Lush, colorful flowers and plants grace the south lawn of the Statehouse complex in Columbia. Remember this burst of color when the temperatures plunge in January when lawmakers go back into session. Photo by Andy Brack.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Today’s issue of Statehouse Report is shorter than usual due to staff travel. Next week, we’ll publish a special issue with some neat stuff, but it likely won’t be online until Aug. 30, 2015.
NEWSLines are drawn early in reapportionment
By Bill Davis
AUG. 21, 2015 | State Sen. Joel Lourie (D-Columbia), a 17-year veteran of the legislature who won’t face voters next year, wants to change how South Carolinians elect their representatives and senators.
Two weeks ago, Lourie, the son of the late former state Senate Majority Leader Isadore Lourie, announced he would not run again for his seat in 2016. The younger Lourie served in the state House from 1998 to 2004, and in the Senate since 2004.
Lourie, who made headlines in the last two years calling for substantial reform of the state Department of Social Services, currently is championing the call for the legislature to address how state political districts are redrawn every 10 years, an inside-baseball mapping process called reapportionment that is the lifeblood of who survives and who doesn’t politically. For too long, Lourie says, state political districts have been created to not only protect incumbent Republican interests, but have also shifted when politicians are elected.
Lourie argues that the “actual” statewide elections are held in June, during primaries, and not during November, as is intended.
He contends that the reapportionment of districts, tied to U.S. Census population reports released every decade, has become so stacked in favor of one party or the other that the actual election is a mere formality.
And this limits democracy in South Carolina and across the country, Lourie maintains
That’s not to say Republicans are solely guilty of gerrymandering districts, as history has shown that Democrats did it in South Carolina years ago when Lourie’s father served in the legislature.
And Lourie knows that he and other Democrats who espouse putting together bipartisan and impartial blue-ribbon panels to take over reapportionment when the Census comes back around in 2021, could come off as sour-grapers who can’t wrest control of the process from the GOP.
One of the GOP leaders in the Senate, Judiciary Chairman Larry Martin (R-Pickens) says the issue is more complicated than just party politics. Other states, like Texas, have fallen afoul of state and federal courts in their attempts to redraw lines for racial and political balance.
Making all state political districts more resemble South Carolina’s racial demographics would cause two problems, according to Martin.
One, because of very low minority population numbers in the Upstate around Greenville and Spartanburg, the legislature would be forced into creating super-long mega districts that would include distant black communities in the Midlands and possibly even the Lowcountry in districts that originated in the Upstate.
Two, Martin says creating geographically wandering districts that include 40-42 percent minority voter bases could backfire, further limiting black and minority representation on a state level. The thinking is that the 58-percent white majority could be more likely to cast votes on racial lines.
That, says Martin, a veteran of three reapportionments, could drastically reduce the number of black legislators.
Turning to blue-ribbon panels, even in only advisory roles, would likely fall afoul of the state Supreme Court, Martin says, which has ruled against the maneuver in a statewide education funding matter in the past.
House Democratic leader and back-room maven Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg says that saying that precedent is stacked against commissions, like the one that led the state in its federal military base realignment process, reveals the lack of political will on the right to do what’s best for South Carolina.
“Don’t we learn? Just because it’s South Carolina, does that mean we can’t try to do something better?” asks Cobb-Hunter, who has signed onto a House reapportionment bill that languished in committee all session this year.
USC political scientist Todd Shaw, an expert on black political issues, says there is no “silver bullet” for striking a balance between politics and democracy.
Shaw says a more subtle solution may lie in the state looking at the “aggregate” racial representation in the legislature as a whole, versus focusing on political parties. If the state is 40 percent black, then whatever solution evolves in the next five years could make sure that the legislature is equally diverse.
Currently, of the 170 legislative seats in the House and Senate, there are only 38 members of the S.C. Legislative Black Caucus. It used to be 39, but the passing of state Sen. Clementa Pinckney (R-Jasper County) earlier this year in an infamous church shooting in Charleston reduced the number by one.
Forty percent would be closer to 70 black-held seats.
Lourie says a bigger goal would be to make South Carolina politics less “bitterly partisan.” Pushes from fringe groups from both sides during the primaries, he says, force politicians to take positions they personally do not believe in to protect their political futures.
Lourie says without real, competitive general November elections on the state political calendar, “honest and intellectual” discussion of tough issues, such as Medicaid expansion, can never happen.
Bill Davis is senior editor of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
COMMENTARYState’s looking better, but work still needed in rural areas
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher
AUG. 21, 2015 | The state’s economy generally is doing pretty well thanks to historically high tax collections, the lowest gas prices in the nation and a big increase in home sales.
“Recent numIntibers show a steadily strengthening economy,” state Department of Revenue Director Rick Reames III said last week.
Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt adds that the successful growth of existing industry in this state is fueling efforts to recruit more businesses.
“We’re leading the Southeast in manufacturing job growth, and thanks to a terrific team-first approach, we have successfully recruited more than $5 billion in capital investment to our state in three of the last four years,” Hitt said. “From aerospace to automotive, agribusiness to tourism and everything in between, South Carolina’s diverse economy is healthier than it’s ever been, helping us ensure financial prosperity for South Carolinians today and in the years to come.”
Other positive indicators: Personal income in South Carolina increased by 1.2 percent in the first quarter of the year. Non-farm employment rose by a half percent in June by 10,400 workers and the state had a historic high in terms of the number of citizens working — 2,112,034, according to the state Department of Employment and Workforce.
There’s even pretty good news on unemployment. The statewide rate dropped 0.2 percent in June to 6.6 percent — way better than it was four years ago when more than half of the state’s counties had double-digit unemployment.
To get an idea of how much things have turned around for most of the state, consider that 41 counties had unemployment rates of 8.6 percent or higher in June 2012, compared to 13 today. If you just look at counties with double-digit joblessness, 26 counties qualified four years ago. As of this summer, it’s just five.
In fact, these days, the state’s metropolitan areas look much like the rest of the nation, where the average unemployment rate is 5.5 percent. That’s what it is also in Charleston County, where Boeing’s investment in thousands of workers is paying off locally in a big way. Other counties with relatively low rates are Lexington (5.6%), Greenville (5.7%) and Berkeley (6.1%). Beaufort and Jasper counties, with the proximity to the Savannah metro area are under 6 percent, as are Newberry and Saluda.
What’s pushing up the state’s overall unemployment rate is the lack of work in the more rural counties. Of particular concern are places where unemployment still is above 10 percent — Allendale (11.5%), Bamberg (11.3%) and Marlboro (11.1%) counties. In Marion County, unemployment dropped from 18.1 percent to 10.4 percent over the last four years. In Orangeburg County, it’s dropped three points to 10.9 percent.
Next year, state lawmakers should make vigorous attacks with strategic investments to energize high unemployment areas of the state. These counties often have high tax rates with comparatively small tax bases, which discourage the kind of infrastructure investments in water, sewer, high-speed Internet and roads that are needed to attract new businesses and change lives.
These areas have people who should be able to work, but lack the education or skills that businesses need to get their jobs done. The state should swoop in strategically with targeted workforce training programs and programs to upfit local schools with additional resources so that students will graduate on time and have the skills they need to be successful.
In many ways, South Carolina has proven it has the know-how, skills and programs to be successful for her citizens. Look at the major investments by companies like BMW, Volvo, Boeing, Bridgestone, Giti, Continental Tire and the hundreds of suppliers that keep these big industries thriving. But these mostly metropolitan successes need to trickle down to rural areas where the quality of life is outstanding but there’s a business drought.
To continue to forget rural areas of our state is morally wrong. They might not have the political power that they had in days gone by, but they’re just as much a part of South Carolina as anyone who lives in a big town or has a big house.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
IN THE SPOTLIGHTSouthernCarolina Alliance
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. This week, we shine a spotlight on the Southern Carolina Regional Development Alliance. It builds coalitions with industry and government leaders to sustain and create jobs that will improve the quality of life in its six focus counties: Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper.
Through ideals of cooperation and regionalism, this nonprofit economic development organization plays an important leadership role in the region to market these southwestern South Carolina counties both nationally and globally by focusing on targeted industrial clusters, community development and workforce development.
- You can learn more about the exciting opportunities — including the region’s new Promise Zone designation — throughout the six rural counties of the Southern Carolina Alliance online at: http://www.southerncarolina.org.
Intimidation not a stranger
To the editor:
Great piece by Kendra Hamilton on white victims of racial discrimination. That fear of intimidation and ostracism was certainly there.
— Chip Brown, Conway, S.C.
Send us a letter. We love hearing from our readers and encourage you to share your opinions. Letters to the editor are published weekly. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. We generally publish all comments about South Carolina politics or policy issues, unless they are libelous or unnecessarily inflammatory. One submission is allowed per month. Submission of a comment grants permission to us to reprint. Comments are limited to 250 words or less. Please include your name and contact information.
- Send your letters to: feedback@statehousereport.com
Hispanics in South Carolina
S.C. Encyclopedia | Hispanics are among South Carolina’s oldest and most recent immigrant groups. Long before English settlers founded colonies in the Massachusetts Bay, Spanish explorers laid claim to territory in what is now the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. From bases of operation in the Caribbean and Mexico, Spanish emissaries established presidios and missions to protect Spain’s northern colonial frontier.
In 1526, Spaniard Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón established the first European settlement in present-day South Carolina (and the United States), San Miguel de Gualdape. A variety of difficulties led to its abandonment by 1527, but a second Spanish settlement near present-day Beaufort, Santa Elena, served as the capital of “La Florida,” the name given to Spain’s holdings in the Southeast, from 1566 to 1576. After Spanish settlers abandoned the Santa Elena site in 1587, Franciscan friars from missions along the coast continued to visit Indian communities in the area. Spain lost its claims to most of present-day South Carolina in the 1670 Treaty of Madrid with Great Britain.
The terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” apply to a broad category of U.S. residents that include persons of Latin American and/or Spanish ancestry. Tremendous diversity exists within these groups in terms of national origin, socioeconomic class, educational attainment, and other characteristics. While a sizable Spanish-speaking population has resided in the United States throughout its history, the volume of Hispanic immigration in the late twentieth century resulted in this group becoming this country’s largest minority population by the year 2000.
Following national trends, South Carolina experienced a rise in its Hispanic population beginning in the second half of the twentieth century. New residents of Cuban and Puerto Rican origin arrived beginning in the 1960s, largely due to military and industrial employment. Colombians, most employed in the textile industry, immigrated to the upstate in the 1970s, and beginning in the 1990s large numbers of Mexican and Central American immigrants arrived.
Because of these and other factors (as well as factors in Latin America such as deteriorating economic and political conditions), South Carolina was among eight states with the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the 1990s. Census data reports that their numbers more than tripled in that decade to 95,076, or 2.4 percent of the total state population. Analysts agree, however, that Hispanics across the nation are largely undercounted in the census process. The census of 2000 revealed that the majority (fifty-six percent) of Hispanic residents of South Carolina were of Mexican origin, followed by Central and South Americans. Thirteen percent were Puerto Rican, and three percent were of Cuban origin.
The impact of this new population group is seen through changes in popular culture, supermarket and restaurant offerings, bilingual signage, the emergence of Spanish-language media, and in public education. It is also evident in their economic contribution, particularly in labor-intensive, low-wage industries. Further, the purchasing power of Hispanics in South Carolina in 2002 was estimated at more than $2.2 billion. A commission appointed by South Carolina governor Jim Hodges in 2000 recommended that the state government make sweeping changes, particularly in the area of social services, to keep pace with the growing Hispanic population. South Carolina, as did many states that saw tremendous growth in Latino residents, scrambled to accommodate its new residents.New
– Excerpted from the entry by Elaine C. Lacy. To read more about this or 2,000 other entries about South Carolina, check out The South Carolina Encyclopedia by USC Press. (Information used by permission.)
CREDITSEditor and Publisher: Andy Brack
Senior Editor: Bill Davis
Contributing Photographers: Michael Kaynard, Linda W. Brown
Phone: 843.670.3996
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!