In South Carolina, it’s a good sign you’re among conservatives when the founder of RINO Hunt — “RINO” being short for Republicans In Name Only, of course — is there.

Rep. Trey Gowdy said he was at such a meeting of tea party activists in his district Tuesday, dominated by talk of the new Senate immigration framework. He called the conversation “extraordinarily civil.”

At that meeting and another event, a question-and-answer session about the Constitution, Gowdy said that while conservatives in his district are suspicious about whether an immigration bill would include serious enforcement provisions, it’s a different conversation from the last time immigration was seriously on the table in 2007.

“I would feel comfortable trying to make the argument in my district that real border security and real employment verification should lead us to a real genuine conversation about legal status,” Gowdy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee, said.

A colleague of Gowdy’s senses the same sort of civility when talks turns to immigration.