It should come as no surprise that retired U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings wants the federal judicial annex in Charleston named for someone other than himself.
Back in the late 1980s, Hollings secured the funding for an annex for the downtown federal courthouse at a corner of Meeting and Broad streets — one of the “Four Corners of Law.”
The original courthouse houses an office where the late U.S. District Judge J. Waties Waring presided. Waring, as we’ve written before, was the groundbreaking Southern judge who helped to set up the landmark Brown v. Board decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that led to school integration. His courage, forgotten for years by most in the Lowcountry, was commemorated last year with a statue unveiled on the courthouse grounds.
Back in 1988, Hollings learned at the last minute that the new federal court annex was to be named for him, thanks in large part to his South Carolina colleague, the last U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. Hollings balked quietly in private, but good manners prevented him from resisting. “I just got the money for the building,” Hollings told Post and Courier columnist Brian Hicks last week. “He [Waring] made history in it.”
For a long time out of respect for Hollings, no one has wanted to do anything about renaming the building, Hicks wrote. So last week, Hollings called Thurmond’s successor, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, and asked him to get the ball rolling on renaming the building.
“I was touched by it; it was incredible,” Graham told Hicks. “It speaks volumes about Sen. Hollings. Not many people in my business would do that.”
But those who worked for Fritz Hollings aren’t surprised. It highlights how the 93-year-old retired senator really believes in the “public” of public service, not in private gain.
My Sharia: Limehouse has a new knack
State Rep. Harry B. “Chip” Limehouse III (R-Charleston) has struck a blow against Sharia law in South Carolina. Well, at least a preemptive strike.
In H. 3521, which was filed Feb. 4, Limehouse called for the state to protect its citizenry from application of Sharia in South Carolina. Sharia is the legal and moral framework of many Muslim countries around the world.
Limehouse also sought to extend the protection to cover intrusion from laws from all other countries, which would presumably protect South Carolinians from democracy as it is flowering in Canada, India and beyond.
The bill has a companion in a similar bill filed this session in the state Senate, whose author, state Sen. Lee Bright (R-Roebuck), has yet to find any cosponsors.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!