STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 21.21 | MAY 27, 2022
BIG STORY: Legislators take up safe boating measures in budget talks
NEWS BRIEFS: Mixed reactions on Texas gun violence
LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Sine dead
COMMENTARY, Brack: Hold politicians accountable on gun violence
SPOTLIGHT: SC Clips
MY TURN, Magid: Don’t forget the Russian invasion of Ukraine
FEEDBACK: Take care of home first
MYSTERY PHOTO: Three stories of brick
Legislators take up safe boating measures in budget talks
By Chris Dixon | Mount Pleasant resident Morgan Kiser is on a mission to ensure no one is forced to grapple with the trauma she and her mother endured on the water on Sept. 21, 2019.
That evening on what was supposed to be a relaxing Lake Murray after-dinner cruise with her parents, a speeding boat ran over the Kisers’ boat. Reacting just before impact, Morgan’s father Stanley pushed his wife Shawn out of the way.
Shawn Kiser’s lower leg was severed. Morgan Kiser, then 32, suffered a badly lacerated scalp. For more than an hour, she attempted CPR on her father while also struggling to maintain an ad-hoc tourniquet on her mother’s leg. Screaming into the dark for help and crying into a cellphone as rescue crews struggled to locate her boat, she eventually lost her father.
“They’re the most important, influential people in your life — the people who you look to for your structure, for your safety, for everything that you are as a person,” she said this week, choking back tears. “For those two people to be chopped apart in front of you. It was just so bad. When we got back, Dad was cold in my arms.”
The 53-year-old Elgin man driving the runaway boat eventually was charged with boating under the influence and reckless homicide. The bars that allegedly allowed him to become grossly intoxicated are also facing a lawsuit from Stanley Kiser’s estate. The cases have yet to go to trial.
In the ensuing years, Shawn Kiser has moved to Mount Pleasant, where she still receives physical therapy, and Morgan, who runs a cooking accessories business, has become a part-time Lowcountry resident, splitting time between Mount Pleasant and Columbia. Starting with a Facebook group called Safe the Lake, the pair and Morgan’s sister Sloan and brother Pierce have become advocates for boating safety education and legislation in South Carolina.
Despite having one of the highest per-capita rates of boat ownership and boating fatalities in the country, South Carolina remains one of a handful of states without an ongoing boating certification requirement for boaters over 16. It’s also perfectly legal to have a drink while driving a boat, so long as the driver isn’t intoxicated.
Despite no formal legislative training and with the help of the S.C. Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), S.C. Boating and Fishing Alliance Director Gettys Brannon and a slew of state politicians, the Kisers have managed to get a safe boating bill, H.3103, before the state legislature. While those under 16 are already required to obtain a boating education certificate from SCDNR, the bill would require those born after 2006 to become certified, too. The 2006 year is fixed, so as each year passes, more and more boaters must become licensed.
Kiser and allies including Republican S.C. Sens. Tom Davis of Beaufort and Chip Campsen of Charleston hoped the bill would be signed into law during this year’s legislative session. But concerns were raised by boat rental businesses and S.C. House legislators reportedly scuttled the bill.
Now in what they hope is a compromise, the senators have introduced a proviso into the 2022-23 state budget that would enact a year-long version of the law starting in July. It would require a fast pass education course for boat renters.
The bill’s backers acknowledge the measure does nothing to address onboard drinking or older boaters who actually have the highest accident rates. But Kiser, Davis and Campsen say, it’s a start.
“This bill is going to be a very slow-burning bill,” Kiser said. “Nobody’s trying to attack anyone. Nobody’s trying to take anyone’s rights away, you know, but my rights were taken away from me to have a parent and to not be thrown into a war scene.”
Not the same South Carolina
Campsen owns a company that runs the ferry to Fort Sumter. He is an experienced mariner and licensed captain who grew up boating offshore and plying Lowcountry waterways. In years past, he said, he opposed laws requiring boater certification — but no longer.
“Years ago, part of growing up in the Lowcountry was growing up in a boat,” he said. “That was the way of life. It was like in Iowa where pretty much everyone knew how to drive a tractor. That’s before this massive population and migration.
“This is not the same South Carolina anymore … And the point I make is this: You have to have a license to drive a car, right? Well, any idiot can still drive a car because there are traffic signals, lines on the highway. Everything tells you want to do. It’s almost mindless. In a boat, there’s nothing like that. You have to have far greater situational awareness. What’s the current doing? Who has the right of way? What do those blinking lights mean, why are those two lights lined up? When I grew up, people knew what they were doing. That no longer exists. It’s in the dustbin of history unfortunately, that’s why I changed my position.”
Legislators will take up the proviso during budget reconciliation process starting June 15. It’s not clear how the process will play out. But Kiser is hopeful t and said she’s not going to stop pushing.
“Even after the trial is over, even if Dad does get the justice that he deserves, Mom’s gonna put that prosthetic leg on and she’s gonna be reminded of what happened,” she said. “So it will always be something that keeps us going — the idea that she did not lose her leg in vain. That Dad did not die in vain. Saving lives is just something we will never stop doing. Because we can’t.”
- Chris Dixon is senior editor of the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Mixed reactions voiced on Texas gun violence
Staff reports | South Carolina leaders are reacting with a mix of grief, anger, frustration and compassion in the wake of a deadly school shooting Tuesday afternoon in Texas. At least 19 children and two adults were shot and killed by an 18-year-old gunman in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. It was the deadliest school shooting since the infamous Sandy Hook massacre almost a decade ago.
“We witness these shootings again and again, and nothing ever changes,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Cunningham tweeted. “I’m devastated for the people of Uvalde as they deal with the unthinkable. But I’m also angry. Angry at the politics around this issue and the politicians who stand in the way of doing anything to solve it.”
Shootings also continued in South Carolina. Seven were injured early Monday by gunfire at the Blue Note Bistro in North Charleston. Four teens died over last weekend in two different shootings near Newberry. A 6-year-old also was shot in Orangeburg County.
While Democrats have plans to combat gun violence, Republican counterparts, including S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., offered thoughts and prayers on social media, but no plans for action.
“Psalm 34 tells us that the Lord is near to the broken hearted,” tweeted Scott. “I was devastated to learn of the children and teacher senselessly murdered today in Texas. Please join me in lifting up their families in prayer.”
McMaster tweeted, “Please join Peggy and me in praying for the Uvalde community, the faculty and staff at Robb Elementary, and for the families of the victims of today’s tragedy.”
S.C. Rep. J.A. Moore, D-Charleston, said too few set the political agenda for everyone.
“Even though it disgusts me — and makes me sick to my stomach — I am not frustrated. I am motivated. I’m resolved. No matter how much pain I am in right now, I’m focused. I’m ready to fight.”
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., struck a different tone from the general Republican talking points. On Tuesday, he said he welcomed debate over what these steps should look like.
“Hopefully, over time, we will have a better understanding of what led to these senseless acts,” he wrote on Twitter. “As to what to do next, I welcome a debate in the U.S. Senate about any and all measures that my colleagues believe will have an effect. Let’s debate and vote.”
U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-Columbia, said the time for action was long overdue. U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has reportedly taken a procedural step needed to bring Clyburn’s bill — the Enhanced Background Checks Act – to the Senate floor. Clyburn’s bill seeks to finally close the Charleston loophole that allows those who would go on to be mass shooters to legally purchase firearms by extending background check deadlines.
Meanwhile, S.C. Rep. Wendell Gilliard, D-Charleston, continues to push a bill to allow the installation of metal detectors in elementary, middle and high schools, as well as athletic venues across the state.
In other recent news:
Busy storm season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting above-normal Atlantic hurricane activity for the coming hurricane season, which starts June 1. NOAA projected a 70% probability of 14 to 21 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes.
McMaster signs bill to expand women’s access to birth control. McMaster on Monday signed a measure that would make birth control pills available without a prescription as a way to help women avoid unwanted pregnancies that could lead to abortions.
McMaster signs policing standards law. Two years after the death of George Floyd that sparked national outrage over policing tactics, McMaster on May 23 signed into law a bill requiring police agencies across South Carolina to abide by minimum standards on tactics such as chokeholds and bans putting an untrained officer on duty alone.
S.C. lawmakers negotiating over $1 billion in state budget. S.C. lawmakers are negotiating a big gap between the House and Senate versions of the state budget as the state’s economy continues to do better than predicted.
Committee OKs Childs for DC appellate court. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted 17-5 to approve S.C. jurist Michelle Childs’ nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Among those who voted for her was South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham. The nomination now goes to the full Senate for a vote.
S.C. water laws weak, EPA says, endangering streams, wildlife. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking aim at a landmark South Carolina law that was touted as a way to protect rivers, but in reality has allowed massive water withdrawals.
Mace, Arrington in dramatic debate. It was a given Monday night that a congressional debate among three Republicans fighting to win the party’s nomination would be dramatic. And yes, there were jeers, hoots and hollering. But few expected one of the candidates, longshot Lynz Piper-Loomis, to throw support immediately to challenger Katie Arrington and leave the stage with flair.
Former Beaufort mayor in boating accident. Former Beaufort Mayor and S.C. Rep. Billy Keyserling, injured Saturday in a boating accident, has been hospitalized. The former mayor reportedly was severely injured but reportedly “recovering well.”
- Want more headlines every business day that are like this? Visit our friends at SC Clips.
Sine dead
Cartoonist Robert Ariail often interprets things a little differently, but always has an interesting take on what’s going on in South Carolina. Love the cartoon? Hate it? What do you think: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Hold politicians accountable on gun violence
By Andy Brack | Just a few days ago, we described how gun violence is killing the United States following the deaths of 10 innocent people at a Buffalo grocery store on May 14.
Now comes the latest maddening slaughter – 19 students and two adults at a Texas school on May 24.
All totaled since January, there have been 214 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Even more horrifying: 17,424 people have died because of guns this year in the United States. That’s more people than live in West Columbia, Beaufort or Orangeburg.
Gun violence is out of control. It is so lethal that guns surpassed auto accidents as the number one killer of children for the first time in 2020.
What’s so mind-numbingly frustrating is that gun violence is a problem we can solve. Unfortunately, about half of the people elected to Congress and state legislatures stick their fingers in their ears and hum, “nah, nah, mmm, mmm” to avoid engaging on the subject. It doesn’t help that the majority of them have been co-opted by a rabid gun lobby with gazillions of dollars that make politicians cower like Harry Potter house elves.
Nevertheless, we have a duty to pull our heads out of the political sand and deal with the gun intransigence that has swept across America. Too many people are dead. Perhaps the only real way to get something done is to hold politicians more accountable. Nothing else seems to work. So let’s get loud and force them to state their positions and take action, instead of avoiding and deflecting. And then let’s vote them out of office if they won’t do what they are elected to do – take on tough issues and fix huge problems.
The political culture in the United States Senate illustrates the problem of grappling over guns. Of 50 Democrats in the chamber, all but one want to take up two House-passed bills to strengthen background checks on guns so they stay out of the hands of nuts. But Democrats need 10 Republican votes to avoid a GOP filibuster.
According to The New York Times this week, only five of 50 GOP senators said they were undecided or were open to talking about the two House bills. Fourteen, including U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, opposed the measures or said they were leaning no. The rest – more than 30 senators – didn’t answer or brushed off the issue, the Times reported.
It’s not much different in South Carolina. Emails and tweets this week to about 30 candidates and elected officials around the Lowcountry generally met with crickets. The few who did respond reacted with a mix of grief, anger, frustration and compassion.
Why can’t we treat how we deal with guns like how we deal with driving cars? To be able to drive, we’re required to pass written and practical tests, get a title and license plate, face periodic renewals and have insurance. What if being able to buy a gun faced similar regulatory hurdles? Such requirements wouldn’t remove the right to own a gun, but would make sure people who wanted guns were responsible, just like we do with driving. If we licensed guns like cars, do you think more kids would be alive?
Instead of doing nothing again after a massacre, let’s start doing something so the bad people who want to use guns for bad reasons have a harder time getting them. It’s not rocket science – tougher laws work. When the purchase of military-style assault rifles were banned, as President Biden said this week, gun violence went down.
Politicians work for us. Too many seem to forget they are elected to fix, not avoid, enduring problems. Let’s hold them accountable by demanding answers on how they will reduce gun violence. Ask at rallies. Ask at debates. Ask when you see them in a store. Don’t let them slither away. And if they won’t answer or won’t do anything to break the status quo, vote out the fraidy-cats and elect people who aren’t scared to engage.
Andy Brack is publisher of the Charleston City Paper and editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
SC Clips
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Don’t forget the Russian invasion of Ukraine
By Dr. Viktoriya Magid | “Every morning, since the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine before my usual cup of coffee, I begin my day with checking the news, and checking in with our friends and relatives in Ukraine to see if they are still alive,” says my friend Elena who lives in the United States. “It’s a roll call of sorts. The day ends the same way.”
For Elena, me and thousands of other expat Ukranians, this is now the rhythm of life.
Nearly 3,000 civilian deaths have been recorded since the start of the invasion three months ago. Among these deaths are 378 children. The true numbers are likely much higher. One of the post offices in Mariupol has been converted into a morgue and the mass graves are growing by the day. Reports of war crimes are daily — ranging from sexual assaults of small children to execution of civilian men and women. A brutal, merciless and senseless war rages on.
“We are tired,” said my friend Vlad, a war hero and the head of his battalion, fighting in the southeast of Ukraine where most of the battles are happening. “It’s been an exhausting three months, but I very much hope that the world doesn’t get tired of our stories. The scariest thing to us is the world moving on and putting Ukraine on the background.”
“It’s been an exhausting three months, but I very much hope that the world doesn’t get tired of our stories. The scariest thing to us is the world moving on and putting Ukraine on the background.” — Vlad
Despite significant financial support and heavy weapons provided to Ukraine by the United States, as well as many other countries, Vlad says his brigade has not benefited from the funding and they continue to heavily rely on the help of local and foreign volunteers.
“We are still flying the drone that many Americans have helped us buy,” said Vlad.
While Ukraine holds back on reporting the military losses, Vlad said they just lost nearly 200 soldiers in one day from heavy artillery and shelling.
“It’s really, really scary,” he said, “Two of our men just got heavily injured from a kamikaze drone that the Russians have started using”.
At the same time, he doesn’t lose his resolve and sense of humor: “Those Russians must be high if they think they will win,” said Vlad. “We are on our land and we are determined to fight until the last man”.
He also sheds some doubt on the recent reports stating that every soldier in the Azovstal steel plant has surrendered and left the plant and that the Russians now have full control over the city of Mariupol. “Don’t believe that,” said Vlad. “The Russians are saying that ‘thousands’ of soldiers have come out and surrendered, but the Red Cross has recorded only several hundred. Most of those are civilians, medics, and the wounded. The Azov battalion is still holding on and has not surrendered,” said Vlad.
It appears Russian forces have concentrated their efforts on the previously partially occupied Donbas region (the east of Ukraine) as well as the South with recently occupied Kherson. They seem to be trying to advance their forces along the southern coast towards Odesa — a large and historic seaport much like Charleston — as well as to fully affirm their positions in the East by taking over the Lugansk region.
While the Ukrainian forces are able to hold back some of the Russian attacks and even push back in the Kharkiv region, the counterattack is not yet ready to begin. Ukrainian intelligence is reporting that a counterattack to take back the occupied regions is being planned to begin within the next four to six weeks — once the foreign weapons are received and the Ukrainian soldiers are properly trained to use the machinery. The cost of the time? Human lives.
So, how do we cope with atrocities like the war in Ukraine, without falling into despair or closing our eyes all together? Ancient warriors believed that true courage consists of staring the horror right in the face, feeling the fear, and advancing forward anyway. The moment we look away or shut down from the overwhelming feelings of this war — at that moment Putin has won. He hopes that by splitting Ukraine in half, he will also split the world in the process. And a split world is all he needs to succeed.
United we stand. We stand with Ukraine.
This commentary first was published in the Charleston City Paper. Viktoriya Magid, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist specializing in addiction, anxiety, depression, life transitions and self actualization from her office in Mount Pleasant. Follow Magid on Instagram @drviktoriyamagid or visit her page at www.viktoriyamagid.com.
Take care of home first
To the editor:
As sure as the sun rises in the future, there will be more and rainier days ahead. But not in the Columbia Statehouse, where the coming rains will savage our communities more frequently with deeper water. There we celebrate hubris with the slogan that. “S.C. does not need a climate plan.”
In Columbia, our legislators invoke the relationship between the individual taxpayer and the state as primary (that they think they embody), conveniently ignoring the group of taxpayers called the community.
The deletion of the community notion permits a whole lot of ignorance and bad public policy. Returning money to the individual taxpayer is the legitimizer to trump all that has been ignored and pushed aside in prior years. Returning money to the individual taxpayer legitimizes ignorance of the community and the future.
The political joke in 2022 is to reduce future revenues without considering the consequences of the permanent reduction. Stupidity passes for legislative efficiency in the name of a small government. The voter’s bonus of the fall campaign is accompanied by this year’s vogue time-burning distraction freedom.
Every year comes the final budget spring blast. Every year the budget field is littered with unfilled promises, too many unrighted long-held injustices and desperations sacrificed to make trivial ideological points. Pretending what has been accomplished is meaningful.
Bags full of money abound. This year S.C. legislators head down the road of “returning” money to the taxpayers in such a small amount to be meaningless. For most S.C. taxpayers, empty symbolism is prescribed. But for the luckier few the return is even more to those with more as if this is equity.
Deleterious tax policy is derived by framing the primary relationship between the state and the individual taxpayer, ignoring the shared community of needs. The past unsettled business with SC’s communities and the coming rainy days are unaddressed.
Circus-planning is intentionally and inevitably made worse by starting in the budget deficit hole next year. It’s a consciously constructed game so we can start the uphill climb all over again with ready-made slogans offered for the poor bottom-listed state of S.C.
As the legislators move the deck chairs on our ship of state, please take care of home first starting with our children. Please make sure all the children of our state communities get the mental health service you have previously denied them. The cracks are showing. Our kids are sick. Your continuing miserly gestures and pithy slogans about frugality will fail them again.
– Fred Palm, Edisto Island, S.C.
Have a comment? Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com. Make sure to provide your contact details (name, hometown and phone number for verification. Letters are limited to 150 words.
Three stories of brick
Here’s an historic brick building with a toney lineage. Where is it and, for extra points, what makes it special? Send your guess to feedback@statehousereport.com — and remember to include your name, home city and contact information.
Last week’s mystery, “Kayakers,” showed two people kayaking in the Catawba River near Landsford Canal State Park among a bunch of springtime spider lilies. Thanks to photographer Travis Bell of Statehouse Carolina for the photo.
Congratulations to those who correctly identified the photo: George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Wayne Beam of Clemson; Daniel Prohaska and Frank Bouknight, both of Summerville; Steve Willis of Lancaster, Jay Altman and Lane Goodwin, both of Columbia; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; Henry Eldridge of Tega Cay; and Barry Wingard of Florence.
>> Send us a mystery picture. 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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