STATEHOUSE REPORT | Issue 14.40 | Oct. 2, 2015
Look outside this weekend and you’ll probably wish for the fog highlighted in this photo sent in by reader Sid Gaulden of West Columbia. When he saw the mist over the Congaree River one morning this week, he pulled over to capture the relaxing scene for posterity.
IN THIS ISSUENEWS: Planting seeds for growth in rural S.C.
BRIEF: Hollings to be honored with courthouse renaming
COMMENTARY: Voters in middle bumfuzzled by shoddy choices
SPOTLIGHT: S.C. Policy Council
FEEDBACK: WalletHub says study isn’t flawed
SCORECARD: From flag removal to Gowdy to Harrell
NUMBER: 39
QUOTE: Milliken’s threatening impact
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIA: Highway 301
NEWS
Planting seeds of growth for rural South Carolina
By Bill Davis, senior editor
OCT. 2, 2015 | Looks like some of South Carolina’s state lawmakers are waking up to the needs of the state’s rural areas, many of which are bogged down by a seemingly endless laundry list of needs.
For the past 21 years, Graham Adams has worked with a national advocacy group to improve health care outcomes in rural South Carolina where some of the worst national rates of hypertension, diabetes and other ailments can be found.
Adams, who is CEO of the nonprofit S.C. Office of Rural Health, has concluded there isn’t a “magic bullet” as a solution for the state’s health care ills. Rather, he sees a wide swath of the state needs to be hit “shotgun-style” with solutions for health care, education, infrastructure and other challenges.
Adams said he would like to see South Carolina create an office or “mechanism” like other state have to provide one-stop shopping for rural issues.
The “ah-ha” moment
Adams said his “ah-ha” moment came when he saw the link between health care and rural education as tools for recruitment for business.
With up to 80 percent of the state’s landmass being classified as “rural,” Adams sees a “disconnect” between politicians and the state they represent.
And he’s not alone.
Several sources said they saw a similar pattern among state politicians: run for office touting your small-town values and rural roots; get elected; go to Columbia; and then … vote to for projects in Greenville-Spartanburg, Columbia and Charleston.
In short, the politicians run like they are a country mouse and then vote like a city mouse.
For example, Adams said he wondered why Gov. Nikki Haley, who hails from Bamberg, doesn’t do more.
Haley’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. But she has fought for rural education improvements. And in June, after a Boeing-related aerospace company expanded in Orangeburg, she posted this statement:
“One of our top priorities in our economic development efforts is to make sure companies understand all that our rural counties have to offer.” It should be noted that the expansion would only create 75 new jobs.
State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D-Orangeburg) said it might be a tough sell in the legislature creating a new office or agency, as it would fall afoul of many state politicians’ aversion to “growing government.”
But she said there is a demonstrated need for someone, or some thing, to apply some outside-of-the-box thinking to issues related to rural economic opportunities, arts, culture, and agritourism.
State Sen. Larry Martin (R-Pickens), chair of the Judiciary Committee, represents a district that includes rural areas and population centers. Martin said population diversity is more likely with Senate districts than House districts because of size.
Martin said he tries to represent all of his constituents, but many grants and funding programs are slanted toward population numbers, and so in many situations, the more urban areas can get more attention.
Additionally, rural areas not only lag in ready funds for matching grants, but also in ability to go after many grant programs, with limited municipal staffs in smaller towns than in cities.
More needs to be done
State Rep. J. Wayne George (D-Mullins) was a small-town mayor for 16 years before entering the legislature three years ago. He said looking over the most recent U.S. Census numbers, “it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what’s happening” to rural South Carolina.
His divination of the numbers shows 10 counties that either lost population or stayed the same in the face of a larger population growth statewide. And all of those counties, he said, were rural.
George said the state missed a big opportunity to support rural communities when it diverted its portion of the federal tobacco lawsuit to pay for public health care programs. While a “noble” effort on one hand, he says, the money could — and perhaps should — have been used to assist the rural areas bidding adieu to tobacco farming, he said
While he, Cobb-Hunter and Martin praised the rural development office inside of the state Department of Commerce, George said he wanted more.
This past summer, he began to re-form the moribund Rural Legislative Caucus in hopes of bringing more attention and political oomph to the countryside. He’s met with limited success, but hopes that in December, as his colleagues in the General Assembly return their thoughts to statewide issues, he’ll be able to gain more support.
Martin and Cobb-Hunter praise his efforts, as it could focus attention without growing government.
“This state is growing, and if we truly care about everyone in South Carolina, we have to do better funding rural South Carolina,” said George.
Bill Davis is senior editor of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
NEWS BRIEFHollings honored Friday at renaming of judicial annex
Staff reports | The federal courthouse annex in Charleston was renamed today for the courageous federal judge who masterminded the nation’s shift from segregated schools in a key judicial opinion from 1951.
But the real story behind the renaming of the annex as the J. Waties Waring Judicial Center is about the guy who is asked for the change — former U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, for whom the annex was named when it was built in the 1980s.
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., today said Hollings was the first person in American history to ask for his name to be removed from a federal building to honor someone else.
The story goes that folks in Washington surprised Hollings years back by naming the courthouse after him. Hollings, who then sat on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee that funded the judiciary, got the money to expand the courthouse. But his colleague, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond reportedly quietly arranged to put Hollings’ name on the annex.
Hollings appreciated the gesture, but never really wanted his name on the courthouse. He thought the building should be named for Waring, whose courage changed history with his dissenting opinion in Briggs v. Elliott. In the opinion on that South Carolina school segregation case, Waring wrote that the “separate but equal” standard in schools was unconstitutional. The Briggs case later became consolidated into the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Learn more here.
“The request to rename the center came as a personal request from Senator Hollings, and I think it speaks volumes about his character and leadership,” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said earlier this year.
A few weeks ago, Congress passed legislation to rename the annex. It then was signed by President Obama.
In April 2014, a statue of Waring was unveiled on the annex grounds. At today’s ceremony, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley announced that there’s an effort underway to erect a statue of Hollings on the grounds of the courthouse annex.
COMMENTARYVoters in the middle bumfuzzled by shoddy choices
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher
OCT. 2, 2015 | Modern archaeologists have uncovered a new species in America — homo rejectus, also known as voters who no longer feel they have a political home.
On the middle-right are Republicans who can’t in good conscience consider any of the 15 presidential candidates running for office because they tilt too much at right-leaning windmills that push social, not economic, issues. On t
op of that is a tepid establishment flummoxed over what to do with the reality of three unconventional candidates who are garnering more than half of GOP voters’ favor in a campaign playing out as a daily reality show.
On the middle-left are conservative Democrats who can’t in good conscience align with Hillary Clinton and her continuing political entourage of baggage or with Bernie Sanders, who they know is unelectable by the general public — even with the clowns on the GOP side. These folks are more comfortable with Uncle Joe Biden, but they worry he’s too late for the party.
Blame a two-party system in which the parties no longer really control the message. Instead, people get their news how they choose through self-serving, politically-leaning television networks or partisan websites targeting audiences focused on the narrow picture. Blame the election system where candidates have to get more than half of the votes to win — something that makes it tough for third- or fourth- or fifth-party candidates to exist, much less win. Blame the political gerrymandering across South Carolina and the nation that keeps Republican districts Republican and Democratic districts Democratic.
What’s most worrying is how the increasingly partisan nature of American politics now is driven by the extremes, not the middle where sanity has tended to rule.
“The fact is, the parties only truly represent the activist on the left and the right — and they do so far, far more than for the people in the middle,” one highly frustrated Upstate politico shared. “And yet, it’s those in the middle who inevitably end up deciding elections. So, those in the middle have more power than they realize.”
Nevertheless, the middle seems to be shrinking. A 2015 report by the Pew Research Center showed the left and right extremes growing. In 2000, a survey showed 12 percent of voters identified as “liberal Democrats, a number that jumped to 16 percent in 2012. In the same time frame, those who said they were “conservative Republicans” grew from 17 percent to 20 percent of the electorate. Interestingly, “independents” grew from 25 percent to 29 percent of the mix. But self-professed party moderates in each wing got smaller by about as much as the partisan ends grew.
Two years ago, Chris Cilliza of The Washington Post proclaimed “the political middle has disappeared.” He pointed to a study of congressional vote ratings that compared where individual Democrats and Republicans ranked comparatively. In 1982, there was considerable overlap among voting records by Democrats and Republicans with 344 members falling somewhere between the most conservative Democrat and most liberal Republican.
Fast forward 30 years and there was no real middle. Only 11 members of Congress had rankings between the most conservative Democrat and most liberal Republican, a reflection of just how partisan Congress has become.
State Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, reflected that the two big political parties historically have righted themselves away from fringe elements by adapting to what most people want.
“You’ve seen the parties adapt over time,” Davis noted. “The parties have always reoriented themselves where their members wanted to go. The difference now is that people get their information independently. They’re not as apt to take instruction or direction [from parties] anymore.”
For now with all of the bluster, misinformation and even scandal, it is an open question whether the two dominant parties will right themselves. Candidates often head to the middle after they become a party’s nominee, but the landscape has been so shrill already that something new may be forming, like tropical depression that turns into a political hurricane.
“Can they continue to adapt or are people’s opinions in those big tents so diverse that it becomes impossible for them to coalesce?” Davis wondered. “It’s an interesting time in American politics.’
To say the least.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
IN THE SPOTLIGHTSouth Carolina Policy Council
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. This issue’s underwriter is the South Carolina Policy Council. Since 1986, the Policy Council has brought together civic, community and business leaders from all over our state to discuss innovative policy ideas that advance the principles of limited government and free enterprise. No other think tank in South Carolina can match the Policy Council’s success in assembling the top national and state experts on taxes, education, environmental policy, health care and numerous other issues. That ability to bring new ideas to the forefront, lead the policy debate and create a broad base of support for sensible reform is what makes our organization the leader in turning good ideas into good state policy.- For more information, go to: www.scpolicycouncil.com.
WalletHub says its study isn’t flawed
To the editor:
Thanks for citing WalletHub today [Brack: State’s tax structure needs work, not praise]. I just want to clarify one of your points:
“Simply put, the flawed WalletHub study doesn’t rely on basic economic tax fairness principles like equity (ability of people to pay), adequacy (whether the system raises enough money for people’s needs), neutrality, transparency and simplicity.”
I want to make sure you don’t think we merely took a survey of taxpayers’ opinions and left it at that. We actually contrasted it with the ITEP’s 2015 Report and its measurement of South Carolina’s tax regressiveness. This nationally renowned report also fails to address your points, but that does not mean it’s “flawed.”
I know today’s article offers your commentary, but I hope you understand our methodology enough now to consider retracting that word — “flawed” — from your post. Of course, let me know if I can provide you with anything else from our research team.
— Diana Popa, communications manager, WalletHub.com
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks, but we stick by our assessment. The study is flawed because it starts with subjective opinions. It doesn’t start with applying empirical, generally-accepted economic principles to make the rankings. Using opinions as a starting point is dumb because nobody thinks taxes are fair.
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
From flag removal to Gowdy to Harrell
Thumbs up
Flag removal. A new Winthrop Poll shows two-thirds of South Carolinians support the decision to take the Confederate flag off Statehouse grounds earlier this year. That’s an increase from just one-third of residents a year ago. The survey showed just over half of whites and Republicans thought the flag should come down, while more than 90 percent of blacks and 83 percent of Democrats did. See full results.
Planned Parenthood. Despite a partisan effort to roust the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics, the state said that it paid for no abortions by the organization over the last five years. Also this week, the organization’s two clinics will remain open after bypassing a threatened suspension brought on by what some call a political witch hunt.
In the middle
Finally. Thanks to Gov. Nikki Haley and DSS Director Susan Alford for agreeing to increase protections for children in state custody. It’s a shame that residents — and children — had to wait for a class action lawsuit to force the state toward such common-sense action. More.
Gowdy. It’s probably a good idea that South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy says he isn’t going to try to be House Majority Leader. We just wish he’d end the longest standing congressional investigation ever — the probe into what happened at the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi. The inquiry has become a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Thumbs down
General Assembly. Thumbs down to state legislators for thumbing their noses at the state Supreme Court, which wants lawmakers to come up with a reasonable education funding plan by February. Legislators say the court is venturing into legislating by forcing a deadline Hogwash. Courts set deadlines all of the time. Let’s not wait this time for 20 years for lawmakers to act. (It took longer for the courts to get their acts together.) More.
Storm. Be prepared for drenching weekend rains and flooding. You know things look back when the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore sets up show in South Carolina.
Harrell. The former speaker owes $113,000 in campaign money that must be repaid following his conviction on ethics charges. It was supposed to be paid by now, but he says he’s consulting with attorneys about how to proceed. More.
NUMBER39
Number of South Carolina’s 46 counties that have received certification as “Work Ready Communities.” According to the Columbia Regional Business Report, “To become a Work Ready Community, a county must meet or exceed goals in earning ACT National Career Readiness Certificates, which is achieved through WorkKeys testing. The county must meet or exceed the three-year graduation rate average or improvement percentage, certify the quality of workers’ soft skills development, and engage business support.” More.
Milliken’s lasting impact
“He was the John the Baptist of the Koch Brothers.”
— Clayton State University Marko Maunula on the late Roger Milliken, the South Carolina industrialist who shaped the conservative movement that’s “threatening to ravage the modern Republican Party,” according to a new story in Politico. Read more.
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIAHighway 301
S.C. Encyclopedia | Construction of this major U.S. highway in South Carolina began in 1932 during the Great Depression, when the federal government began taking over the maintenance and construction of many state roads. The route began at Baltimore, Maryland, and ended at Sarasota, Florida, crossing through many towns in eastern South Carolina, including Dillon, Latta, Florence, Manning, Olanta, Summerton, Bamberg, and Allendale. From the North Carolina border to the Savannah River, Highway 301 covers a distance of approximately 180 miles.
The highway’s many nicknames are an indication that it was popular among tourists throughout the second quarter of the twentieth century. These names included: “Tobacco Trail,” “Highway of Southern Hospitality,” “Tourist Highway,” “Shortest Route from Maine to Florida,” and “The Washington-Florida Short Route.” This road was popular among tourists because it avoided some of the larger cities, had no toll bridges or ferries, and was paved its entire length.
During the 1950s this highway was a major U.S. north-south route, well known to travelers in the eastern United States. Even the popular television show I Love Lucy, featured an episode where Lucille Ball traveled in an automobile with a woman who always traveled Highway 301 to Florida. This highway created a demand for restaurants and motels in South Carolina. Some popular motels included the Lewis Motel in Olanta, the Santee Motor Company in Manning, the Holiday in Florence, and the Cotton Patch Motel in Bamberg.
The building of Interstate 95 in the late 1950s and 1960s, which ran almost parallel to U.S. 301, caused the tourist traffic to decline on the older highway. Businesses on U.S. 301, particularly the motel operators, had difficulty in maintaining their customer base. Several rebuilt near the interstate, while others operated at a much slower pace.
– Excerpted from the entry by Lloyd Johnson. 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!