Staff reports | S.C. Sen. Hugh Leatherman, the 90-year-old Florence Republican who is South Carolina’s oldest and most powerful state lawmaker, is currently at home receiving hospice care after the discovery of what colleagues described as an inoperable cancer.
Leatherman, for whom a new port terminal is named in North Charleston, recently was hospitalized after experiencing severe abdominal pain, according to media reports. Surgery followed and an advanced, aggressive cancer was found.
Leatherman, who started his political career as a Democrat, has served in the legislature since 1981. He currently chairs the Senate Finance Committee, one of two legislative committees that controls the state’s purse strings.
In other recent news:
State to get COVID-19 vaccines for kids next month. Children ages 5-11 should start receiving Pfizer COVID-19 shots in the first week of November, according to state health officials. The state expects to receive 150,000 doses of the lower-dose shots next month. Also Wednesday, federal officials backed booster shots from Johnson & Johnson and Moderna — and said it was OK to mix or match boosters. More: The State | The New York Times.
Feds warn S.C., Arizona, Utah about workplace safety. The Biden administration’s U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration threatened Tuesday to revoke South Carolina’s handling of its own workplace safety enforcement due to refusal to adopt rules to protect health care workers from the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Henry McMaster has vowed to fight the threat. The warning was also issued to Republican-controlled Arizona and Utah. OSHA officials say the states are not complying with their promises to enforce labor standards that are at least as good as those adopted by the federal government when it comes to safety measures for workers at health care facilities that care for people sick with COVID-19. More. AP News | Spartanburg Herald-Journal.
DJJ seeks workers willing to endure low pay, violence. A staffing crisis at the state Department of Juvenile Justice is so bad there are more vacancies than officers actually working, the agency’s new acting director told state senators Tuesday. It will take at least six months to fix it, but a complete agency overhaul likely is needed, she testified. More: The State.
SC GOP’s October conference announces headliners. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, former White House physician Ronny Jackson, U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack, and GOP media personality Armstrong Williams, a native of Marion, will speak at the South Carolina GOP’s inaugural action conference held later this month in Myrtle Beach. More: The Post and Courier.
S.C. incumbents rake in cash ahead of 2022. Each incumbent U.S. House member and senator of South Carolina ended the year’s third fundraising quarter — from July to September — with more money in the bank, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. More: The State.
Melvin to become first woman to head S.C. Ports; Newsome to retire. South Carolina Ports Authority CEO Jim Newsome will retire in 2022 and his successor has been named: longtime SCPA executive Barbara Melvin. She will become the first woman to lead the authority and the first woman to lead a top 10 container port in the United States. Melvin will take over July 1 after a long period of port expansion that will make Charleston’s harbor the deepest on the East Coast by winter. More: Charleston Regional Business Journal.
First Lady credits S.C. ‘prayer partner’ with changing her life. First Lady Jill Biden said she was unable to pray after the 2015 death of her son Beau, but Robin Jackson of South Carolina helped “shape her life.” Jackson is the wife of the pastor at Brookland Baptist Church in South Carolina and she offered to be Biden’s “prayer partner” when she went to church. Biden has talked about Jackson before but without naming her. However, on Sunday, she attended the Baptist church and talked about her relationship with Jackson. More: AP News. Biden also will appear later this month at MUSC in Charleston.
Ethics complaint against S.C. fed judge sent to special committee. A judicial ethics complaint against U.S. District Judge Joe Dawson, a Trump appointee who serves in South Carolina, over a contract he signed with his former employer Charleston County will be sent to a special committee of judges for further investigation after an Oct. 19 order by 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Roger Gregory. The complaint was filed on the heels of a Post and Courier story in February that reported on the contract Dawson signed with Charleston County as he departed for the federal bench. More: The Post and Courier.
Rare songbird discovered in S.C. declared extinct. For decades, birders in the Lowcountry have trekked in and out of forests and wetlands searching for the Bachman’s warbler, one of North America’s rarest songbirds. It’s now been deemed extinct. More: The Post and Courier.
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