In the wake of the tragedy at Emanuel Church in Charleston, nearly 2,000 South Carolina citizens gathered at the SC State House to demand that lawmakers remove the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds.

The loss of nine people – murdered in their house of worship – has broken our hearts but strengthened our resolve to do what is right and decent.

It is way past time to retire the flag to its rightful place in a museum. If not now, when?

See more images from the June 20th rally in our photo album.

Whether canvassing neighborhoods, lobbying at the State House, or applying heat on the streets, grassroots activists must understand their history as well as the political and social landscape of the Palmetto State in order to be effective. To that end, the SC Progressive Network will offer its members in the Midlands a chance to enroll in the Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights‘ 2015 summer session.

One of the school’s prime missions is to teach grassroots activists the best practices for understanding, organizing and leading a movement for social justice in South Carolina. The 2015 summer session consists of six classes, held the first and third Mondays between June and August. Students will meet for 90-minute classes (45 minutes of instruction; 45 minutes of guided discussion) running 7pm-8:30pm at Conundrum Music Hall, 626 Meeting St. in West Columbia.

While initial classes will be limited to members who live in the Midlands and those willing to drive to Columbia, we plan to have the courses online this fall. Once the curriculum is refined and course guides posted, classes will be made available to students across the state.

Participation is limited to individual members of the SC Progressive Network. To enroll, prospective students must submit an application, indicate a commitment to attend all six classes and complete required homework. A $120 fee covers expenses, class materials, personal copies of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History and the book A Place at the Table.

Class fees can be paid monthly and scholarships are available. We encourage sponsorships by organizations and individuals.

Click here to download the Summer School application. Fill it out and email to network@scpronet.com. Got questions? Call 803-808-3384.

Summer School classes will be moderated by SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey, with the assistance of faculty advisers, each lending their own expertise and teaching skills. Class sizes will be limited to facilitate interaction.

In the fall, a new semester will repeat the core introductory courses, and add advanced classes to focus on specific issues and skills.

• • •   Class Schedule  • • •

June 1, People’s History of South Carolina, Part 1: Exploring the historic dynamics that shape the state’s politics and culture, from native people through the Civil War.

June 15, People’s History, Part 2: From Reconstruction to today.

July 6, Palmetto Politics: How our history influences our current democracy and civic engagement. This reality-based civics course is critical to enable activists to be effective political organizers.

July 20, SC Progressive Network History: The SC Progressive Network was founded in 1995 by activists with decades of experience working in this state’s mean vineyards. Much can be learned and gained from studying the work that has gone into one of the nation’s best models of state-based movement building.

Aug. 3, Strategy and Tactics: Crafting the sharpest tools for building and sustaining a popular movement for a revolution of social values. We will examine tactics ranging from armed insurrection to prayer; review strategists from Lao Tzu and Jesus, to Che, Malcolm X and MLK.

Aug. 17, Enough Theory; Let’s Practice! To graduate, our students will work on an actual organizing project. Over the years, the Network has started sound projects that didn’t gain the traction they deserve simply because we lack enough trained and dedicated organizers to carry them to completion. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we need to grease it.

The political theater being staged on the backs of our state’s working poor has gone from tragi-comedy to farce.

The Network anticipated that Gov. Nikki Haley, like other governors who refused to expand Medicaid, would promote a plan to privatize the federal funding. That way she could claim victory over Obama and keep the federal government from getting between a quarter of a million poor South Carolinians and the doctor they don’t have. Gov. Haley could direct the billions of returning tax dollars to health care-related corporations that, according to FollowTheMoney.org, have contributed more than $1.6 million to her political campaigns.

When the privatization scheme was promoted in April by moderate state senators who claimed it was the only way to get the much-needed health care funding, Gov. Haley confounded political prognosticators by promising to veto privatization.

Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at MIT, noted that the holdout states are “willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy in order to punish poor people.” Gruber, a free-market economist who helped design the ACA, has called Haley’s position “awesome in its evilness” and “political malpractice.”

Network director Brett Bursey recently met with one of the Republican Senate sponsors of a privatization waiver. The senator acknowledged that while the US must ultimately move towards the type of universal health care found in all other industrialized democracies, the only politically practical step to get health care for poor South Carolininans was privatization. He noted that Haley’s pursuit of higher office, combined with 2016 legislative elections that will inhibit a veto-overide, means our state’s most vulnerable people will continue to suffer. And our tax dollars will go elsewhere until a new governor takes office.

The Network will continue to oppose privatization of Medicaid while we do the long, hard work of building a movement with the power to punish politicians who treat our citizens as pawns in their selfish game.

Today, the Close the Gap coalition announced a legislative plan to accept Medicaid expansion. The group had asked members of the SC Progressive Network to turn out for its press conference, but wouldn’t reveal who the sponsors are or details of the bill. (A notice with the senators’ names and an acknowledgement that the group was calling for privatizing Medicaid expansion went out April 13, the day before the press conference.)

Unfortunately, the original solicitation didn’t mention support for privatizing Medicaid money, pointing to Arkansas as a model to emulate. The coalition didn’t mention that Arkansas is one of a few states that received a waiver to buy private insurance for the extremely poor, rather than simply provide them with Medicaid. The stated goals of the Arkansas Health Care Independence Act are to “reduce state and federal obligations to entitlement spending” and address the “need to achieve personal responsibility” for health care – rhetoric straight from Haley’s opposition to “Obamacare.”

Network activists lobby SC lawmakers to expand Medicaid.

At our Network’s fall conference, we predicted that Gov. Nikki Haley would favor privatization, but we didn’t expect “progressive” allies asking us to support such a plan. Our position then – as now – is that privatization of poverty isn’t about helping the poor but rather about subsidizing the free market.

Our erstwhile allies think that we can’t win on principle, so they offer to settle by dealing with the opposition on their terms. Sadly, the struggle they avoid is the only way we can build the ability to win.

Our position is that privatizing health care for the extremely poor is immoral. Our position is that health care should be a right and supported by tax dollars, as is done in all industrialized democracies.

We don’t want to doom a good thing by demanding a perfect thing, but we are far from that point. If we are going to surrender, we need to talk about it first. To that end, please read this story by Michael Hilzik that ran last year in the LA Times. The piece quotes an MIT economist, who says “holdout states are “willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy in order to punish poor people.” Gruber helped design the health insurance reform in Massachusetts on which the ACA was modeled. He added: “It really is just almost awesome in its evilness.”

Brett Bursey is executive director of the SC Progressive Network. Reach him at network@scpronet.com.

Modjeska Booklet Gets Legs

In  case you missed the story in Sunday’s The State newspaper about the SC Progressive Network’s Modjeska booklet, you can read it here. The booklet has been so well-received that we ordered a second printing. Copies are free, available at the Modjeska Simkins House, 2025 Marion St. in Columbia. This week, we are leaving copies with each of the state legislators, and the booklet is to be recognized on the floors of the House and Senate.

We have submitted a proposal to the Richland County Conservation Commission for funding a series of similar booklets about lesser-known activists. Suggestions welcome. Email becci@scpronet.com or call 803-808-3384.

Medicaid Expansion – the Struggle Continues

On March 4, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments that the Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies don’t apply in states like SC who refused to go along with the federal law. Gov. Nikki Haley is a party to the King v. Burwell suit, and is spending tax money to insure that the half a billion dollars in subsidies for health insurance that went to SC citizens this past year is stopped. We will be working the press to provide them with real people who will be hurt if the governor wins. Read The State’s recent story quoting Tim Liszewski, who worked as one of the Network’s Navigators.

City Water War

The Network has been a player in the citizens’ effort to stop the city of Columbia from privatizing its water system. It has been interesting to be invited to the table with the mainstream liberals who were our arm-length allies in the Richland County penny sales tax campaign – which they now acknowledge we played a significant role in getting passed by organizing bus riders. They recognize that we have a rapport with working people that they lack. The opponents of privatization had two days notice of a city council meeting that would be considering a resolution against selling the water. The Network was asked to turn out people and we did. 10 of the 12 people who spoke in opposition to privatization were our members. The issue appears dead for now.

Voting Rights Project Update

Our project to gather the affidavits necessary to file a lawsuit against the state for equal protection of students and ex-offenders is slowly moving forward. We have one ex-offender ready to sign on, and another considering. We are meeting with the state Probation, Parole and Pardon Office on March 4. We submitted questions to them last month regarding their practices and procedures for training their officers about their clients’ voting rights. They have promised answers on the 4th.

The SC Progressive Network is helping bring the internationally acclaimed documentary Shadows of Liberty to Columbia and Charleston, with interactive “talk-back” sessions after each screening.

On Wednesday, Feb. 18, the public is invited to Tapp’s Arts Center, 1644 Main St., downtown Columbia for the 7:30pm showing.

The documentary reveals the extraordinary truth behind the news media: censorship, cover-ups and corporate control. In highly revealing stories, renowned journalists, activists and academics give insider accounts of a broken media system. They include Amy Goodman, Danny Glover, Julian Assange, Dan Rather, David Simon Normon Solomon Bob Bear, Roberta Baskin, John Macarthur, Jeff Cohen and John Nichols. They recount how controversial news reports are suppressed, people are censored for speaking out, and lives are shattered as the arena for public expression is turned into a private profit zone.

Shadows Of Liberty is dedicated to the journalists and information freedom fighters, the heroes of our time, who dedicate their lives to our right to freedom of information – the central pillar of a free society. The film  provides a platform for voices that have been silenced and in doing so, attempts to inspire change and accountability. This film champions the idea of an independent media where truth and integrity are the norm, not the exception.

This screening kicks off the 7th Leg of the Shadows of Liberty Coast to Coast Screening & Media Reform Action Tour.

After the screening, Network Director Brett Bursey will moderate a discussion about the film and critical issues facing the media today. The panel includes:

Tickets are $7 and benefit Tapp’s, the SC Progressive Network, and the Shadows of Liberty Coast to Coast Screening & Media Reform Action Tour.

Film Website: www.shadowsofliberty.org
Film Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SAUborWbPw
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1188412

Share/RSVP on Facebook.

The Charleston screening will be held on Thursday, Feb. 19, at 7pm at the College of Charleston Tate Center. The event is being held in collaboration with the College of Charleston Department of Communication and Urban Studies Program, Media Reform South Carolina, the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church in Charleston, and the SC Progressive Network. The screening is free.

Health Care

We intend to keep educating and agitating for South Carolina to accept the Affordable Care Act. A couple of fights are looming this year, not withstanding our state’s refusal to participate in the ACA.

Medicaid Expansion

We see South Carolina applying for a “waiver” to take the federal funding but not use the Medicaid system to administer the billions of dollars to fund health care for 300,00 low-income adults. States have proposed a number of waivers, but the main similarity is block granting the Medicaid expansion money to the state. Anticipate an SC waiver application that would contract with private insurance companies, or health maintenance organizations, to make a profit off of administering Medicaid program.

While Medicaid has an average administrative cost of around 7%, for profit insurance providers increase the cost as much as 25% (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This 18% difference amounts to a reduction of service to patients of $252 million a year out our state’s estimated $1.4 billion annual Medicaid expansion funding. That’s more than enough to cover the revenue lost by the state’s ten largest hospitals by treating people with no insurance, or money. We have no reason to believe that the state of SC has the best interest of working people and minorities at heart. So, we will be organizing to turn out the masses at any federally mandated hearings on proposed waivers.

Marketplace insurance (Obamacare)

SC is one of 27 states that chose not to set up a state insurance marketplace that could have helped citizens get the ACA subsidized health insurance. Nine states partnered with the feds and 14 set up their own Marketplace. Over ten million citizens, 200,000 in SC, have taken advantage of the discounted health insurance. The average wage earner in SC, making around $23,000, could get a $4,300 “silver” policy for around $50 a month, or $600 a year. Not content with obstructing access to the ACA, SC is one of six states suing the federal government to stop subsidies for the nearly 200,000 South Carolinians signed up for health insurance.

Gov. Haley has taken the position that the original language in the ACA said that consumers would get subsidies through the Insurance Marketplaces set up by the states. Since SC refused to establish our own Marketplace, the feds stepped in and provided the service. In a bizarre move that has separated the true loons from the merely cold hearted, a shrinking number of Republican governors (6) signed on to a federal law suit (King v. Burwell) that argues that the working people who got discounted health insurance through the “federal” Marketplace should pay full price, because they didn’t get it through a “state” Marketplace, which our state refused to set up. South Carolinians, who got an average of an 80+% discount for their policy, could be billed for the several thousand dollars and most will lose their insurance.

The Network is filing an amicus brief supporting the governments position that the intent of the Affordable Care Act was affordable care, and not whether the federal subsidy reached the consumer via a state of federal marketplace. The case is scheduled to be heard by the US Supreme Court March 4.

Voting Rights

Ex-offenders

We are developing a lawsuit to address the unequal protection of the voting rights of ex-offenders and college students. The national ACLU has said they will take the case. The Director of the State Election Commission asked us sue them, because she can’t get the counties to enforce the laws in a uniform fashion.

Voting Machines

We have been working for the past 10 years with the nation’s lead organizations regarding verified voting systems. We will come up with parameters to guide the type of new voting system we expect the state to buy within the next year. The state election commission is putting together a “vendor fair” in the next few months to let companies showcase their wares. While there are some good systems being developed that will meet our parameters (open source, publicly owned, cheap to buy and use, voter verifiable paper trail) we will need to focus on seeing that whatever they buy, meets our specs. They will then form an evaluation committee to determine what RFP meets their needs. The Network as been invited to participate in the vendor fair later this year. It would not be a good idea for any legislator to introduce a bill regarding the type of voting system the state purchase without talking to us. We actually want to work up a plan that works. Not just file a bill to say we did. We want to help shape the Election Commission and County Directors position. They are the ones that can get a bill passed.

Ethics Reform

The Network is working with Common Cause to promote an independent investigation of legislative ethics violations, full disclosure of income and regulate campaign expenditures. We will continue to raise publicly financed elections as the best fix for the corrupting influenced of money on politics.

Racial Injustice

At our founding conference in 1995, the Network acknowledged that racism was our state’s most profound problem. In 2000, we released a study the showed the racial disparities in our criminal justice system were the worst in the nation. We then hosted town hall meetings to solicit citizen testimony on racial profiling, followed by the introduction of a bill to require “all cops to report all stops.” After 9/11, the bill languished until Gov. Sanford vetoed a mandatory seat belt bill that was required to get federal highway funding.

The Republican majority offered to support the racial profiling bill to get the Black Caucus to vote to over-ride the veto. It was a year after the bill passed that we discovered the five white legislators on the conference committee added the work “non-custodial” to the bill, changing the requirement for all stops to be reported, to all warning tickets be reported. In 2010, we did a ten year review of racial disparities and an audit of the pubic data base the Dept. of Public Safety has on their web site. Though the racial profiling law requires all 299 police agencies to report the race of those questioned in “non-custodial” stops each month, nearly half the agencies are not in compliance.

The 2010 study and a link to the DPS racial profiling site is on the Network web site under Projects. Our racial profiling study provides a tool kit for anyone in the state to engage their local police in a constructive dialogue regarding racial profiling. Rep. Joe Neal, the racial profiling bill’s original sponsor is planning to reintroducing legislation to add “all stops” to the data base. Our job is to lobby the heads of our local police agencies to endorse legislation that shows their communities that they do not practice, or condone, racial profiling.

Bills We’re Backing

S-172: Earned Sick Leave, Sen. Marlon Kimpson. We organized the witnesses for the bill at sub committee level last session and will do so again. Expect an ALEC sponsored ANTI-Sick Leave Bill to be filed again this session. Rep. William Sandifer, Chair of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee is an ALEC member and passed out an anti-worker-benefits bill last session without any public hearings or committee debate.

H-3031: Minimum wage of $10.10. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter. SC is one of five states with no minimum wage.

S-207 & H-3202: Whistleblower Act. Would protect and award public employees who report illegal or unethical acts.

S-148: Early voting, Sen. John Scott. While the Network has promoted an early voting bill for the past 12 years, nearly 20% of the voters are taking advantage of our “Early-in-person-absentee-with-excuse-voting” law that allows those with one of 15 excuses to vote in person, 30 days prior to the election. For the past few sessions, Alan Clemmons, the Republican chair of the House Election Law Subcommittee, has filed legislation to do away with early absentee. Clemmons argues that we should all vote in the same 12 hours “as a show of patriotism”. Clemmons, the primary sponsor of the photo-ID bill, seems to be committed to keeping fraud down by making it harder to vote.

S-48: Study Committee on Racial Profiling, Senators Gerald Malloy and Marlon Kimpson. “Study Committee on Racial Profiling” to review State and local law enforcement policies, practices, and procedures regarding racial profiling, and to make recommendations to the General Assembly regarding proposed changes to the laws regarding such policies, practices, and procedures.

Repeal Right to Work: Rep. Cobb-Hunter has offered to introduce a bill to repeal the Right to Work Act. This will be high drama and public education. We envision getting people from the unions to participate in a press conference in front of Nikki’s office. “I’m Velma Huggins I’m a union member and I deliver the governor’s mail. I’m Kenny Riley, I’m a union dockworker that has made the port of Charleston something the governor brags about. I’m Powell Caldwell, I’m a union member and I make sure that the governor gets her UPS packages. etc.”

Mis-classification bill: Rep. Neal introduced this for us last session and will do it again. He is waiting for us to find a Republican sponsor. This is a business friendly bill that Republicans have sponsored in other states to tighten up on contract employees.

Stand Your Ground Repeal: Rep. Harold Mitchell will be reintroducing a bill we worked up for him to take the clause out of the old Castle Doctrine that the NRA inserted in 2006. This is the clause that says you can use deadly force anywhere you are lawfully present – not just inside your castle.