By Brett Bursey
Director, SC Progressive Network

The last couple of weeks of hearings in the House and Senate on voting reform legislation have gone a little better than expected. Not to say we are winning, but we have mixed results. We can anticipate that there will be an early voting bill passed out this session. The best version (the one we sponsored), H-3608 (Mack-D Charleston) was the only one of six early voting bills to come out of subcommittee. We had to give up the Same Day Registration aspect of the bill that allowed citizens to register to vote between 15 and three days before the election to get it out of subcommittee. Rep. Bakari Sellers (D-Orangeburg), who is on the House Judiciary Election Laws subcommittee, did a magnificent job moving the bill to the full committee.

Our sponsor of the Early Voting bill in the Senate, S-369 (Leventis, D-Sumter) testified at a Senate Judiciary subcommitee April 2 about the practicality and benefits of registering voters during the early voting period. We presented Michael Dickerson, the Ex. Director of the Mecklenburg Co. Board of Elections, to testify about how that county, with 600,000 voters, runs its early voting system. Dickerson told the subcommittee (Senators Campsen, Cleary, and Scott) that the county that includes Charlotte uses the exact same machines to vote as we do in SC. Dickerson said that the system has bipartisan support, the citizens and the election workers love it, and it saves money.

Sen. Campsen (R-Charleston) has a voting reform bill that calls for early voting as we experienced it in 2008, but without having to have an excuse. Campsen’s bill calls for early voting only at the county election office — no satellite facilities — and includes photo ID’, doing away with fusion voting, and increasing the penalties for fraud. It is the worst bill we can come out of this session with, but will still be better than what we have by allowing “no excuse early voting.” The election workers testified that Campsen’s bill would overwhelm the county offices and make the elderly and infirm wait in line with thousands of other voters.

Hearings in the Senate will continue, probably on April 16, and we will continue to argue for our early voting bill that calls for satellite facilities, and same-day registration. We are considering offering as a compromise applying photo ID requirements to those who register at the early voting centers. This would impact only a small percentage of voters (in Mecklenburg, only 2,000 out of 120,000 were Same Day Registrants), not impact the elderly, rural and minority voters who may not have photo IDs, and give the Republicans who demand photo IDs a face-saving victory. Accepting any form of photo ID is controversial among our allies, and we need to reach a consensus on this.

The bill to restrict petition candidates (S-590 & H-3208) will probably pass the House and is in the Senate subcommittee. The Senate sponsor of the bill, Brad Hutto (D-Orangeburg) assures us that he will narrow it to only apply to citizens not being able to sign a petition for a candidate for an office they voted for in a primary. The bill would currently prohibit a voter from signing a petition for a candidate for ANY office if they voted in a primary, even if there were no candidate for the office they wanted to sign a petition for.

The bill calls for petition candidates to have to file notice of their intention to run by March 30, prior to the general election. This deadline has been held unconstitutional by the courts, and Sen. Hutto is willing to consider moving the filing date for petition candidates back to the Aug 15 deadline for third-party candidates.

By Charlie Smith, Charleston, SC

A distant relative of mine on both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family (yes, I am a native South Carolinian) was once elected to the office now held by Governor Mark Sanford. One of the sayings that got him elected and kept him in office as a noted 20th century…yes 20th Century…Governor and later U.S. Senator was his declaration that “To educate a nigger is to ruin a good field hand.” Sayings like this and equally offensive daily rants during his tenure as Governor and later as US Senator were designed to pit poor white upstate millworkers and sharecroppers against African Americans and against the evil politically dominant Charleston “aristocrats” and “dandies”; the kind of man he described as “…some fellow who does nothing, lives on his daddy’s name and doesn’t pay his debts.”; and more colorfully as those who “fiddled away their nights watching decadent theater shows, yelling with delight at a foul mouth Yankee woman and a man dressed as “The Pink Lady.”

As governor, Coleman Livingston Blease fought with all his might against a law that would require all children under the age of fourteen in South Carolina to attend school. He preached against this legislation to poor whites ranting that “The Bible says a great deal about obedience to parents and reverence for parents and believing in the Book and its teachings, as I do. I say to the parents, and for the sake of their children, our country and for their future, keep within your own control the rearing and education of your own children.”

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Speech delivered by the Rev. Dr. Neal R. Jones, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, (a member of the SC Progressive Network) at the April 1 People’s Stimulus Rally

A great teacher once told a story that went something like this: Once upon a time, a man was traveling down a winding, dangerous road, and he was set upon by thieves, who beat him and robbed him and left him half dead. By chance, a priest was traveling down that same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. Later, a Levite came down the road, and when he saw the man, he too passed by on the other side. Then a Samaritan came upon the man, and when he saw him, he had compassion, and he went to him, bound up his wounds, and took him to an inn where he could be cared for. Jesus concluded his Parable of the Good Samaritan by telling his listeners, “Go and do likewise.”

This story was told long ago, but it is as current as today’s news. For the people of South Carolina have been left lying in the ditch, beaten down by the second highest unemployment rate in the country. We have been robbed of our health insurance. Over 300 persons per day are losing their health insurance in South Carolina, so that 16 percent of us are uninsured, one of the highest rates in the country. We have been wounded by a ìcorridor of shameî that runs through the heart of our state, where our neediest children have been consigned to a ìminimally adequateî education, as if that were morally adequate. We have suffered from a minimum wage that is not a livable wage and does not reward the hard work or respect the dignity of working people.  In the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, all Americans are hurting, and South Carolinians are hurting the most.

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Today I received a letter from you in response to a letter I wrote you regarding the Employee Free Choice Act. To say I was disheartened at your response was the understatement of the year.

You stated that you believe that employees and employers are entitled to fair, confidential, and democratic elections when it comes to the decision of unionization. You further stated that you wanted to guarantee employees free choice by secret ballot without intimidation or pressure presumably by union organizers. What you fail to realize is the pressures Corporations put on their employees when it comes to the “so called elections”.

In the current corporate-controlled process, it’s not free choice when management can bombard employees with anti-union messages anywhere, anytime in the workplace while workers can talk about the union only on break time and only in the break area, and union organizers have no right to set foot in the workplace. Further, I take you to the case of Gary E. McClain, a constituent of yours, who worked for Pactiv Corporation. Mr. McClain was picked up by the local sheriff, committed, and drugged against his will for daring to suggest that the union be allowed to speak.

You talk very highly of protecting one’s right to vote in your letter, but you fail to acknowledge that a majority of people wanting to unionize is a democratic process. You ignore current companies such as AT&T, Kaiser Permanente, and Harley Davidson, who accept a majority sign-up as the employee’s voice. Finally, how is a majority of working men and women who choose to act as a bargaining unit anything but a democratic process?

You also argue in your response to my letter that by requiring management to go to mediation or binding arbitration if the first contract is not agreed to within 120 days put an unfair burden on management. Again, you are lacking in your facts. Management typically will drag its feet when it comes to a first contract with the hopes of breaking apart the union and reversing the vote by false promises. Additionally, here in South Carolina, the Department of Labor has a full-time mediator on staff whose job it is to mediate between employee, employer, and even the union. Mediation services are not binding arbitration or a cost of thousands of dollars. Mediation is where an independent person goes back and forth to discuss the issue and help establish an agreement.

Finally, you fail to mention in your letter just what companies are sponsoring and giving money to the anti-employee free choice act; companies such as Bank of America, who if memory serves me correctly, got $45 billion of my tax money in a bail-out. Companies such as Citigroup who received $50 billion hard-earned middle class tax dollars. Finally, let’s examine how Chairman and CEO Frank Blake advocated for the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and is now leading the charge against the Employee Free Choice Act.

Let me ask you the following: were you influenced by the fact that the Home Depot PAC gave you $6000 between 2002 and this year? Or how about the $4,650 you received in 2008 from Citigroup? Or even the $3000 you received in 2008 from Bank of America. Please, let us South Carolinians know just how much your vote for our rights costs – we would be real interested to know.

Best regards,

Nancy Seufert

Proud Member of the AFGE Local 1869

North Charleston, SC

April 1, 5:30 – 6:30pm • State House, Columbia

Gov. Mark Sanford is refusing to take $700 million in stimulus money that South Carolinians will have to pay for even if we don’t use.

Tell the governor to quit grandstanding at our expense!

If the governor does not sign the stimulus agreement by April 3, thousands of South Carolina’s teachers and public safety employees risk losing their jobs, and student will face increased tuition costs at our colleges and universities.

Join teachers, public workers and students who are facing cutbacks, layoffs and increasing debts to tell the governor it’s OUR money!

Instead of pouring our money into bailing out wealthy bankers, we need government investments that create new jobs, provide health care and quality education for all, end the foreclosure epidemic and support sustainable, clean energy.

If you cannot attend the rally but want to make your voice heard, please contact the governor by calling 803-734-2100, faxing 803-734-5167 or by emailing from the governor’s web site.

The rally is sponsored by the SC Progressive Network. For details, call 803-808-3384.

By Becci Robbins
SC Progressive Network

Debate continued today on the 24-hour mandate bill that would require a woman have a “period of reflection” after obtaining an ultrasound before terminating a pregnancy. The Senate session was held in a room too small to accommodate the crowd, so many of us stood in the hallway craning to hear, just one more indication that this body has no real interest in including the public in its deliberations.

The discussion centered on the question of whether the bill caused an undue burden for women, especially in rural areas, who would have to take off two days of work or classes, or provide child care so they could make two trips to one of the three clinics in SC that provide abortion services.

To help minimize that burden, Kevin Bryant (the same Senator who got into trouble because he had a “funny” post on his blog saying the only difference between Obama and Osama was just a little BS) offered a compromise that would allow women to get their ultrasound at a “crisis pregnancy center,” of which there are many in South Carolina. The argument is that a woman could get an ultrasound at any number of facilities, making it easy to fulfill the requirement.

At least three problems, as I see it. One: the people providing ultrasounds at these CPCs, as they are referred to by folks in the field, are not licensed. Two: going to one of these facilities would still require at least another half-day off, and the expense of a second ultrasound. Three: the people at these facilities are in the business of steering women, with sometimes unsound and unsavory practices, into carrying pregnancies to term. 

I know this because as a reporter a decade ago I went undercover into Birthright of Columbia, one of many of such facilities in South Carolina, posing as a woman with an unwanted pregnancy. I wrote a story about my experience, and it was unsettling. The “counselor” was coercive and heavy handed, trying his best to convince me to carry the pregnancy to term and that “we” would put the baby up for adoption.

Funneling women into these CPCs is the last thing we need to be doing. As benign as it may look on the surface, don’t be deceived. This is yet one more attempt to dissuade women from making decisions for themselves and giving power to people in the business of manipulating and frightening women with sometimes flat-out false information (such as the abortion/breast cancer link).

The full committee will meet next week to take up the bill. Please contact the Medical Affairs Committee and tell them to vote NO on H-3245. Email your senator: by clicking here.