STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 20.16 | APRIL 16, 2021
BIG STORY: Election rule proposals have widely differing impacts
NEWS BRIEFS: McMaster issues migrant order, talks about ports, NCAA
LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: How can you tell?
COMMENTARY, Brack: Thank a South Carolina teacher right now
SPOTLIGHT: Palmetto Care Connections
MY TURN, Thomas: S.C. Republican bill would corrupt teaching of history
FEEDBACK: Send us your thoughts
MYSTERY PHOTO: Fenced-off ruins
Election rule proposals have widely differing impacts
Staff reports | A subcommittee of the S.C. House on Thursday heard testimony on differing proposals to offer more early voting following high-turnout elections in 2020 that extended the practice temporarily because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Democrats say it’s time to extend early voting through a bill (H. 3822) by Orangeburg Rep. Gilda Cobb Hunter, while a GOP proposal (H. 4150) could also reduce access at the polls, according to the League of Women Voters of South Carolina.
“Universal voting by mail is not provided by this bill (H. 4150), although it worked well in South Carolina in 2020 and has been successful in other states for many years,” said the League’s Lynn Teague of Columbia in written testimony. “Unfortunately, the dialogue about voting by mail has become partisan and has been distorted by unsupported claims, discouraging objective consideration of pros and cons.”
While the League doesn’t support the bill by Lancaster GOP Rep. Brandon Newton, it says it enthusiastically backs the bill by Cobb Hunter, which calls for enhanced voter access through same-day registration, permanent early voting in-person and by mail, and more.
On Thursday, 10 people spoke in favor of Cobb Hunter’s bill. Another subcommittee hearing is expected soon for more testimony. It’s unlikely the bills will move forward this year as the end of this year’s legislative session looms.
But another voting measure that’s been discussed in recent weeks (H. 3444) may take center stage again soon. It aims to streamline voting procedures in all 46 counties with more power to the state Election Commission. The House passed the measure in March; the state Senate is considering a competing measure (S. 499) by Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Mount Pleasant, that wouldn’t give as much election control to the state in a bid to preserve some autonomy for local election commissions.
Part of a national push to change election rules
S.C. Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, doesn’t mince words about H. 3444, which has House Speaker Jay Lucas as lead sponsor, being a thinly veiled effort to suppress voting among Black voters: “We will get our butts kicked,” he told the Charleston City Paper.
The effort is part of a national push by Republicans to bend election procedures from within state legislatures, kickstarted by lost 2020 elections that tipped the balance of power in Washington.
In 2017, torch-carrying white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., marched against the removal of Confederate statues, chanting provocations that have become the elemental basis for Republican-backed voting reform efforts across the United States: “You will not replace us!”
The cries of neo-Nazis, racists, alt-right extremists and every other varietal of Trump-era hate in Charlottesville were nothing new, even for our time. The myth of so-called “white replacement theory” has long stoked fear that the time is approaching when white people will become a racial minority. Mass killers in Charleston, New Zealand and elsewhere used the myth as justification for their heinous acts.
White citizens have held disproportionate financial wealth and political power in America since its founding. Invigorated by former President Barack Obama’s 2008 election, modern conservatives have mostly continued advocating the domestic economic infrastructure that created and sustained historic wealth and power disparities into the present day.
Now, after an election in which high turnout from Black voters helped flip control of the White House and U.S. Senate, preservation of conservative power is at the core of legislation floating through state legislatures.
All that is to say: The struggle to control who gets power in America has been with us for a long time. In the past, however, people out of power struggled to get power. Now people who have long had power are working to keep it.
A violent legacy
The ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870 guaranteed the right to vote to men of all races, including the formerly enslaved. The third “Reconstruction amendment” radically increased voting among Africans Americans. With formerly enslaved people outnumbering white people in South Carolina and elsewhere, Black voter turnout expanded dramatically. But, a rush of racist laws and white supremacist violence effectively ended mass Black participation in elections in many areas of the South.
Some states, like South Carolina, used the momentum of the collapse of Reconstruction to further codify voter suppression into state law using a variety of tools.
Poll taxes, originally intended for legitimate revenue collection, were eventually used to disenfranchise voters in the South, particularly African Americans and poor white people. Requirements in South Carolina’s Constitution of 1895 that voters had to prove their ability to read and write English were also used to suppress votes by poor and Black voters in the South, where literacy rates for African-American citizens lagged until the 1940s.
But literacy tests were prevalent outside the South as well, as they were seen as keeping society’s undesirables — the poor, immigrants or the uninformed — from voting. Literacy test laws remained on the books in several states, including New York and Connecticut, until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally banned the practice.
But, violent voter suppression also played a significant role in discouraging voters as well and proved instrumental in thwarting Reconstruction. After successful federal Reconstruction efforts enabled voting by formerly enslaved people and their descendants, white paramilitary groups like Wade Hampton’s Red Shirts terrorized Black voters across South Carolina. Violence and force and the threat of force became effective methods of reasserting and preserving white-majority power.
New approaches
New efforts that could have the effect of suppressing votes are once again springing from legislatures across the country. The measures’ Republican sponsors maintain the proposals aim to streamline and regulate elections. But, critics question the motives behind the laws, as actor Samuel L. Jackson reflected in a Joe Biden campaign ad last year: “If your vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t work so hard to stop it.”
In March, Georgia state legislators passed a set of new election laws in response to widespread mail-in absentee voting during the pandemic-ridden 2020 election in which Democrats made up ground in the Peach State, ultimately pushing the U.S. Senate into Democratic hands with the election of U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
The new rules, signed into law by Georgia’s governor March 24, require proof of identity for requesting an absentee ballot, regulate where and when drop boxes can be used to collect absentee ballots, shorten the period for early and absentee voting during a runoff election, restructure the state’s election oversight body and prohibit food and drink distribution at polling locations.
Some of the Georgia rules, like those requiring identification in order to vote, are already on the books in South Carolina and 33 other states. But, the laws are routinely criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups as having a disproportionate impact on low income and minority voters.
The New Georgia Project, backed by former Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams, is suing state leaders on behalf of voting rights groups over the laws. “These provisions lack any justification for their burdensome and discriminatory effects on voting,” the lawsuit claims. “Instead, they represent a hodgepodge of unnecessary restrictions that target almost every aspect of the voting process but serve no legitimate purpose or compelling state interest other than to make absentee, early and election-day voting more difficult — especially for minority voters.”
A less overt approach
Bennettsville Rep. Patricia Henegan, chair of the S.C. Legislative Black Caucus, told the City Paper that South Carolina Republicans are taking a less overt approach to voter suppression. Nationwide, more than 360 bills to restrict voting have been proposed to clamp down
on voting in response to the 2020 election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan voting rights think tank. In Henegan’s assessment, South Carolina lawmakers are introducing more subtle, innovative ways to suppress voting.
The bill proposed by Luas, H.3444, would give the State Election Commission the authority to determine election policies and procedures, or set uniform rules, in all counties. The bill would give the governor the power to dictate election laws through commission members, appointed by the governor.
Republicans have maintained a firm hold in both South Carolina legislative bodies and the governorship since 2003. The South Carolina proposal is effectively an attempt at the party level to control elections, Kimpson said. The bill passed the House with Republican support and is currently before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Democratic state Rep. J.A. Moore of Hanahan said Republicans are hoping to stall the effects of demographic shifts in the state.
“Republicans in South Carolina are trying to take preemptive actions to make sure they can suppress voters from changing the landscape in South Carolina,” he told Charleston’s ABC News 4 (WCIV-TV) in March.
If passed, the South Carolina bill will have the same ‘kick butt’ effect as any historical violent measure, Kimpson said, calling it the beginning of a slippery slope within state government. That may be a steep slope in Charleston County, where voters lean more toward liberal politics. New rules could mean a greater possibility of electing more conservative representation.
Kimpson sees the bill possibly passing both bodies this legislative session and more certainly passing before the 2022 mid-term election. The measure easily passed the House, where Republicans enjoy a two-to-one majority, but Kimpson said the law could see more friction in the Senate, where procedural rules could slow hasty consideration.
The original version of this story by Charleston writer Barney Blakeney and Charleston City Paper editor Sam Spence appeared in Wednesday’s issue of the City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
McMaster issues migrant order, talks about ports, NCAA
Staff reports | Gov. Henry McMaster issued an order Monday to ban foster care and group homes in the state from taking in unaccompanied children found at the U.S.-Mexican border. The order comes after the governor contacted DSS about the system’s capacity to accommodate minors, thousands of whom have entered the U.S. in recent months.
More coverage: The Post and Courier | AP News | Florence Morning News
Also this week, the governor said the NCAA should mind “their own business” on transgender laws. He criticized the college sports organization for its talk of barring states with anti-transgender laws from holding championships. More: WCBD TV
McMaster also urged state lawmakers to not borrow $500 million for port improvements. He said he wanted to use surplus money likely coming to the state this year for improvements at the Charleston port rather than borrowing. More: The Post and Courier. McMaster also appointed attorney Bill Coates of Greenville to serve on the board of the S.C. State Ports Authority and reappointed six other directors: Bill Stern, Willie Jeffries, Kurt Grindstaff, Whitemarsh Smith, Pamela Lackey and Mark Buyck Jr. to the board’s at-large seats.
In other recent news:
S.C. closer to passing hate crimes law. South Carolina is one of three states that doesn’t have a hate crimes law. But earlier this month, a bill that would remove the state from that short list passed easily through the House. More: The Post and Courier
State pauses J&J vaccine distribution after federal recommendation. South Carolina health officials said they are pausing the distribution of the Johnsons and Johnson vaccine, heeding advisories from the federal Centers for Disease Control over concerns about blood clotting in some who received the vaccine. The state Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) reported on Thursday that nearly one million state residents have completed vaccination. Currently, 995,974 people are fully protected against COVID-19. The majority of people (573,340) have received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine while 336,001 people have received Moderna.
S.C. House holds brief hearing on expanding voting. A bill that would greatly expand voting through no-excuse absentee ballots and eliminating witnesses for votes cast by mail got a hearing in the Republican-dominated Legislature Thursday. More: AP News
S.C. Dems face uphill climb against Tim Scott in 2022/ South Carolina Democrats’ first challenge in their attempts to oust U.S. Sen. Tim Scott will be convincing donors and voters not to give up on the Palmetto State after their big loss against Lindsey Graham in 2020.
More: The Post and Courier. S.C. Democratic Rep. Krystle Mathews of Ladson says she’s the one to beat Tim Scott in 2022. More: The State
S.C.’s Clyburn highlights infrastructure needs in state. In push for Biden’s American Jobs Plan, U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina has highlighted the infrastructure needs in the Palmetto State, including 12 percent of S.C. households with no access to broadband internet. More: WCBD. In related news, an analysis from a research company found that S.C. ranks 31st nationally in a federal program aimed at expanding broadband access in rural America. More: Columbia Business Report
S.C. looks to reform juvenile justice. The state’s juvenile justice system had a rough 2020 and now it is looking to reform in 2021. The S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice is starting a three-year partnership with the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, a national juvenile justice reform group. More: The Post and Courier
How can you tell?
Here’s a new cartoon by Robert Ariail that first was published in our sister newspaper, the Charleston City Paper. Love it? Hate it? What do you think: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Thank a South Carolina teacher right now
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The letter from my daughter’s longtime piano teacher gave a start.
“After being in the classroom for 31 years and working with children and youth for another nine-plus years, I have decided to retire at the end of this year,” wrote Debra Benson, who teaches at Charleston County School of the Arts (SOA). “As one of my colleagues said, ‘I have never worked as hard as I do at SOA’ but every minute has been rewarding because of the students we serve.”
For six years, Mrs. Benson has been a steady influence, a reassuring fixture in our family’s life. It’s hard to imagine her not being at SOA during my daughter’s senior year.
Her letter is a reminder, yet again, of how our nation’s teachers are too often taken for granted — and how we need to thank them, over and over, for their work of molding young minds. They generally don’t get paid enough. They often don’t get the tools they need. And they have to put up with a lot of bureaucracy, paperwork, long hours and nonsense from students. Despite it all, they stick to it.
Ann-Marie Fairchild, an SOA math teacher, recalls weeping after getting a touching letter that provided the affirmation she needed early in her teaching career.
“She wrote about how learning to solve problems in algebra helped her to learn how to problem-solve in life: discerning the most important information, developing a plan, figuring a solution, then evaluating the solution for flaws. She went into great detail in her letter about how this translated into her tragic life circumstances — how math helped her to have hope. She also thanked me for the time I invested in her, making her feel loved and a part of a classroom family.”
Other teachers shared what it felt like to get thanked.
“Having students come back to thank me for inspiring them to become health and fitness professionals is a rewarding feeling,” said Brian Johnson, a physical education and health teacher at SOA. “When this happens, I feel more purpose in teaching.”
Christopher Selby, an orchestra teacher at the North Charleston high school, added, “Recently I had a former orchestra student write me to say that he was a little sorry he was such a cut up in my class over a decade ago. But, he wanted to write to me to say that he is now a music teacher, and he thanked me for all that I taught him. This is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching. We pour so much of ourselves into our students, and maybe they are too young to appreciate it at the time, but they recognize it later, and they come back to say thank you.”
Several years back, I contacted my favorite teacher, Frances Scott, in Jesup, Ga., to share the impact she had on me as a fourth grader. Not only did I get a letter back, but she inspired me again to do better. She died a few years later, which made me extra-glad that I let her know how important she remains.
With the end of school around the corner, think back to your learning career and find a teacher or two who meant the world to you. Make their day by letting them know now. Not only will it make you feel good, it will give them a huge boost.
“The best compliment in the world is a parent who tells you ‘my child would not have graduated without you,’ said Sherry East, president of the S.C. Education Association. “Several of those students keep in touch and to know you had a hand in shaping their lives is what it’s all about!”
Thank you, Debra Benson, and thanks to all of South Carolina’s teachers. Keep up the good work.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and publisher of the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Palmetto Care Connections
Statehouse Report is brought to you at no cost thanks to the generous support of underwriters, such as Palmetto Care Connections. Established in 2010, Palmetto Care Connections (PCC) is a non-profit organization that brings technology, broadband and telehealth solutions to health care providers in rural and underserved areas in South Carolina. PCC hosts the Annual Telehealth Summit of South Carolina presenting state and national best practices and trends, as well as providing networking connections for health care, technology and broadband professionals.
The leader of the South Carolina broadband consortium, PCC assists health care providers in receiving broadband savings through the Federal Communication Commission’s Healthcare Connect Fund program. Since 2013, PCC has helped providers save more than $25 million in broadband costs.
PCC co-chairs the South Carolina Telehealth Alliance, along with the Medical University of South Carolina, serving as an advocate for rural providers and partnering with organizations to improve health care access and delivery for all South Carolinians.
- Learn more about Palmetto Care Connections.
S.C. Republican bill would corrupt teaching of history
By P.L. Thomas, special to Statehouse Report | For over 40 years, George Graham Vest served, first as a Missouri state Representative, next as a state Senator in the Confederacy and finally as a U.S. senator for Missouri from 1879 to 1903.
In a speech from Aug. 21, 1891, Vest included a claim about history that has been echoed by many: “In all revolutions, the vanquished are the ones who are guilty of treason, even by the historians, for history is written by the victors and framed according to the prejudices and bias existing on their side.”
Considering Vest’s complicated relationship with the state and country that he served, we should keep in mind that his comment represents something many people misunderstand about history: All history is biased, and history is created by whoever is telling the story.
Often associated with Winston Churchill, the adage “history is written by the victors” seems to repeat itself in times of great upheaval.
One of our most recent moments of political conflict was the siege on the U.S. Capitol in early January 2021. Less dramatic but more significant, is what soon followed with the Trump administration releasing the 1776 Commission report, a rejection of the 1619 Project published in The New York Times.
Although the Biden administration removed the 1776 Commission report, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) issued a response to the political legacy of that report: The NCSS “strongly rejects the recent development of proposed bills in state legislatures which are designed to censor specific curricular resources from being used for instruction in K-12 schools.”
Now we can add to the list of misguided state legislation South Carolina, where a bill (S. 534) seeks, as reported in The Hill, the following:
“Lawmakers in South Carolina are considering a bill that would use former President Trump’s 1776 report to help develop the U.S. history curriculum for public middle and high school students, WCSC reports. The Restore America’s Foundation Act would require South Carolina’s State Superintendent of Education to “review and prescribe suitable texts and online materials aligned with the principles and concepts of the January 2021 report of the 1776 Commission.”
The essential problem with this bill is it contradicts its own goals. The 1619 Project is a source for teaching history, but it has no direct political power and any influence it has on classroom teaching is entirely voluntary.
Yet, S.C. Republicans are claiming that the teaching of history and social studies is politically corrupt (the basic argument of the 1776 Commission), and then proposing a bill that politically corrupts the teaching of history and social studies.
Further, this bill is endorsing a report discredited by historians across the U.S. For example, the American Historical Association asserted: “The authors [of the 1776 Commission report] call for a form of government indoctrination of American students, and in the process elevate ignorance about the past to a civic virtue.”
That statement has nearly 50 signees, and this sort of critique from historians discredits the value of the report for teaching students in SC.
Additionally, the 1776 Commission report is not suitable for use in education since the report is plagiarized, further eroding its credibility in addition to its partisan use of historical facts.
The irony here is that this bill is politicizing S.C. social studies and history classrooms in the exact ways that Republicans have falsely criticized the 1619 Project for doing. The difference is that legislation does change how students are taught, but newspapers do not.
“If we really want to ‘save American history,’” NCSS concludes in its rebuking of misguided state legislation similar to the one being proposed in S.C., “we should address the marginalization of social studies, and why instructional time for history and social studies learning has declined so rapidly in the 21st century—especially at the elementary level.”
Mandating debunked history is political theater, but it certainly isn’t serving the students of South Carolina.
Thomas is an education professor at Furman University. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
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- Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com
Fenced-off ruins
Where are these fenced-off ruins? Send your guess to feedback@statehousereport.com — and remember to include your name, home city and contact information.
- Send us your mysteries. Have a photo of something in South Carolina that’s kind of mysterious? Send it with information about its location and significance to the email address above.
Last week’s mystery, “Gator control,” showed a piece of statuary at Brookgreen Gardens in Georgetown County. It’s called “Alligator Bender” and sculpted in 1937 by Nathaniel Choate.
Lots of readers identified the outdoor statue, one of hundreds scattered throughout the attraction. Congrats to: Betsy Bunker of Fountain Inn; Wayne Beam of Clemson; Shari Ardis of Forest Acres; John Hart, Susan James, Elizabeth Jones and Jay Altman, all of Columbia; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; Freida McDuffie of James Island; Ross Lenhart of Stone Mountain, Ga.; Frank Bouknight of Summerville; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Joe Mendelsohn and Jonathan Graham, both of Charleston; Kevin Mertens of Greenville; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Bill Segars of Hartsville; Jacie Godfrey and Barry Wingard, both of Florence; Steve Willis of Lancaster; Elaine Huff-Lowe of Inman; Dave Taylor of Darlington; and Helen Fell.
- Send us a mystery. If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
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