On the last day of class, students of the spring session of the Modjkeska Simkins School share why they went and what they learned.
The spring 2020 session runs March 15-July 5 at the Network’s HQ in Columbia, SC. For information or to apply, see http://scpronet.com/modjeskaschool.
On the first day of the SC 2020 legislative session, fair maps advocates gathered at the State House holding signs with the names of state lawmakers and the percentage by which each won their seats. The original plan to assemble on the front steps of the State House was rained out, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of those who filled the lobby.
Some drove hours to be there — from Charleston, Greenville, Rock Hill, and more than a dozen from Horry County, where activists have been working a county-based petition drive for fair maps in South Carolina.
Brian Kasprzyk and his wife, Malle Kasprzyk, drove from Little River. It was a long trip, but worth the drive, he said. On the Fair Maps Facebook group, he posted: “Today was a great day for democracy and fair maps in South Carolina. It was great because 2 republican and 2 Democratic legislators joined together to address the crowd and support redistricting legislation — for the first time.”
Brian Kasprzyk
It’s true. In an unprecedented move, a bipartisan group of SC lawmakers stood in the State House together to make a strong and unified public statement against gerrymandering in South Carolina. Democrats Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter and Sen. Mike Fanning joined Republicans Rep. Gary Clary and Sen. Tom Davis at a morning press conference on Jan. 14.
Retired Sen. Phil Leventis made opening comments. In his 32 years as a state lawmaker, he took part in five redistricting sessions. “In 2002, we reapportioned the Senate,” he said, “and before the elections in 2004 it was reapportioned again. I can’t tell you why. But I can tell you it raises questions about the whole process. And the process needs to be fair.”
The system is broken. Fact is, 75 percent of South Carolina voters have only one name on the ballot for House or Senate. Ninety percent of legislative seats were won with an average of 86% of the vote. Just 10 percent of the General Assembly was won by less than 60 percent. That’s 17 seats out of 170.
Competitive districts make winners work to please a majority of the voters, not just the small percent that turns out for the primary.
The task at hand is studying and debating the several proposals that have been filed, and finding common ground that, ultimately, gets politicians out of the business of picking their voters.
“South Carolina has more problems with gerrymandering than any state in the United States of America,” Sen. Fanning said. “It is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem; it is a people not having a voice in their government problem. For every solid, safe Republican seat we have a solid, safe Democratic seat. We have created an apartheid here in South Carolina that has divided the voters at the whim of politicians.”
Rep. Cobb-Hunter said, “We all can agree the system is, indeed, rigged.” She vowed to support any fair maps bill that gets traction. “It makes for a better South Carolina, a better governance when all of us who are blessed and highly favored enough to be in these positions when we have to reach out to everybody as opposed to a select group.”
Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter
Rep. Clary said, “What we’re talking about here is fundamental fairness. The idea that I, or any other member of the General Assembly, can go in and adjust the line to suit my whim – -to move someone out of my district or to remove a group from my district — is repugnant to me.”
Sen. Davis said, “What we have is a crisis of legitimacy. The idea that I or any other member of the General Assembly can go in and adjust the line to suit my whim – to move someone out of my district or to remove a group from my district is repugnant to me. What we’re talking about is restoring people’s faith in representative government. This is about returning power to the sovereign people.”
Fanning, a former social studies teacher, said he taught civic engagement. “We registered to vote in my class. I made sure my students knew where to vote and when to vote. I had pumped them up, with as much passion as I had inside me. What broke my heart is that when my students came back and said, ‘There was only one name on the ballot. My vote didn’t matter.’ There wasn’t anything I could say to that.
“We have banded together as Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and the House. Each of us has bills, but none has gotten traction because the argument doesn’t belong to us, the argument belongs to the people.”
Preston Anderson has taken that directive to heart. As a volunteer with the Fair Maps SC Coalition has spent months going to events to talk about fair maps and gather signatures for the Richland County petition drive. By now he has talked to hundreds of South Carolinians. “Across the political spectrum, people were very interested in learning more about gerrymandering and the effect it has had on the political situation in South Carolina.”
Fair Maps organizer Preston Anderson
Fair Maps volunteers who have been in the field see a steep learning curve ahead. They are finding that a surprising number of voters know little to nothing about gerrymandering and how it corrodes the integrity of South Carolina’s elections. Same goes for lawmakers.
To that end, we gave each of them our handout full of numbers that should alarm anyone who cares about the state of democracy in South Carolina.
For more about the Fair Maps Coalition, (the SC Progressive Network is a member) see FairMapsSC.com.
On May Day, 10,000 educators, students, and supporters marched from the state Education Department down Senate Street to the State House grounds, where they held a spirited rally — and made history. The grounds were a sea of red, a powerful show of unity and stregth, the crowd audible to lawmakers inside.
Sen. Mike Fanning opened the rally on the Network’s Healthy Democracy rolling stage, and closed the rally at the State House with a call to action. A teacher himself, Fanning has championed educators in the Senate and is passionate about advocating for real reform rather than the lip service that’s been given for decades to education in South Carolina.
“For too long in South Carolina, teachers have been sitting back and letting non-teachers set the vision for learning, and that has to stop,” Fanning said.
“We have to speak up. We don’t want something done in 10 years — the time is now!
“You are here today — the largest gathering of teachers in the history of South Carolina — and you have done something my colleages never thought you’d do. We showed up by the thousands, we made noise, and we ain’t done yet.”
Teachers are asking for reduced class size and less mandated testing, and more mental health counseling. (Half of schools have no counselors, and half have them only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)
Fanning said, “You’ve been bullied this week by the community, by your own state superintendent of education.” Molly Spearman issued a statement two days before the rally decrying the “walkout.”
“Year in and year out we rank 48th and 49th in teacher pay,” Fanning said. “We have a base per-student formula that we haven’t funded one time in 11 years. Eleven years doesn’t sound long to those folks, but that is an entire career of a student.
“This year the General Assembly had 1.1 billion extra dollars. Guess what we did to the base student formula? The House cut it by 18 dollars, the Senate cut it by three dollars. Whatever budget passes, you will get less money next year than you got this year per student.
“Eight people crafted the reform bill, with not a single teacher in the room. The bill passed the House 106 to 4. What’s the magic bullet, people ask: I say: Let teachers teach and students learn.
“You blew people’s minds today. Nobody exptected 10,000 teachers. If you’d shown up yesterday, it wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful as showing up with 9,999 others. I need you to make sure they hear your voice, and you’re not going away.
The rally ended with 10,000 voices chanting: I teach, I vote!
This could be a turning point in the long fight for public education in South Carolina. Whatever happens, the rally was a stunning example of worker solidarity that should inspire people across the state.
The SC Progressive Network offered logistical support at the rally. We look forward to collaborting with educators in the coming legislative session.
Sen. Mike Fanning chats with the Network’s Midlands coordinator Daniel Deweese
Grassroots activists from across South Carolina gathered in Columbia on Saturday for a full day of Census and Fair Maps workshop. It was the “soft” launch of a plan the SC Progressive Network and allies have been crafting for a long time that would empower voters to end gerrymandering in South Carolina while at the same time building a popular movement for social and political change.
The workshops trained a core group of activists to initiate the Fair Maps capaign models and recruit partner organizations ahead of the major launch in April.
Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter and Leroy Johnson, founder of Southern Echo, opened the morning session on the 2020 US Census by stressing the importance of getting a correct count in South Carolina and the inherent challenges of reaching certain populations. Federal US Census coordinator for SC Mary Peeler outlined how the 2020 numbers will affect voting and money allocated to the state. Florida-based Juanita Alvarex Mainster talked about outreach in Hispanic and migrant worker communities, and US Census geographer Wes Flack broke down how federal Census workers will coordinate with local governments and non-governmental organizations. Will Roberts, our State Political Cartographer in charge of drawing districts, reviewed where populations have changed, and how lines will move to accomodate changes.
Vince Matthews, Senior Policy Advisor, SC Progressive Network
Power Point presentations from the Census workshop are posted HERE.
After lunch, participants took a deep dive into our legislative package on redistricting and mapping a timeline for the grassroots campaign to get it passed. Rep. Cobb-Hunter and Sen. Mike Fanning, sponsors of the companion legislation, made the case for meaningful redisctricting while acknowledging how challenging it will be, given the stacked deck that is the General Assembly. Vince Matthews, senior policy advisor for the SC Progressive Network, compared our plan to other redistricting proposals that allow politicians to remain in charge of the process.
The legislation:
Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter
Network Co-Chair Kyle Criminger went over the state maps he created, showing how districts look now and how they could look if citizens were drawing the lines. The number of competitive state political districts could increase by 500% under a Citizens Redistricting Commission. The CRC ACT is the only redistricting bill that includes a mandate to make districts competitive.
See video clips from the workshops HERE.
The level of interest and engagement on Saturday gives us great hope for this campaign. Change will not happen overnight, but will come with a sustained and statewide effort to educate, agitate, and mobilize voters.
We invite organizations and individuals to join the Fair Maps Coalition. Wherever you live and whatever your skills, we need your help. To find out how, see the volunteer opportunities at the Fair Maps web site. We’ll be setting up working groups to take on various tasks. Let us know how you want to be involved. We will schedule monthly conference calls to answer questions from the field and to track our progress.
Keep this contact information handy.
This is an exciting initiative, and we are confident that with a sustained and serious effort we can change the balance of power in South Carolina to favor citizens over politicians.
Let’s do this!
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.”
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
The SC New Legacy Project, the youth organizing body of the SC Progressive Network, has started a podcast to engage, educate, and mobilize young people in the Palmetto State. To date, they have taped three episodes, although the latest, on the group’s Monument Tour, has not yet been posted.
Although she is quick to share credit, the force behind the podcast is Vikki Perry, a Pamplico, SC, native and graduate of the Modjeska Simkins School of Human Rights, another Network project. She is rightfully excited about the podcast, and shared with us a little about how it came to be and where she hopes it willl go. [Note: for a primer on the New Legacy Project, listen to the last 45 minutes of this episode.]
Chris McLauchlin, Chris Gardner, Dale Joyal, Vikki Perry, Wayne Borders, and Curt Shumate tape an episode of the South Carolina New Legacy Podcast. Photo by Danielle Dandridge.
• • • • •
First, the Network is impressed with the podcast, and we can’t wait to follow your progress. What was the genesis for it?
While the idea of a podcast has been around for a long time in NLP, we decided to start it right now for a few reasons.
There is a lot of expertise and experience in the room at the SC Progressive Network/NLP. A podcast is a good way of sharing that information around our community. By virtue of location, our group is pretty Columbia-based. We want people outside the Columbia metro to know what is going on, too.
In the last few years, local news coverage has dwindled to a trickle. National companies are buying local news outlets and there is a dearth of coverage of local issues. Everything is national, and in the age of Fox News and Sinclair Media, there is an agenda to a lot of that media coverage. We have an agenda, too, but we’re up front about it and we try to support it with facts and real stories about the people in our community.
We want to build an apparatus for communication that fits into the 21st Century model. Podcasts are an easy entry point and add a sense of community. But maybe someday, we’ll move into videos or some other integrative format to add that same sense of community.
As for who is responsible for this, it is a collective effort. I remember sitting at the Modjeska House [where the group met before it was closed recently for renovation] and saying, “Guys, if you want to do a podcast, stay after the meeting for a little bit.” No one at the table moved. I was like “Okay, this is going to be a thing now.” So we’ve all worked together over the last several months to decide on a format and some topics. I’m really excited about where we’re going to go with this.
Briefly describe the podcast.
The South Carolina New Legacy Project is a South Carolina-focused political podcast that aims to educate, agitate, and organize in our local communities. It is a show that will feature deep dives into policy, local stories, and interviews with people who are making a difference on either a national stage or a local stage or both.
We plan to regularly feature a segment that we’ll call “Corrupting the Youth.” These will be intergenerational interviews where younger activists interview a more seasoned activist about their lives, their work, and how they see what is happening around the state and nation.
What audience are you hoping to reach?
Young progressives or young-at-heart progressives who want to be politically active in South Carolina and don’t know where to start. When you’re a progressive in South Carolina, you can feel isolated and somewhat powerless. For me, finding the progressive network has given me a sense of community and some of that power back. I want us to help foster that same sense of community and give people who can’t come to our meetings because they live in Myrtle Beach or Easley or somewhere else in the state.
We get lost in the cacophony of liberal groups in this state who maybe aren’t doing the same kind of work we’re doing on a local level. The podcast is a very literal way to be heard over the noise.
How often do you plan to record?
Currently, we plan to release an episode every two weeks, but ultimately, we’d like to do something on a weekly basis.
Who are your key collaborators on the project?
I have taken the role of cat herder, organizer, and learning to produce the podcast as I go. Chris Gardner has taken the role of our sound guy, and has composed the theme music that we’re going to use. Wayne Borders loves doing the intergenerational interviews so you’ll probably be hearing a lot of him.
But we have a large collective, and we’ll all be contributing as we go on depending on the topic. Curt, Janessa, Chris, Danielle (our photographer), Daniel, Omari, Dale, and we will pull in people from the broader collective of the Progressive Network as we need their expertise like Sarah Keeling and Kyle Criminger.
What can listeners look forward to in the coming sessions?
For some time now, the New Legacy Project has been working on something called The State of the Youth. We’ve been researching several main areas where the youth of South Carolina are impacted including health care, criminal justice, economics, education, and voting rights. You can definitely look forward to hearing more about that. Education will be coming up in the next few weeks.
But we have some fun topics that we’ll discuss as well like history, barbecue, movies set in South Carolina, colleges, and more.
Our next episode is going feature the Monuments Project and how it came out of the Modjeska School for Human Rights. Curt and I may also talk a little bit about one of the people who are memorialized on the State House lawn. You’ll need to listen to find out who!
Anything you want to add?
First, you can find us HERE and wherever you listen to your podcasts including iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Soundcloud. Search for us under South Carolina New Legacy Podcast.
Second, we take suggestions for topics and stories. If you’ve got anything you want to hear about, we’ve probably got people who can discuss it. Tell us. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our email address is scnewlegacyproject@gmail.com.
Look forward to hearing from you!
The national election protection hotline is now available for voters to ask questions or to report problems while casting their ballot. Please keep this number handy as you head out to vote.
“This is the 10th year that this free, nonpartisan service has helped voters with problems at the polls,” said SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey. “We cover all of South Carolina, and we expect that the midterm elections will keep us busy.”
By calling the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, voters can confirm their registration status, find their polling location, and information about proper identification at the polls.
“We encourage voters to call in and let us know of problems,” Bursey said. “This is the only real-time, statewide audit of the system, and it helps us identify and address systemic problems.”
We will be posting the hotline number in precincts across the state, and have yard signs to place in high-traffic areas. We need volunteers on Election Day who can be dispatched to polling places to help resolve or report problems in the field. If you would like to help, email network@scpronet.com. Include your location, phone number, and availability on Nov. 6.
Spanish language assistance is available at 1-888-Ve-Y-Vota (1-888-83-9-8682) — or veyvota.org. For more information, voters can access the Election Protection website at 866OurVote.org.
The State Election Commission today began sending 950,000 South Carolina residents a postcard urging them to register by Oct. 17 in order to vote in the 2018 general election. Voter registration was extended due to Hurricane Florence in a court settlement initiated by the SC Progressive Network, the ACLU of SC, and the national Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in anticipation of the storm’s impact.
The mailing was the result of South Carolina’s membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonpartisan project started in 2012 funded by Pew Charitable Trust and operated by member states to use voter registration, motor vehicle, Census, and Social Security Administration data to improve the accuracy of voter rolls. The 950,000 unregistered South Carolinians is nearly 100,000 more than previous estimates.
South Carolina is the latest of 25 states – and only one of three in the South – to use the service to mail residents who are eligible but not registered to vote. The United States is one of the few advanced democracies to require citizens to register in order to vote. US voter turn ranks 31st of the world’s 34 developed nations.
“While the mailing was already planned, the timing was fortunate in that it allows us to directly notify unregistered citizens that the voter registration deadline has been extended to Oct. 17,” said SEC Executive Director Marci Andino. “We want every eligible person in South Carolina to have the opportunity to register by Oct. 17.”
The SC Progressive Network applauds the effort to expand the state’s voter rolls, which the organization has long advocated. The Network’s policy institute wrote, and the late Sen. Clementa Pinckney introduced, legislation for universal registration in 2007 (S-254 and H-3682). “This bill points out that voter registration in South Carolina has always been used to keep people from voting,” said Network Director Brett Bursey. “We plan to reintroduce legislation in the coming session that will add voter education and registration to the curriculum of high school seniors across the state.”
The Network’s nonpartisan Missing Voter Project was started in 2004 to educate and register SC residents who have been historically under-represented in the state’s public policy decisions. Volunteers across the state are trained to provide education and registration materials in targeted communities to engage the million-plus missing voters in South Carolina. For details, email network@scpronet.com or call 803-808-3384.
SEC Executive Director Marci Andino
We need YOUR HELP in the final days our nonpartisan Missing Voter Project. Please volunteer for a shift before voter registration ends Oct. 6!
Ours is the only registration drive targeting South Carolinians who are being denied Medicaid, in a strategic effort to help educate and mobilize them ahead of the midterm elections.
No experience needed, as new volunteers will be paired with at least one trained volunteer.
Columbia Locations
If you want an MVP t-shirt and volunteer gear, call or text Curt Shumate for a short briefing at 803-979-6779.
To volunteer, email your name and contact information to network@scpronet.com. Sign up for a shift (or several) by entering your name at location time(s) listed on the roster posted HERE.
Read more about our Missing Voter Project HERE.
Questions? Call our office at 803-808-3384.