STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 21.29 | JULY 22, 2022
BIG STORY: Gilliard gets death threats over assault weapon proposal
NEWS BRIEFS: Court to hear motions Tuesday on abortion law ban
LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Graham in hiding?
COMMENTARY, Brack: Old picture opens floodgate of memories
SPOTLIGHT: The Felkel Group
FEEDBACK: Send us your comments
MYSTERY PHOTO: 10:16 in morning somewhere
Gilliard gets death threats over assault weapon proposal
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | S.C. Rep. Wendell Gilliard, D-Charleston, has received more than a dozen threats of violence – and even death – since he announced Wednesday he was going to file a bill to ban assault-style weapons in South Carolina. The threats have been reported to law enforcement authorities.
Threats came as phone calls from unidentified individuals hiding behind cell phones and as coded messages on Facebook, Gilliard told Statehouse Report today.
“First, you get the phone calls. The N-word this, the N-word that,” he said. “Then when you get on Facebook, [they say] if he’s not going to uphold the Constitution, then we ought to do something.” Later he added, “They said things like, ‘If he can’t do his job, we need to take care of him.”
Gilliard, who has served in the General Assembly since 2009, said the coded intent of the messages was clear – that bullies were using the darkness of anonymous phone calls and the Internet to bully and intimidate in ways that hauntingly recall what happened across the Black South during civil rights struggles after World War II.
He said he also warned the dozen people who stood with him at a Wednesday press conference about threats related to the announcement he would pre-file a bill on assault weapons. At least one supporter has also received threats, he said.
During the Wednesday press conference, Gilliard emphasized how high-powered semi-automatic assault weapons are deadly, involved in hundreds of mass shootings through the years.
“They are designed to kill many and to kill as quickly as possible,” he said. “As I have stated more times over, we will not be able to eradicate the entire gun problem, but we certainly can put laws in place to slow down the intentions of people, to reduce the number of events and reduce the number of fatalities and injuries.”
The next day, Gilliard notified SLED Chief Mark Keel of threats after the press conference and asked his agency and the FBI to investigate.
“He informed me and all involved that stood in solidarity with me to call his office directly if intimidation or personal threats are made,” Gilliard wrote in a statement. “These will be taken seriously and prosecuted if they are found to be credible and unlawful.”
The Rev. Thomas Dixon of North Charleston, who has received similar threats in the past, stood with Gilliard on Wednesday. Today, he said he was dismayed by continuing threats of violence from pro-gun supporters.
“Civility is out of the door and they feel like the way to accomplish anything is through bullying and they use the cyber-area to do it,” he said. “They use phone, internet and email to try to bully and to intimidate. As long as they have a way to hide, that’s what they’re going to do.”
Pre-filing of House bills is expected in late November.
- Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Court to hear motions Tuesday on abortion law ban
Staff reports | A state court will consider a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction Tuesday in Columbia in a case against South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban which went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade protections last month. A hearing is set for 10 a.m. Tuesday in Richland County Circuit Court.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which filed the lawsuit with three other plaintiffs, said there may be a ruling as early as next week by S.C. Circuit Judge Casey Manning, who has been on the bench since 1994.
“It’s definitely a big moment,” a Planned Parenthood spokesman said today.
The lawsuit claims that the ban violated a state constitutional right to privacy and equal protection. It also claims the law provides “inadequate protections for patients’ health, and by conditioning sexual assault survivors’ access to abortion on the disclosure of their personal information to law enforcement”
Meanwhile Tuesday, a special S.C. House committee voted 9-3 on an even stricter abortion ban. It voted on a proposal being pushed by religious conservatives to ban almost all abortions except when the life of the mother is at risk. The new proposal does not include incest or rape as exceptions, according to the Associated Press. According to one published report, “Under the proposal, anyone who provides or pays for an abortion that’s not a medical emergency — whether surgically or through medication — can be fined $10,000 and sent to prison for up to two years. Doctors could also lose their medical license.”
In other headlines:
House panel presents evidence of Trump’s refusal to stop the riot. In a blockbuster hearing televised nationally Thursday night, the special U.S. House committee looking into the Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, painted a picture of former President Donald Trump’s refusal to stop the riot. The House Panel claimed that the former president chose not to act, and refused to do so until after the riots had subsided. The session was also an appeal to patriotism in which leaders and witnesses used the time on national television to outline how they thought the former president had broken his oath of office. Other takeaways from Thursday’s hearing include agents protecting former Vice President Mike Pence say they feared for their lives, the National Guard’s timing in response and a criminal inquiry into missing texts.
Pence pushes for tougher abortion laws in Florence stop. Former Vice President Mike Pence urged tougher abortion laws in a Wednesday speech at a Florence church. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortion protection case, Roe v. Wade. Pence, long a defender of former President Donald Trump, has increasingly distanced himself after the Jan. 6 riot and as the 2024 presidential election season approaches.
U.S. Senate confirms Childs for federal appellate court. U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs of South Carolina, who was on President Biden’s short list to be appointed to the Supreme Court, was confirmed to sit on a powerful federal appellate court by the U.S. Senate Tuesday. The vote was 64-34.
Covid-19 vaccinations not required for 2022-23 school year in S.C. The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control has updated its required vaccinations for students across the state, including additional chickenpox, polio and hepatitis A vaccines. The new rules do not require the Covid-19 vaccine. However, it is still highly recommended by the Center for Disease Control to get one. Meanwhile, state health officials this week reported 13 deaths and 13,722 new cases of Covid over the previous week, an increase of more than 500 new cases from the previous week. Meanwhile, The State newspaper reports Covid cases are rising among young S.C. children.
Lucas joins Prisma Health as government liaison. Former S.C. House Speaker Jay Lucas is the new chief government liaison for Prisma Health, the state’s largest health care provider. The announcement comes three weeks after Lucas resigned from his seat in the House, a seat he’s held for 24 years.
Haley teases about presidential bid in N.C. event. Former Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday said “sometimes it takes a woman” in a question related to whether she would shred a deal with Iran if she were president.
Graham’s grand jury appearance heads back to Georgia. While lawyers were set this week to hear the case of whether U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina should appear in front of a grand jury investigating 2020 election shenanigans, the case suddenly this week moved back to Georgia. The agreement reportedly includes wording for Graham to appear in Atlanta, but preserve his legal challenge to a subpoena.
Ex-lawyer pleads not guilty in murder case. Disbarred lawyer Alex Murdaugh pleaded not guilty Thursday in murders of his wife and son — crimes that have captivated the nation. Defense lawyers and prosecutors agreed to keep the evidence secret. His lawyers also pushed for a speedy trial because they said he feels the killer or killers are still at loose, according to this story. mmit wire fraud and bank fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, and misapplication of bank funds.
Graham in hiding?
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.
Old picture opens floodgate of memories
By Andy Brack | The old color photo arrived without fanfare in an email from a cousin I haven’t seen in a long time. He simply wrote, “Dad scanned many of his old Kodachrome slides. You might find this one interesting.”
Oh yes, I did. My eyes started watering.
The photo is so clear that you feel you can touch the yawning 5-month-old baby in a light blue onesie on his delighted grandmother’s lap. To her right is a 52-year-old man who is leaning forward with a captivating energy that almost overwhelms the image. In the corner is a cool space age lamp and pack of cigarettes, the devils that eventually killed him.
The man was my father’s father, my granddaddy. The woman wearing the print dress that she probably made was my grandmother. For more than two decades, they’d been living in Macon, Ga., where my dad had a newspaper route, grew up and went to college.
Granddaddy, who toiled on a small Georgia cotton farm until he was in his early 30s, drove a Trailways bus for three decades. My grandmother, known far and wide for her biscuits and delectable pies and desserts, worked as a clerk in a department store. They lived simply in a house they built where he puttered in a shop during time off and she cooked, sewed and kept house. Every two weeks, she got her hair done at a neighbor’s shop down the street. Every week, she headed to the Primitive Baptist church. He went most of the time.
Three things strike me about this photo, taken by my cousin’s father in 1962. He worked at Southern Bell through the years, but has been a shutterbug since his time in the Marines.
First is the clarity, detail and warmth of the image on film. Today’s high-tech digital cameras can mimic the look through filters and special settings, but they can’t touch a picture taken by a gifted photographer who understands lighting, depth of field and how to create an engaging, dramatic image Good photographers like Tommy Williams, who spent his career in Savannah, know just the second to snap the shutter to get a memorable picture.
Second, the old photo shared something new – physical ways that I can see myself in my grandfather. I have never really thought we looked much alike. But the picture tells a different story – in the way he’s leaning forward, the slope of his shoulders and the shape of his forearm. And despite differently shaped heads, I feel like I’m looking into my eyes and seeing my brows – or those of my now 86-year-old father – in his face.
It’s a weird feeling to see yourself in someone else for the first time 60 years after your birth. And it’s just plain emotional, bringing back wave upon wave of good memories from eating watermelon in their backyard (“You put salt on it, boy”) to hearing the electric saw tearing through wood in his latest project. Or sitting down for breakfast at the break of dawn to eat mouth-watering biscuits (made with lard), eggs, grits, bacon and coffee (kids only got coffee-milk). Or walking next door to visit with his sister and his mother, my Great Granny who dipped snuff and mostly seemed to sit in the corner.
Finally, the old photo also made me think more broadly – about the maternal grandfather I never knew because he died in a tractor accident on his farm three years before I was born. And his wife, my Granna, who taught just about every grade in school in Arkansas before moving to Macon with her family after World War II. She, too, died of lung cancer from the very same Winstons in the photo.
This physical connection to the past also made me think even bigger about family in general – how we connect throughout our lives in little ways and big with children, siblings, parents, cousins, uncles – and great aunts named Lillie Pearl.
The little boy in the picture is yawning. But the picture made him as an adult do anything but.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
The Felkel Group
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Send us your comments
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It’s 10:16 a.m. somewhere
It’s 10:16 in the morning in this photo, but where was it taken? Send your name and hometown – along with your guess – to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Last week’s mystery, “Old church,” shows the First African Baptist Church on New Street in Beaufort where it is part of the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network. Congratulations to eight regularly-published sleuths who identified it: Elizabeth Jones, Jean Prothro and Jay Altman, all of Columbia; Jacie Godfrey of Florence; Bill Segars of Hartsville; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; and David Lupo of Mount Pleasant.
The church, built in 1885, remains active. According to Peel, “Among the church’s earliest members was Robert Smalls (1839 – 1915), an African-American hero of the Civil War and a U.S. congressman during Reconstruction. A monument to Smalls is on the church grounds.”
>> 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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