Category Archives: SC News/Commentary

Movie Night to feature “The Shock Doctrine”

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Progressive Network Movie Night
Aug. 23, 7pm
Conundrum Music Hall, 626 Meeting St. West Columbia
Free and open to the public

Directed by award-winning filmmakers Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross (co-directors of THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO), THE SHOCK DOCTRINE is a feature (94 min.) documentary based on Naomi Klein’s bestselling book of the same name. THE SHOCK DOCTRINE is a gripping and incisive deconstruction of how free market policies have come to dominate the world through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries. THE SHOCK DOCTRINE radically challenges the myth that the global free market triumphed on the wings of democracy.

Both the film and the book argue that both big business and governments overexploit natural disasters, economic crises and wars with the very aim of pushing through radical free market policies. Naomi Klein calls this “disaster capitalism.” The film traces the doctrine’s beginnings in the radical theories of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, and its subsequent implementation over the past 40 years in countries as disparate as Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, Margaret Thatcher’s Great Britain, and most recently through the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Save SC embarrassment, money: eliminate lieutenant governor

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By John Crangle
SC Common Cause

The time is long past when the do-nothing job of lieutenant governor should be abolished. The taxpayers of South Carolina waste $1 million per year to have a part-time employee wear a purple robe and carry a wooden mallet three days a week from January to June and wait, usually in vain, for the governor to die, resign or get impeached.

Once in great while he votes to break a tie in the Senate. Of course, there is no reason a tie must be broken; a tie means the motion fails.

To keep hyperactive Andre Bauer busy, the Office of Aging was shifted to the lieutenant governor’s office. Of course, there is no reason a state agency could not do the job.

Otherwise, too often the lieutenant governor gets in trouble.

The current and previous lieutenant governors have been an embarrassment to the state. Ken Ard is the worst of the lot. His predecessor, Andre Bauer, was more the victim of low impulse control; Andre’s wild driving in a state car was more like a teenage kid on a Saturday night than a crooked politician.

There was a time (perhaps when the South Carolina Constitution was written in 1895) when the lieutenant governor might do something. Governors did die — life expectancy in the 1800s was only 40. And from 1900 to 1970, eight lieutenant governors were later elected as governors, but it has not happened since then; and only one lieutenant governor in the past half century has replaced a governor, when Gov. Donald Russell resigned in 1965.

The job has no future, as Adam Bean in a recent article clearly explained: Seven of the past eight lieutenant governors all tried and failed in their runs for governor; and the eighth failed in her run for Congress. Except for Earle Morris, it was the end of their political careers; and Morris ended his career in prison.

In the future, candidates for lieutenant governor will probably all be like Ken Ard — obscure figures with a thin resume. As the influence of newspapers and local television news fades, the monopolistic power of television political advertising has become blinding. This means that the candidate with little or no public record has a greater advantage than before. Whereas experienced state legislators have had to make many difficult votes on hard tax-and-spending issues, both Ard and Nikki Haley showed that doing nothing in public office is really an asset, allowing the candidate to create a Captain America persona of imaginary powers without showing the scar tissue of decades of political combat.

With enough campaign money, a candidate can buy himself a fake political identity just like he can buy a fake ID card. Big money buys political consultants, scripted TV ads and lots of air time. Even if the candidate is too homely to be fixed by the make-up lady, he can be computer enhanced and programmed on TV; the voters don’t have X-ray vision to see inside an empty head.

There will be no need for a lieutenant governor in the future as there is no need now. If the governor goes, the Constitution provides a line of succession to the president pro tem of the Senate and the speaker of the House. The latter two officers are well-equipped to take over. They have served many years in the General Assembly, and they have been selected by their colleagues, who have confidence in their ability and leadership. Such people (currently Sen. Glenn McConnell and Rep. Bobby Harrell) are much better equipped to be governor than Ken Ard, whose only prior office was as Florence County councilman. We can be assured that the president pro tem and the speaker will be able to work constructively with other legislators.

Eliminating the position of lieutenant governor will require a constitutional amendment. Both the Senate and House must vote by two-thirds super majorities to amend. At the next general election, the voters in referendum must approve the proposed amendment by majority vote; finally, both houses must vote by simple majority to ratify the amendment. This done, the useless office of lieutenant governor is thrown on the trash heap of history, and the taxpayers will save $1 million per year and whatever embarrassment and cheap laughs the future might otherwise hold.

John Crangle is a Columbia attorney and chair of Common Cause South Carolina, a longtime member of the SC Progressive Network.

Now’s your chance to weigh in with US Justice Dept. on SC’s new voter photo ID law

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If you, or someone you know has a hard time getting a state issued photo ID, download a Dept. of Justice Comment Form. Fill it out online and print it out (this form can not be saved and must be printed). Sign it and follow the mailing instructions at the end of the form.

Anyone can comment directly to the Department of Justice through email to: vot1973c@usdoj.gov. Put in subject line: “2011-2495: Comment”. Or comments can be mailed to:
Chief, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division
Room 7254 – NWB, Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20530
(Include the submission # 2011-2495 at the top of your letter.)
Or fax comments to the Dept. of Justice at 202-616-9514 with the same heading.

Got questions? Call the SC Progressive Network at 803-808-3384.

Michael Moore flick to launch Network’s free monthly movie night

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The SC Progressive Network has occasionally shown movies in the backyard of our office in Columbia. This month, we’re making it a regular attraction (every 4th Tuesday), beginning with Michael Moore’s Capitalism, A Love Story on July 26.

And because of the beastly weather, we’re moving indoors. The movie will be shown at Conundrum Music Hall, 626 Meeting St. in West Columbia at 6pm. (Big thanks to proprietor Tom Law for offering his new venue to us!) Free and open to the public. Popcorn on the house.

On Aug. 23, we will show the documentary Salud!, about Cuba’s health care system.

For more information, call the Network at 803-808-3384 or email network@scpronet.com.

Latest news from Network’s photo ID campaign

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On July 8, the SC Progressive Network held a second press conference on the photo ID law to clear up misconceptions repeated by the governor and lawmakers, and to invite the public to submit comments to the US Dept. of Justice, which is reviewing the new law to consider whether it abridges the minority vote.

See more photos from the media event here.

Below is a sample of the media coverage the press conference generated.

Group seeks those impacted by new SC voter ID law

JIM DAVENPORT, Associated Press
July 8, 2011
South Carolina voting rights advocates said Friday they are looking for voters who might not be able to have their votes counted next year under one of the nation’s toughest voter identification laws. The South Carolina Progressive Network is trying to identify some of the nearly 180,000 people who are now registered to vote but who lack the state- or federal-issued photographic identification called for under the new law. Those people would be able to cast provisional ballots, but would have to show the required identification within three days to have their votes counted. Read more:

Critics challenge ‘Voter ID’ plan

By GINA SMITH
The State
When Delores Freelon was born in 1952, her mother could not decide on a name for her. So the space on the birth certificate for a first name was left blank. In the decades since, the incomplete birth certificate did not prevent Freelon from getting her driver’s license and voter registration card in the various states she has lived, including Texas and Louisiana.
But a measure — already passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley — will create new hurdles for Freelon and others to vote. Read more:

Group aims to block voter ID law
Opponents push for rejection by U.S. Justice Dept.

BY YVONNE WENGER
The Post and Courier
COLUMBIA — The S.C. Progressive Network issued a warning Friday to the nearly 25,000 registered voters in the tri-county area without a state-issued photo ID: You could run into trouble the next time you go to the polls. The advocacy organization is urging the U.S. Department of Justice to reject a new South Carolina law that will require all voters to carry a picture ID to cast a ballot in future elections. The state’s Republican leadership pushed for the new law, citing a need to guard against voter fraud even though there has been no substantive proof of widespread voter fraud for years in the state. Read more:

Progressives Push to Stop Implementation of Voter ID Law

BY COREY HUTCHINS
Free Times
Five TV cameras, two reporters from The State, one from The Associated Press, a reporter from the Charleston Post & Courier and another from the South Carolina Radio Network, among others, swarmed around a podium in the lobby of the State House July 8, as South Carolina Progressive Network director Brett Bursey warned voters here that they might have trouble casting a ballot under a new state law. It comes during a time of a national pushback against such regulations.

Read more:

Governor, lawmakers mislead public on SC’s photo ID law, now under review at Justice Dept.

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SC Progressive Network to hold press conference to clear up misunderstanding and to invite public comment

The US Dept. of Justice is now receiving comments on South Carolina’s new photo ID law as it considers whether it abridges the minority vote. The SC Progressive Network will host a press conference at 11:45am on Friday, July 8, in the downstairs lobby of the State House to clear up public misunderstanding stemming from misinformation being repeated by the governor and GOP legislators.

The Network will share with reporters the only attachment supporting the state’s filing: a one-page letter from bill sponsor Rep. Alan Clemmons, who writes that he filed the bill because “It is an unspoken truth in South Carolina that election fraud exists.”

The Network, which for 15 years has been advocating voting rights, is making its case to the Dept. of Justice that our state’s ID law, the nation’s most restrictive, will suppress the vote, especially among seniors and the poor. In South Carolina, a birth certificate is required to get the state-issued card, and the law provides no exceptions, as do similar laws in other states.

It is clear that at least some of the estimated 200,000 registered SC voters who don’t have a photo ID will not be able to vote in the next election because they won’t have their papers in order.

The press conference will include the showing of a brief video clip of Gov. Nikki Haley signing the bill into law, where she defends the law by stating that a photo ID is necessary to buy Sudafed or to get on an airplane. To a reporters’ question about what sorts of ID are acceptable, Rep. Bobby Harrell says, “If you can fly with it (photo ID), you can vote with it.” That simply isn’t true.

At Friday’s press conference, two South Carolina voters will testify that, contrary to Gov. Haley and Rep. Harrell’s assertions, they can buy Sudafed and fly with the IDs they have; what they can’t do is vote in South Carolina.

The Progressive Network is collecting statements from people around the state who are having trouble meeting the state’s new ID requirements and will forward them to the Justice Department. Also, the public may make comments by email to: vot1973c@usdoj.gov. In the subject line put: “2011-2495: Comment”. Or comments may be faxed to: 202-616-9514.

For more information contact the SC Progressive Network at 803-808-3384 or network@scpronet.com. See background on the photo ID law and video clips of voters disenfranchised by the new law at SC Progressive Network.

New photo ID law makes it harder to vote in South Carolina than anywhere in the country

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By Becci Robbins
SC Progressive Network

You could forgive voters for being confused about South Carolina’s photo ID law. Debate on the bill went on so long their eyes glazed over years ago. It’s hard to be as charitable to Gov. Nikki Haley, who twists the truth every time she defends the law she helped push through.

The governor argues that if we need a photo ID to buy Sudafed or to board a plane, we should need one to vote. Sounds reasonable, but neither pharmacies nor airlines require a state-specific ID, as this law does. And to get a SC photo ID you need to produce a birth certificate. For some people, that’s a problem.

Finally, we are number one! Sadly, it’s in voter suppression.

These documents aren’t enough for Delores Freelon to vote.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has identified seven states as having the most restrictive photo ID requirements for voting: Georgia, Kansas, Texas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee and South Carolina. All require voters to show a photo ID, but states vary in what kind and how hard it is to get.

  • In Georgia, if voters are already registered, they automatically get a new photo ID voter registration card.
  • In Kansas, voters can use a driver’s license from out of state, any accredited college ID, or government-issued public assistance cards. Voters over 65 may show expired ID.
  • In Texas, you can get ID to vote with your concealed weapons permit, your boating license, insurance policy or beautician’s license. Or you can vote a provisional ballot if you will incur fees in order to vote. Voters over 70 are exempt.
  • In Indiana, those without a photo ID get their provisional vote counted by claiming the fees to get the required documents were a burden.
  • In Wisconsin, voters can use any state driver’s license, Social Security card or student ID.
  • In Tennessee, a driver’s license from any state allows you to vote.
  • In South Carolina, voters must produce a birth certificate to get the state-issued photo ID required to vote. No exceptions. (If you vote a provisional ballot, that won’t count unless you present your state-issued photo ID within three days.)

Numbers are hard to project, but it is clear that some of the nearly 200,000 registered South Carolina voters who don’t have their papers in order will not be able to vote in the next election.

Even though there are no cases of the kind of fraud this law is purported to prevent, our cash-strapped state will spend at least the $700,000 supporters say it will cost to implement. Opponents say it will cost two to three times that much to educate poll workers and the public about the new law. The governor has said you can’t put a price on the sanctity of the vote.

She should tell that to Delores Freelon, a Columbia resident and registered voter who won’t be able to vote in the next election because she has a Louisiana driver’s license and can’t get her birth certificate from California in time. What about the sanctity of her vote? What about Ms. Kennedy in Sumter, whose birth certificate lists her first name as Baby Girl, meaning she’ll have to go to court to get her papers straight in order to get a photo ID? Or Larrie Butler, who was born at home in Calhoun County in 1926 and is being told he needs records from an elementary school that no longer exists in order to establish a birth certificate?

Stories like these are coming in from around the state. The SC Progressive Network, which for 15 years has been advocating for voting rights, is fielding calls from people with questions about the new law or having problems meeting the ID requirements.

The lucky ones will still get to vote, but only after jumping through hoops and paying fees at various state agencies. Some will have to amend their birth certificates by going to court, at considerable cost. People without a car, a computer or short on money are simply out of luck. The disenfranchised will be primarily seniors and the poor. Many of them will be people of color who have voted all their lives.

The Network is working to educate the public about the new law.

This quiet whittling away of the vote is no accident. It is, in fact, the point. It’s the pattern being repeated in GOP-controlled legislatures across the country.

In South Carolina, we have a brief chance to challenge this law. Because of our state’s history of disenfranchising people of color, ours is one of seven states that must get pre-clearance from the US Dept. of Justice (DOJ) before new voting laws can go into effect. Once the state attorney general files the case, DOJ has up to 60 days to consider whether the law suppresses the minority vote.

The SC Progressive Network is gathering statements to forward to DOJ documenting voters’ experiences. We need volunteers around the state to help find citizens who will have a hard time meeting the new voting requirements. If you want to help, call the Network at 803-808-3384 or see scpronet.com for details.

See video clips of Delores Freelon and Larrie Butler telling their stories.

Another casualty of the SC voter photo ID law

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Delores Freelon will not be able to vote in the next election because she can’t meet the requirements of the new photo ID law in time. She is one of nearly 200,000 South Carolina voters who don’t have a current, state-issued photo ID at risk of being disenfranchised. Please help us get this law thrown out. Call 803-808-3384 or see scpronet.com for details.

Southern states seek end run around Justice Department over redistricting

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By Chris Kromm
Facing South, Institute for Southern Studies

If you’re a Republican legislator eager to redraw your state’s political lines to your party’s favor in time for the 2012 elections, but fear opposition from a state Democratic attorney general and the Obama Justice Department, what to do?

Sneak little-noticed language into the bottom of a budget bill that allows you to bypass your redistricting foes, of course — even if it could end up costing your state time and money in the process.

At least that’s the approach favored by GOP lawmakers in the battleground state of North Carolina, and based on a similar strategy used in Texas and other Southern states this spring.

N.C. House Republicans hoped their plan would largely fly under the radar of Democrats and the media. But it was unintentionally made public last week, when a microphone was left on during a closed-door GOP caucus strategy session, causing the proceedings to be directly broadcast to the state press corps.

The plan revealed by mic-gate: Instead of submitting North Carolina’s redistricting plan to the Department of Justice — where it needs pre-clearance because 40 of the state’s counties are covered by the Voting Rights Act — the GOP law would allow the state’s Legislative Services Commission to directly present the plan to a district court in D.C.

That would allow the Republican-drawn lines to bypass being approved by the Department of Justice, which would merely be an opposing party in the case if it has objections.

The leaked audio has House Speaker Thom Tillis describing the plan, which he also warned was “extremely sensitive” and shouldn’t be publicly discussed:

The plan all along has been to submit this to the courts, rather than the Department of Justice, since this will be the first redistricting plan under the Voting Rights Act submitted to a DOJ controlled by Democrats, let alone Obama.

Just as important, the Republican measure would allow lawmakers to remove the state attorney general — in this case Democrat Roy Cooper — from representing the state.

As Jason Kay, a lawyer for Tillis and former staffer of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law — one of several conservative groups largely backed by Raleigh retail millionaire Art Pope — was caught openly mocking Cooper in the session:

[The Republican bill] allows the client [the state legislature] to have control over the attorney in the litigation … We could fire [Roy Cooper] or we could ask him if he’s just so confused and conflicted that he’s not able to represent his client effectively anymore.

Kay’s candid comments are especially interesting given the role his previous benefactor, Republican donor Art Pope, has played in the redistricting battle. As Facing South revealed last fall, an outside group in part coordinated by Pope funneled $1.25 million from the Republican State Leadership Committee in 2010 with the express purpose of helping N.C. GOP candidates take over the legislature in time for redistricting. Art Pope’s family foundation supplied nearly all of the money for Kay’s salary when he worked at the right-wing N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law.

A Costly Strategy

The idea isn’t original: Texas Republicans filed a similar bill in April allowing the state to take their redistricting plan directly to court and bypass the DOJ — although the Texas version allows their attorney general, a Republican, to represent the state in court.

It’s also all clearly within the law. But one reason most states haven’t used the option is because, aside from drawing criticism from Democrats and civil rights groups, going directly to court has two major drawbacks: It’s expensive and usually very slow.

“[Going to the Justice Department] is more informal,” election law expert Rick Hasen told Facing South. “You don’t need to hire a lawyer.”

If North Carolina does go straight to court, it will face all of those court expenses, including hiring a lawyer — most likely Thomas Farr, a Republican attorney who has handled redistricting cases before and is considered the likely choice for the GOP’s scheme.

Indeed, state GOP house leader Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam joked in the secret meeting that “Y’all [Republicans] need to be raising money for our outside counsel for after session adjourns.”

But if Farr or another Republican-friendly attorney is hired through the Legislative Services Commission, North Carolina taxpayers — not just GOP lawmakers — could end up picking up the tab.

Ironically, the straight-to-court strategy has another possible drawback: It takes more time. “The DOJ process is much (much) faster,” according to Justin Levitt, who runs the very useful All About Redistricting website from his perch at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

That’s why Louisiana and Virginia, in addition to taking their redistricting cases to court, are simultaneously seeking approval from the DOJ for their plans, in hopes of getting them approved more quickly.

What’s more, the proposed North Carolina law wouldn’t stop Attorney General Roy Cooper from filing suit against the redistricting plan if he felt it violated the state constitution.

In other words, the N.C. GOP’s once-secret redistricting scheme will likely be expensive, time-consuming and won’t stop Democrats from presenting legal obstacles to their plan.

“It’s more political theater than substance,” reasons Justin Levitt. Especially now that everyone in North Carolina knows about it.