Tag Archives: Brett Bursey
Heading to the polls? Keep this number handy: 866-OUR-VOTE
A nonpartisan hotline is now live for voters in South Carolina who have voting-related questions or want to report problems they experience or witness at the polls.
The Election Protection Coalition, in alliance with in-state nonpartisan organizations, is working to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to vote in South Carolina. In addition to the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, trained nonpartisan volunteers will be on the ground across the state to provide voters assistance at the polls on Election Day.
“This will be the 12th year that this free, nonpartisan service has helped South Carolina voters with problems at the polls,” said SC Progressive Network Education Fund Director Brett Bursey. “Beyond providing help to voters, reports to the hotline provide the only nonpartisan, real-time, statewide audit of the state’s election system that helps identify problems to address before the next election.”
By calling the hotline, voters can confirm their registration status, find their polling location, and get answers to questions about proper identification at the polls.
Voters who have been required to vote a provisional ballot should call the hotline for advice prior to the certification hearing on their provisional ballot that take place in each county’s election office on Nov. 6.
“Voters must be aware that the state’s photo ID requirements will be enforced for voting in person at all locations” said Susan Dunn, attorney for the ACLU of South Carolina. All voters are required to show a valid ID that includes: driver’s license, DMV-issued ID card, passport, concealed weapons permit, federal military ID, or their photo-voter registration card with them to the polls on Election Day.
Dunn said, “We recommend to voters without one of the accepted IDs to trade their paper voter registration card in at their county elections office for one with a photo on it.”
Network and allies press DHEC to take mandatory measures on COVID guidelines for workers
Workers invited to provide legal testimony
Organizations representing scores of thousands of members across the state sent a letter today to the Board of the SC Dept. of Health and Environmental Control citing DHEC’s authority, and responsibility, to issue and enforce mandatory compliance with the agency’s COVID-19 safety measures. The organizations represent the public at risk, as well as the workers and their families who are being required to work or face being fired for following Gov. Henry McMaster and DHEC’s advice to follow CDC guidelines during the pandemic.
“It is clear that urging citizens and employers to mask up and follow safety guidelines isn’t working,” said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, Executive Director of CASA Family Systems, an Orangeburg-based shelter for battered women and children. “The virus has become a political issue, and DHEC must stand up for science or we are all going to continue to suffer,” Cobb-Hunter said.
SC NAACP President Brenda Murphy stressed the disproportionate impact of the virus on working people of color. “Those most vulnerable to the disease are the least protected workers,” Murphy said. “They fear getting fired if they challenge unsafe conditions at work.”
The letter to the DHEC Board points out that the governor’s Executive Order declaring a State of Emergency ordered DHEC to “utilize any and all necessary and appropriate emergency powers, as set forth in the Emergency Health Powers Act (Title 44, Chapter 4 of the SC Code of Laws) that regulates your agency: During a state of public health emergency, DHEC must use every available means to prevent the transmission of infectious disease and to ensure that all cases of infectious disease are subject to proper control and treatment.”
SC AFL-CIO Charles Brave Jr. said, “The governor wants to sound like he has no enforceable authority to require that COVID guidelines be followed, but we know that’s not true. His priority of keeping corporate profits up and workers’ rights down is killing people.”
The Charleston Alliance for Fair Employment (CAFE) fights for wage workers in the hospitality and service industries. “Our members don’t have sick leave, and will get fired if they don’t show up for work,” said CAFE President Kerry Taylor. “Many of them are single mothers who are forced to work sick or lose their income if they have to stay home with a sick child.”
“The pandemic underscores how cruel public policies are in South Carolina,” said Brett Bursey, Executive Director of the SC Progressive Network‘s 24-year-old nonpartisan policy institute. The state has a long history of sacrificing workers’ health for corporate profit.”
The Network fought legislation introduced in 2013 to prohibit local governments from establishing sick leave policies to prevent sick workers from spreading diseases. In 2017, Gov. McMaster signed the anti-sick leave legislation into law.
The bill was promoted by the same hospitality corporations that comprised the governor’s accelerateSC task force that contributed over $21,000 to his current campaign account. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee, which passed the Hospitality Task Force’s $2 billion COVID relief budget last month, received over $100,000 in campaign contributions from the same hospitality industry that relies on low-wage service workers with no sick leave. They did this without a public hearing.
Workers and their families threatened by the state’s failure to adequately address the continuing spread of the virus and their potential loss of employment are encouraged to contact the Network at 803-808-3384 or email network@scpronet.com. Fast food workers should address their concerns to CAFE at kerryt33@gmail.com. Workers testimony is needed to develop a legal case seeking to compel state agencies compliance with existing statutes regulating health emergencies.
Hell no, he still won’t go!
See special edition of The Gamecock recounting what happened after Bursey’s arrest and revelation that his partner in the incident, Jack Weatherford, was an undercover cop.
In face of pandemic, Modjeska Simkins School retools spring session
Instead of hugs and handshakes, students gathering for the first day of the spring session of the Modjeska Simkins School were greeted at the door with hand sanitizer and cleansing wipes. As the Palmetto State comes to terms with the growing coronavirus threat, some students opted to join through video conferencing. It is a sign of the times.
Today, after wide criticism for his slow response to the crisis, Gov. Henry McMaster cancelled classes in the state’s public schools for the rest of the month. Colleges across South Carolina have extended their spring breaks and are preparing to move their classes online.
The Modjeska Simkins School has decided to delay its next class for two weeks, and to live stream the rest of the session. “Being online will be a challenge,” said SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey, “but we are looking forward to learning new ways of doing things that will help us expand our distance learning capacity. Eventually, we’d like to make the school available to anyone, anywhere. This will help move us in that direction.”
The session will be led by Dr. Robert Greene (Claflin University). Joining him will be Dr. Todd Shaw (USC political science and African American studies), Dr. Jon Hale (USC education history), Dr. Alison McCletchie (USC sociology and anthropology), activist Kevin Gray, and special guests. Classes will be held on alternate Monday evenings through mid-July.
The class of 28 is made up of students with varied interests and backgrounds. The youngest is in 10th grade; the eldest is in her 80s. “We are impressed with this class,” Bursey said. “It will be a different experience for these students than those in years past, but we are confident it will be no less powerful.”
For more about the school, see the web site. Follow on Facebook.
SC Election Protection Hotline Now Live for Presidential Primary
The nation’s largest nonpartisan voter protection coalition, in alliance with various in-state groups, is ensuring that everyone has an equal opportunity to vote in South Carolina. Election Protection’s 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline is an important resource for any voter who has questions or is experiencing problems at the polls. In addition, Election Protection volunteers will be on the ground across South Carolina to provide voters assistance.
“This will be the 12th year that this free, nonpartisan service has helped South Carolina voters with problems at the polls,” said SC Progressive Network Education Fund Director Brett Bursey. “The calls to the hotline provide the only real-time, statewide audit of our election system that helps us to identify and address systemic problems.”
Voters are urged to report problems that they experience or witness, so officials can see patterns and improve our election system.
Because not all polling places will be open on Feb. 29, voters should check the hotline or go to Find My Polling Place at scvotes.org. This is the first statewide use of our new voting machines that produce a paper ballot. Voters should verify their ballot was marked correctly prior to inserting it in the scanner. If the ballot does not reflect their choice, voters can turn it in to a poll worker and vote again.
“Voters must be aware that the state’s photo ID requirements will be enforced for voting in the 2020 presidential preference primary,” said Susan Dunn, attorney for the ACLU of South Carolina. All voters are required to bring either a valid driver’s license, DMV-issued ID card, or their photo-voter registration card with them to the polls on Election Day. Dunn pointed out that registered voters with a “reasonable impediment” to not having a photo ID will be allowed to vote, and the votes will be counted without the voter having to appear to defend their ballot at the county certification hearing. “We recommend voters without one of the accepted ID’s is to trade their old paper registration card at their county elections office for one with a photo on it,” Dunn said.
By calling the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, voters can confirm their registration status, find their polling location, and get answers to questions about proper identification at the polls. Voters are encouraged to report any problems with the voting process to Election Protection.
Spanish language assistance is available at 1-888-Ve-Y-Vota (1-888-83-9-8682) or veyvota.org.
Voter Reminders
- Verify your registration status to ensure that you can vote.
- Confirm your polling location, even if it has been in the same place for years.
- Bring required ID, and know your rights regarding providing identification.
- Prepare your registered friends and neighbors, and bring them to the polls!
June 2: the U.S. vs. Pitts and Bursey
As part of the Modjeska Simkins School‘s Sunday Social series, the public is invited to hear recovering attorney Lewis Pitts on June 2 at the temporary HQ of the SC Progressive Network, 2015 Marion St., downtown Columbia 4-6pm. Pitts is a dynamic speaker with an impressive resume and a trove of stories from the trenches. He will be joined by his former client and longtime friend Brett Bursey. The event is free and open to all.
• • •
Lewis Pitts was so dismayed by the legal profession that, after 43 years of practice, he asked the NC State Bar to allow him to resign. He was disturbed by the growing tendency of attorneys and law firms to put profit before the people they were supposed to serve.
“My resignation is because I see an overall breach by the Bar as a whole of the most basic of professional conduct and ethics such that I do not want be be associated with the Bar,” Pitts wrote in a 2014 letter to the Bar. “I do not mean to be mean or flippant. The ministry of law has been a powerful force in my life and I have had the pleasure of working with many terrific people in pursuit of justice — lawyers and non-lawyers. I want these parting words to stir your minds and hearts into reflection, boldness, and transformational action.”
The case went to the state Supreme Court, where Pitts was granted the exit he sought.
A South Carolina native, Pitts graduated from Wofford College and USC’s law school. He practiced in DC and spent nearly 20 years at Legal Aid of North Carolina, where he founded the statewide children’s unit and fought the schools-to-prison pipeline.
Pitts was Network Director Brett Bursey’s lawyer after he was arrested for threatening President George Bush with a “No War for Oil” sign. (Read about the case in this blog post.)
Lewis Pitts (from left), Network Director Brett Bursey, and attorney Jay Bender outside the federal court house in Columbia, where they led a “free speech pay-in” to help cover court costs in Bursey’s trial.
Bursey and Lewis go way back. Pitts represented the Natural Guard protesters at the Bomb Plant (Savannah River Site), and decided to go to jail with them. He was an attorney in Karen Silkwood’s wrongful death suit, took part in civil disobedient arrests at nuclear facilities around the country, and was lead attorney in the successful civil suit against the Klan and Nazis for the murder of five Greensboro activists in 1979. (Watch “88 Seconds in Greensboro” on Vimeo.)
“From my earliest days as a lawyer, I have been concerned that the role of our profession has been to serve and protect the political and business establishment and not to uphold rule of law,” Pitts wrote in his resignation letter. (Read the letter here.)
He told a Greensboro reporter that there was no single incident that made him want to step away. “It was like the hypocrisy was eating me physically and psychologically.” He called his appeal “a desperate plea” in “some explosive times when the rule of law really needs to mean something. I guess it’s time for our profession to undergo a moral checkup.”
Lewis is in Columbia to teach a class of the Modjeska Simkins School. See excerpt from his 2017 class lecture on the evolution of corporations in the United States on our YouTube channel.
Brett Bursey and Becci Robbins at the Lexington County detention center Oct. 3, 2002, upon his release after being arrested for protesting President George Bush.
Want to up your activist game? Apply for the spring session of the Modjeska Simkins School
The public is invited to apply for the spring session of the Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights, which begins March 18 and runs through June 24. The school, a project of the SC Progressive Network, was launched in 2015 as a leadership institute for activists to learn a people’s history of South Carolina, hone their organizing skills, and help grow a movement for social justice in the Palmetto State. This will be the school’s fourth session.
“The school is exceeding even our most hopeful expectations,” said Network Director Brett Bursey. “The students have been deeply engaged in class discussions, and graduates have gone on to do impressive things, from serving on the boards of nonprofits, to researching and crafting a campaign to end gerrymandering in South Carolina, to starting a podcast for young activists, to staging tours of the State House grounds and offering a more honest historical narrative about who the monuments memorialize, and when and why they were erected.”
One of the creators of the monument tours is USC’s Student Services Manager Dr. Sarah Keeling, who attended the Modjeska School in 2017. An activist with the Columbia group Standing Up For Racial Justice, Keeling said, “At the Modjeska School, I learned South Carolina history that I was never taught in school and how that history impacts the lives of South Carolinians today. The school gave me a solid foundation from which to build my organizing skills.”
Kyle Criminger, a graduate of the school’s inaugural class in 2015, now serves as a Network co-chair and is the lead organizer for the organization’s Fair Maps campaign to allow citizens rather than politicians to draw district maps. “The Modjeska School took us on a haunted, enthralling trek through South Carolina’s stolen and denied history, giving me a long view and a wide perspective on the problems here,” Criminger said. “The ongoing practicum I am working on with fellow graduates allows us to carry out a shared commitment to the values and principles that South Carolinians like Modjeska Simkins herself have held and lived by. That’s why I say that the School is a complete program and national model for community organizing.”
Graduates Daniel Deweese and Wayne Borders cofounded the New Legacy Project, the Network’s youth coordinating body, which meets twice a month in Columbia.
The school has attracted students of all ages, backgrounds, and interests. The youngest was Rose, the 10-year-old daughter of Graham Duncan, a historian at USC’s Caroliniana Library and Modjeska School faculty member, who helped run PowerPoint presentations. The oldest was 85-year-old Mary Bolden, a former Army officer and Vietnam War veteran.
Classes are held 6-8pm on alternate Monday evenings at the Network’s building at 2015 Marion St., downtown Columbia. The session also includes Sunday Socials, guest lectures on various historical and political topics that are free and open to the public.
Students of all ages, backgrounds, and interests are welcome to attend the Modjeska School. They must fill out an application, complete a brief telephone interview, and commit to attending all classes – barring emergencies or illness. This is a course for serious students, and includes lengthy reading assignments. The deadline to apply is March 1. Some scholarships are available.
Classes are held 6:30-8:30pm on alternate Monday evenings at the Network’s building at 2015 Marion St., downtown Columbia. Tuition is $210, which includes class materials and a copy of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. The session also includes Sunday Socials, guest lectures on various historical and political topics that are free and open to the public.
Anyone interested in attending is asked to call the Network’s office at 803-808-3384 for an application. Visit the web site for the class schedule, more about the school, and a list of faculty and advisors.
The graduating class of 2017
Building The Wall; it’s more than a play
Brett Bursey
Executive Director, SC Progressive Network
When the LA Times ran its review of Building the Wall last March, the headline said the play “imagines the unimaginable.” That was then.
When the Network was invited to a preview performance of the play at Trustus Theatre in April, I remember the conversations speculating as to whether Donald Trump would still be president in October, and whether the wall would still be an issue.
Six months later, Trump is still president and, as of Aug. 31, the Department of Homeland Security has awarded contracts to four companies to build prototypes of the wall. The winner of the contest will get a slice of the $1.8 billion in the president’s 2018 budget to begin building it. The budget also includes funding for 10,000 new beds in private prisons to house those without the proper papers.
In South Carolina, four counties have signed 287g contracts with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency with the chilling acronym of ICE. Law enforcement authorities in Charleston, Lexington, York and Horry counties have agreed to make deputies in their jails available for training by ICE, and have them carry out immigration enforcement duties, like checking the immigration status of everyone booked into their county jails. In addition, deputized officers have broad discretion in the decision to issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) to initiate removal proceedings or negotiate a Voluntary Departure.
The counties then call ICE to come and get undocumented prisoners, who are then sent – often after just 48 hours, to a private prison in Lumpkin, Ga. The Stewart Detention Center is the largest of the more than 400 detention centers across the nation that get paid to house those suspected of being undocumented. Operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, the for profit prison averages $97,647 federal tax dollars a day at $60.50 a head. It’s the largest employer in in the county, accounting for half its annual budget. ICE’s detention budget was $1.7 billion last year.
North Charleston police have been reported profiling Hispanic-looking drivers, stopping them for failure to signal a turn, weaving or other pretexts. If the driver doesn’t have a driver’s license, it’s off to the county jail, followed by a call to ICE, and then on to Georgia. This is usually without the benefit of legal counsel, and often without notification to family members.
The chair of Charleston County Council, when asked about the county jail’s agreement with ICE, said that he thought it was mandatory to cooperate with ICE and didn’t know that the sheriff had signed a memorandum agreeing to take prisoners as well as a per-head payment for detaining them.
The sheriff of Lexington County recently told a local audience that he signed on to the ICE detention program for community safety. A local resident pointed out that it was a policy matter, and that county council uses his tax money to pay the jail’s upkeep and the salary of his officers.
The Network has partnered with the Grassroots Alliance for Immigrant Rights (GAIR) to provide support and services to the families being torn apart by this administration’s anti-immigrant policies, financed in part by our county taxes. The organizing training and policy education GAIR is doing to empower leadership from the impacted communities is important. Contact the SC Progressive Network for more information or find GAIR on Facebook.
We encourage progressive citizens to inform and challenge their county councils and sheriffs, where the ICE agreements are in effect or being considered, because the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant campaign is unwarranted, cruel political posturing that is unworthy of a great nation.
Building the Wall opens with a prisoner in an orange jump suit being interviewed by a professor who asks if he is a racist. As the play unfolds, you realize that he was a regular guy, just doing a job in a private prison where ICE was sending more and more immigrants without papers. As we realize what the prisoner has done, we are confronted with the horror of how ordinary citizens become instruments of evil.
As Trump’s policies destroy real lives and dreams, the descent into the unimaginable becomes more than a play. These are your tax dollars at work; this is what your complicit silence builds.
• • •
The Network is sponsoring the run of Building the Wall at Trustus, with two benefit performances Oct. 5 and 7.
Oct. 5, 7:30pm – Premiere – Buy tickets HERE
SHOW CANCELLED Oct. 7, 2pm – Matinee
Light refreshments, open bar. The one-hour show will be followed by Q&A with GAIR Director Laura Cahue and members of the impacted community. Get an inside view of what’s happening on the ground in South Carolina. For more information or to RSVP by phone, call the Network’s office at 803-808-3384.
Proceeds to benefit the Grassroots Alliance for Immigrant Rights and the SC Progressive Network
We won! Help us celebrate a rare victory in Lower Richland
“You’re doing God’s work,” Mary Posey told Network Director Brett Bursey when he called to share the good news that the small plot of land in Lower Richland she started paying for in 1997 was finally hers. On Aug. 8, she signed papers to make it official.
Nobody thought it would happen. The two took on one of the county’s largest landowners and won, after months of work and against all odds.
Brett Bursey and Mary Posey, holding the plat to her land.
When Rep. Joe Neal died suddenly in February, the SC Progressive Network made a rare endorsement to support Wendy Brawley in the special election to fill his seat. We wanted to ensure that Rep. Neal’s replacement would continue to advance the work and vision he shared with the Network, an organization he helped found.
Brawley’s main opponent was Heath Hill, who inherited 68 square miles of Lower Richland from his father, Harold Hill, who died in 2002.
During the campaign, Bursey learned of Heath Hill’s reputation for questionable ethics. When he discovered that the mother of a longtime mutual friend was one of his victims, Bursey paid Ms. Posey a visit. They made this three-minute video, which was circulated online and on CDs across the district.
It was a brave move for the woman who didn’t want to make waves and had intended to let the matter go. Bursey, however, could not. After Brawley won the election, he went on a campaign to pressure Hill to follow through on the deal his father made with Posey in 1997, when she began making payments on the land she wanted to buy for her grandchildren.
When the elder Hill died, Posey owed $300 on the $4,920 debt. While the contract required Posey to pay off the note in 18 months or forfeit the land and money, Hill told her to pay what she could as she was able. But when she tried to make the final payment to Heath Hill, he said she’d waited too long. He kept the money and the land.
Without bank records to prove payment, lawyers advised that there was no legal recourse. But never one to give up without a fight, Bursey went to Hill directly and asked him to do the right thing, and shared with him some of the stories and research he’d uncovered during the campaign. Bursey then took the information to Hill’s attorney.
On Aug. 8, Posey took $300 to the attorney’s office, signed the deed and, after 20 years, took ownership of the land.
• • •
We think this is an excellent reason for a party!
Help us celebrate a rare win over big money. Join friends on Tuesday evening Aug. 22 beginning at 6:30 for a casual get-together at the Fish Line restaurant – owned by Posey’s daughter – at 4201 Bluff Rd. The event is free, but you can enjoy a fish dinner for $10 if you RSVP by Aug. 18. The restaurant, which is usually closed on Tuesdays, needs a head count.
Call 803-808-3384 or email network@scpronet.com for information or to make reservations. You can also share/RSVP on Facebook.