Author Archives: Becci

Court ruling upholds Ohio’s practice of purging voter rolls. What does it mean for South Carolina?

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Brett Bursey
Executive Director, SC Progressive Network

Since the US Supreme Court’s June ruling that upheld Ohio’s aggressive purging of voters, some have expressed fear about voters being removed from voting rolls in South Carolina. We consulted with the State Election Commission (SEC) to verify our understanding of the ruling’s effect on SC voters.

If an Ohio voter misses two federal elections, that voter will get a series of letters from the Secretary of State. If they fail to return one confirming they still live at that address, they are removed from the list of registered voters.

In South Carolina, voters register for life. When a voter dies, the State Bureau of Vital Statistics alerts the SEC, and the person’s name is removed from the list.

The only other ways to be removed is to write the State Election Commission and request that your name be removed, or register to vote in another state, in which case that state may let the SEC know to remove you.

So — other than asking to be removed or registering in another state, South Carolinians remain registered to vote until they die.

The process is this: if you don’t vote in two presidential elections, the SEC mails a notice to your residence advising you to return the letter to remain on the roll of active voters. If you don’t respond, your name gets dropped from the precinct poll books and your name goes on the list of inactive voters kept by the county and state election office. If you show up at your old precinct and they tell you that you aren’t on the list, you tell the poll manager to contact their county office and check the inactive list. You will then be allowed to vote a regular ballot. The precinct poll books have long been cleaned up in this manner to save time signing people in and reduce the cost of printing.

The SC Progressive Network has been monitoring SC elections since 2004, when ours was the first state to buy the touch-screen voting machines that are now aging but we’re still using. We opposed the purchase of the machines then, for the same reasons people are complaining now. We have been working with the bipartisan Joint Legislative Committee on Voting Systems, and are confident that our next system will produce a voter-verified paper ballot. The goal now is to get out from under the devices that rely on secret computer codes and move to a low-tech, open-source, non-proprietary, publicly owned system.

Over the years, the Network has learned the state’s election laws, written some new ones, and beaten some in court. We’ve also gained an appreciation of the SEC’s independence from political bias and the commitment of county directors to running fair elections. The type voter purging that’s making news in battleground states where partisan officials run elections isn’t happening in South Carolina. The problem here is that our state legislature has gerrymandered the political game board to the degree that 77 percent of the voters only find one name on their general election ballot to represent them in the State House. When there is only one candidate, it hardly matters who gets to vote. (See how South Carolina’s democracy ranks HERE).

Noted Charleston activist calls “History Denied” a must-read

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Jim Campbell, a highly regarded human rights activist and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, has been a gift to the SC Progressive Network since the group’s founding in 1996. The organization has benefited mightily from his years in the trenches – as a Marine and as a social justice warrior. (Campbell’s papers are housed at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture in Charleston.)

Becci Robbins and Jim Campbell at the SC Progressive Network’s 2016 fall conference.

We sent him a copy of our new booklet, knowing how familiar he is with the people and history it covers. In return, he copied us on an email he sent to his comrades across the country. His endorsement is a true honor.

Campbell wrote, “I’ve just read a copy of the SC Progressive Network‘s recently published booklet, HISTORY DENIED: Recovering South Carolina’s Stolen Past by Becci Robbins. Its content is a substantive introduction to the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC) and the vanguard radical labor organizing among interracial youth in the severely segregated South between 1937 and 1949. Specifically, this tells of a landmark Congress convened in Columbia, South Carolina in October of 1946. This event had in active participation such Freedom Movement notables as local South Carolina Youth Leaders in addition to Paul Robeson, Herbert Aptheker, Dorothy and Louis Burnham, Esther [Cooper] and Jim Jackson, Louise Patterson, Sallye Davis, Jack O’Dell, South Carolina’s Modjeska Simkins and the Congress’ keynote speaker, W.E.B. DuBois. His keynote speech, BEHOLD THE LAND, has been a ‘must read’ for all young activists ever since.

This landmark booklet is also a ‘must read’ for today’s activists as both struggle inspiration and primer on our long civil rights movement.”

The booklet was reviewed by Jeffrey Collins at the Associated Press.

Jim Campbell speaks at a Network retreat at Penn Center.

GET YOUR COPY OF HISTORY DENIED

Download the e-version of History Denied here. (You can also download three earlier booklets on three phenomenal SC women Modjeska Monteith Simkins, Harriet Hancock, and Sarah Leverette.)

Copies of History Denied are available at the Network’s office in the historic Modejska Simkins House, 2025 Marion St., downtown Columbia, SC. One copy is free; additional copies are $2.50 each. To order by mail, click here. To order bulk copies, call our office at 803-808-3384.

Public invited to July 23 launch of “History Denied: Recovering South Carolina’s Stolen Past”

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Book Launch
Monday, July 23, 5:30-7pm
Seibels House and Garden
1601 Richland St., Columbia

Light eats  •  Cash bar
Booklets are FREE!

Join the SC Progressive Network in celebrating the recent publication of History Denied, Recovering South Carolina’s Stolen Past by Network Communications Director Becci Robbins.

“I learned so much on this project—not the least of which is how little I know,” Robbins said. “The more I dug and read, the angrier I got about my miseducation. It’s been unsettling to know how much history we’ve been denied, and calls into question everything we’ve been taught.”

History Denied is Robbins’ fourth booklet to be funded by the Richland County Conservation Commission. She previously published a trilogy to mark the achievements of three extraordinary South Carolina women: human rights activist Modjeska Monteith Simkins, gay rights advocate Harriet Hancock, and legal pioneer Sarah Leverette. Those booklets are available free at the Network’s office, and can be downloaded online. The History Denied booklet will be uploaded after the launch.

An unprecedented interracial crowd packs the Township Auditorium in Columbia for the Southern Negro Youth Congress’ 7th annual conference the weekend of Oct. 19, 1946.

“This is a cautionary tale. It centers on the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), a militant, interracial youth movement that thrived against all odds between 1937 and 1949 in the Jim Crow South. Its rise and fall—and the collective amnesia that followed—offers a timely warning about how history is made and unmade, and how that shapes our shared narrative.

While SNYC was based in Birmingham, AL, South Carolina activists played a key role in SNYC’s unlikely success. Early on, Columbia activist Modjeska Monteith Simkins served on its board, and was instrumental in bringing SNYC’s 7th annual conference to Columbia in October 1946.

The three-day event promised a glittering line-up of distinguished speakers—including keynote W.E.B. DuBois and internationally acclaimed Paul Robeson—as well as invited guests from around the world. The ambitious schedule included daytime workshops to hone the organizing skills of the young delegates.

It was an unprecedented gathering, yet one that has largely been forgotten. Only recently has scholarship on the radical human rights movement in the 1930s and ’40s emerged, enriching our understanding of the people who drove it and the critical ground they laid for those who came later.

SNYC is far from the only chapter of history to be whitewashed, distorted, or erased altogether. This booklet offers a few South Carolina examples: the first Memorial Day, celebrated in war-ruined Charleston after Confederates evacuated the city in 1865; the radically democratic experiment that was Reconstruction; the widespread practice of lynchings after Reconstruction’s end; and the conspiracy of silence that followed the 1934 killings of seven striking textile workers in Honea Path.

Becci Robbins

It is no accident that we don’t know our labor history or the darkest truths about the white supremacy built into South Carolina’s very constitution, and that denial carries lasting consequences. Ignorance comes with a heavy price.

This booklet is an attempt to broaden our view of the past, even if it hurts. These stories are painful, but they are also heroic. For every act of oppression, there have been acts of resistance by people willing to risk their very lives to stand for human decency and the promise upon which this country was built. Their struggles and triumphs deserve to be shared, their bravery celebrated, their work continued.

This volume is not a comprehensive telling of South Carolina’s forgotten resisters. The voices and contributions of women, workers, Native tribes, LGBTQ+ Americans, immigrants, and other marginalized communities also are missing or minimized in our textbooks and in the mainstream media. This is simply a reminder that what we’ve been taught has largely been dominated by money, war, and the experiences of white men of privilege. That cheats a whole lot of citizens from knowing that their ancestors played important roles in the making of this state and nation.

SNYC’s story lays bare the very best and worst of America. We’d be wise to know both.”

Election protection hotline live for SC primary

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“Since 2004, the Network has helped run a nonpartisan hotline to help voters with problems at the polls,”said SC Progressive Network Education Fund Director Brett Bursey. “Regardless of their party or problem, voters can ask questions and resolve differences with poll workers in real time during the primary on June 12.”

The free, nonpartisan Election Protection hotline is returning calls leading up to June 12, and will be live on primary day between 6am and 8pm.

“This is the 14th year that this hotline has helped South Carolina voters with problems,” Bursey said. “Given the interest in this election, we expect to be busy.

By calling the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline (or 888-VE-Y-Vota), voters can confirm their registration status, find their polling location, and get answers to questions about proper identification at the polls. This information is also available on line from the State Election Commission at scvotes.org.

“Please let us know if you have, or observe, trouble at the polls,” Bursey said. “This is the only real-time, statewide audit of the system, and it helps us track and address deficiencies.”

SC Progressive Network endorses James Smith for SC governor

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James Smith addresses members of the SC Progressive Network on April 7 at our annual spring conference at the Lourie Center in Columbia.

•  •  •

In its first gubernatorial endorsement in 22 years, the SC Progressive Network (501-C-4) is supporting James Smith in the June 12 Democratic primary for governor.

We have endorsed Rep. Smith because he is the only candidate who has the vision and experience to work with the state’s Republican-dominated legislature – and can win the general election. Smith has been a reliable ally for the Network since our founding in 1995.

“Half the eligible citizens in our state aren’t voting,” said Network Executive Director Brett Bursey. “Most of them don’t bother to vote because they don’t see that doing so makes any difference in their lives. We need to be addressing those people. That’s our base.”

Smith has long supported our call for a moral state budget that makes it a priority to fund public services instead of corporate tax subsidies.

Smith supports our proposal that political districts be drawn by the voters rather than politicians. He has pledged to veto redistricting plans that don’t create competitive districts, giving our campaign to end gerrymandering in South Carolina more time to organize support for our bills to remedy the problem. He is on board our DemocraSC 2020 campaign.

These challenging times are an historic opportunity to stop South Carolina’s race to the bottom. Smith is positioned to help us make significant change.

Allen University chooses Modjeska Simkins book for campus “read along”

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To celebrate Library Week, on April 11 students from Allen University took turns reading from a booklet about Modjeska Monteith Simkins that the SC Progressive Network published in 2014. Students led what they called a “read in,” and also held a campus-wide book presentation contest. Some 200 booklets were distributed free to students in the weeks leading up to the event.

“As an HBCU in Columbia, South Carolina, we chose Modjeska Monteith Simkins: A South Carolina Revolutionary because of the outstanding leadership qualities she demonstrated throughout her life,” wrote a university spokeswoman in a message inviting our participation.

Network Director Brett Bursey, who worked with Modjeska for 18 years, challenged the students to get involved in moving the state toward social, political, and economic justice.

“It was so gratifying to see students gather together to remember Modjeska’s extraordinary life,” said Becci Robbins, the Network’s communication director and booklet author. “She would have loved it.”

In its recent third printing, the booklet includes a new section on Modjeska’s involvement in the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which held a leadership training school at Allen University in 1947. You can download the booklet HERE.

Gender wage gap costs SC women nearly $11.8 billion a year

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A state-by-state analysis released for Equal Pay Day tomorrow reveals that a woman employed full time, year-round in South Carolina is typically paid just 78 cents for every dollar paid to a man – a yearly pay difference of $9,995. That means South Carolina women lose a combined total of nearly $11.8 billion every year to the gender wage gap. If it were closed, on average, a woman working full time in South Carolina would be able to afford 78 more weeks of food for her family, more than eight additional months of mortgage and utilities payments, nearly one additional year of tuition and fees for a four-year public university, nearly the full cost of tuition and fees for a two-year community college, nearly 12 more months of rent or 21 more months of child care each year.

This new analysis, conducted by the National Partnership for Women & Families using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, finds that South Carolina has the 17th largest cents-on-the-dollar gap in the nation. It also finds that there is a gender-based wage gap in every single state and the District of Columbia. The cents-on-the-dollar gap is largest in Louisiana and Utah, followed closely by West Virginia and Montana – and smallest in New York, California and Florida. The study also analyzed the wage gap in each of South Carolina’s congressional districts, as well as for Black women in South Carolina and other states.

Working women in South Carolina are not alone in suffering the effects of the gender wage gap. It has detrimental effects on women’s spending power in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The wage gap contributes greatly to our country’s high rates of poverty and income inequality and is especially punishing for women of color. Nationally, white non-Hispanic women are typically paid 79 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, Black women 63 cents and Latinas 54 cents. Asian women are paid 87 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, although some ethnic subgroups of Asian women fare much worse. The wage gap for mothers is 71 cents for every dollar paid to fathers.

“Equal Pay Day is a disturbing reminder that women overall have had to work more than three months into 2018 just to catch up with what men were paid in 2017, and Black women and Latinas must work considerably further into the year,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership. “The wage gap cannot be explained by women’s choices. It’s clear that discrimination contributes to it – and equally clear that it’s causing grave harm to women, families and the country. Lawmakers have not done nearly enough to end wage discrimination based on gender and race; to end sexual harassment, which impedes women’s job advancement; to stop discrimination against pregnant women; to advance paid family and medical leave and paid sick days; and to increase access to high-quality, affordable reproductive health care. If our country is to thrive, we must root out bias in wages, reject outdated stereotypes and stop penalizing women for having children and caring for their families.”

To address this pervasive problem, the National Partnership is urging Congress to pass:

  • The Paycheck Fairness Act, which would help break harmful patterns of pay discrimination and establish stronger workplace protections for women;
  • The Fair Pay Act, which would diminish wage disparities that result from gender-based occupational segregation;
  • The Healthy Families Act, which would guarantee workers the right to earn paid sick days;
  • The Family And Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, which would create a comprehensive paid family and medical leave program;
  • The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would update and strengthen protections against discrimination against pregnant workers;
  • The Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act, which would restore abortion coverage to women who receive health care or insurance through the federal government and prohibit political interference with health insurance companies that offer coverage for abortion care; and
  • Measures that would increase the minimum wage, eliminate the tipped minimum wage and strengthen protections against sexual harassment in the workplace.

“The gender-based wage gap results in staggering losses that make it harder for women, in South Carolina and across the country, to pay for food and shelter, child care, college tuition, birth control and other health care. We urgently need public policies that improve women’s access to decent-paying jobs, provide the supports women need to stay in the workforce and advance in their jobs, and ensure fair and nondiscriminatory treatment wherever women work and whatever jobs they hold,” added National Partnership Vice President for Workplace Policies and Strategies Vicki Shabo. “We need the Trump administration to help solve this problem rather than exacerbating it. We ask the administration to immediately stop blocking the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from implementing an equal pay initiative aimed at identifying and helping root out pay discrimination.”

In addition, Ness noted that state lawmakers can help address the wage gap by passing laws that prohibit employers from asking about salary history and protect employees from retaliation if they discuss pay. The private sector plays a role as well, and companies can help level the playing field by increasing pay transparency, limiting the use of salary history and using standardized pay ranges in hiring and promotions.

Findings for each state from the National Partnership’s new wage gap analysis are available at NationalPartnership.org/Gap, as are analyses of the wage gap at the national level, in the 25 states with the largest numbers of Black women and Latinas who work full time, and in all 435 congressional districts.

The National Partnership for Women & Families is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group dedicated to promoting fairness in the workplace, access to quality health care and policies that help women and men meet the dual demands of work and family. More information is available at NationalPartnership.org.

 

Sudden move on solar energy leaves public in the dark

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Not to sound alarmist, but the last time we saw Rep. Bill Sandifer – Chair of the Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee – jam a bill through LCI was in 2007, when the now-maligned Base Load Review Act went straight to the House floor with no public hearing, and cleared both the House and Senate in a record three days.

It is worth noting that Sandifer is also a Task Force Chair of the uber-business friendly American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

On Thursday, Sandifer introduced a bill (H-5045) to repeal the two sections of SC Code of Laws governing solar power. The bill is scheduled for a subcommittee hearing at 10am Tuesday, March 6. The bill – just one sentence long – would repeal Title 58 Chapter 39 and 40 of state laws passed in 2014.

Those utility-friendly laws allowed some solar power distribution by other than utilities and established a net metering system that gives utility credits to those who make more solar power than they can use. This was a small step forward, but South Carolina still has among the nation’s most restrictive solar laws.

No one knows what will take their place, but we are told an amended version of the laws will be introduced tomorrow morning. The new solar laws then go before the full LCI committee at 11:30 – before anyone has a chance to read them, much less study their implications.

Quinn sentence highlights need for voter restitution law

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Former Rep. Rick Quinn on Monday was sentenced by Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen to probation, community service and fined $1,000 for misconduct in office. The Republican represented District 69 in Lexington County before he was indicted and suspended from the House in April.

Petitions requesting that Quinn pay the cost of the special election that will be required to replace him were presented to Judge Mullen before the sentencing hearing. According to State Election Commission spokesperson, Chris Whitmire, the estimated cost to Lexington County taxpayers to hold the special election is around $17,000. State taxpayers will be responsible for an additional $36,000.

The sentencing doesn’t sit well with those left to foot the bill.

“I’m a proud Republican,” said John Frierson, a longtime Lexington resident who voted for Quinn. “Mr. Quinn let all the voters in his district down. This is not a partisan issue; I don’t think it’s right that the victims should have to pay for the damage he has done.”

District 69 resident and Executive Director of the SC Progressive Network Brett Bursey submitted a petition to the court citing the state statute (17-25-322) that requires the court to consider restitution to the victims of criminal acts. “We’re disappointed that Judge Mullen didn’t see fit to apply the restitution statute to Mr. Quinn’s criminal conviction,” Bursey said, “but we understand the pressure judges face in sentencing legislators who elect them.”

The failure to seek restitution for the cost of replacing convicted legislators underscores the need for legislation introduced a year ago in the General Assembly. The Network’s Education Fund developed the policy that became S-533 prior to the indictments of Rep. Quinn and Sen. John Courson. The bill would require prosecutors to request the cost of special elections as restitution for convicted politicians who are removed from office.

“We are getting bipartisan support for requiring the prosecution to put restitution before the judge as part of the sentence,” Bursey said. “This insulates a  judge who may be up for re-election before the legislature from making the call herself.”

Victims of political corruption object to paying for crime

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When Circuit Court Judge Carmen Mullen hears arguments in the sentencing hearing of former Rep. Rick Quinn (R-Lexington) on Monday, she will also be considering who should pay to replace him in the legislature.

While Judge Mullen has the discretion to add the cost of the special election to Quinn’s sentence, a bill is pending in the legislature to require prosecutors to include the cost of special elections to their sentencing recommendations.

Quinn was indicted by the state grand jury last April for misappropriating $4 million over a number of years in office.

At a December hearing, Quinn pled guilty to one misdemeanor charge of failing to report a $28,000 payment from the University of South Carolina. Special Prosecutor David Pascoe told Judge Mullen “there has been no one more corrupt than Rick Quinn.”

Judge Mullen has been asked to apply the state law (17-25-322) that allows a judge to require restitution to victims for financial damage.

“Rick Quinn has pled guilty to abusing the trust of his constituents, as well as misappropriating money,” said Brett Bursey, a resident of Quinn’s Lexington County district and director of the SC Progressive Network. “As a voter in House District 69 and a Lexington County taxpayer, I will be paying a portion of the county’s and State Election Commission’s costs to hold an election for Quinn’s replacement.”

Chris Whitmire of the State Election Commission cited the county’s estimated cost at $17,000 for opening a limited number of precincts. The SEC’s cost is projected to be $36,000.

“It’s going to cost state taxpayers over $1 million to replace the legislators recently convicted of crimes,” said John Crangle, the Network’s government relations director. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “I haven’t had representation in the Senate since last April because John Courson was charged with embezzling campaign funds. If he’s found guilty, county and state taxpayers face a bill of over $100,000 for a special election.”

Sen. Mike Fanning (D-Fairfield) filed the Special Elections Restitution Act (S-533) in January 2017, before the recent indictments of Quinn and suspended Sen. Courson. The bill has been assigned to a Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Sen. Chip Campsen (R-Charleston), with Sen. Tom Young (R-Aiken) and Sen. Fanning.