrorism
• Threats to critical infrastructure

Federal agencies should provide intelligence, technology, forensic support, training, and coordination while preserving the authority and accountability of state and local law enforcement.

South Carolina’s ports, military installations, energy systems, water systems, transportation networks, communications, healthcare facilities, and manufacturing base should be treated as critical assets.

Protect Security Without Abandoning Liberty

National-security agencies must be able to identify credible threats without treating every citizen as a suspect.

Bentley supports the lawful use of technology and publicly available information to help trained analysts identify specific patterns associated with real threats.

Any such system must include clear legal authority, human review, independent oversight, auditable decisions, strict limits on data retention and use, and protections against political or ideological targeting.

Technology should support human judgment, not create secret systems that label citizens without evidence, due process, or accountability.

America should remain strong enough to defend itself, disciplined enough to avoid unnecessary conflict, and principled enough to protect the freedoms national security is meant to preserve.

The welfare of the animal should come first.

Bentley Oliver is an animal welfare advocate who supports policies that promote excellent husbandry, qualified care, appropriate housing, veterinary oversight, enrichment, responsible ownership, and meaningful enforcement against neglect and exploitation.

Hold Irresponsible Owners Accountable

Animals should not suffer because someone lacks the knowledge, resources, facilities, or willingness to care for them properly.

Bentley supports strong enforcement against neglect, unsafe public contact, improper breeding, exploitation, and private ownership that places animals or communities at risk. Standards should be based on the actual welfare of the animal and the safety of the public, not merely on how an organization labels itself.

Recognize Responsible Zoos and Sanctuaries

Legitimate zoos, sanctuaries, and other qualified animal-care facilities should not be treated the same as reckless private owners or exploitative operators.

Bentley supports H.R. 7159, the Protecting Local Zoos Act of 2026, as the foundation for a better balance between animal welfare, public safety, and responsible local care. She believes qualified facilities should be allowed to continue their work when they meet meaningful standards for animal care, public safety, veterinary oversight, and professional husbandry.

Base Animal Policy on Welfare and Evidence

Federal policy should focus on whether animals are receiving proper care.

Bentley will support measures that improve husbandry and animal welfare while opposing broad rules that hinder responsible facilities without showing that animals are safer or better cared for as a result.

Good animal policy should protect animals from exploitation, hold bad operators accountable, and allow qualified facilities doing the work correctly to continue providing responsible care.