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Special Election for SC District 31 Brings Plenty of Democratic Talent

There are four democrats in the election to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of State Representative Harold Mitchell. Mitchell began serving in the house in 2005 and represented House District 31 which encompasses Spartanburg County. He retired from the House at the end of this year’s legislative session, but there are several candidates anxious to fill the seat. Mo Abusaft, Angela Geter, Rosalyn Henderson Myers, and Jerome Rice Jr. are all hoping to have the opportunity to represent District 31. Republicans Richard Gosnell and Michael Fowler are also vying for a shot at the seat, but the odds certainly aren’t in their favor in the district that went in favor of the incumbent Democrat by 54 points in the last house race.

Mo Abusaft is a local defense attorney and the former president and current vice president of the Spartanburg branch of the NAACP. He received his B.A. from Wofford College and his J.D. from Vanderbilt. Abusaft considers himself to be an activist and according to his website the issues he’s most concerned about in the district include education, housing, and criminal justice reform. Follow the link to his website to learn more about him.

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Angela Geter is a United States Air Force veteran and former Healthcare professional. Geter received her B.S. in Accounting and M.B.A.’s in International Business and Finance. On her site Geter list the focus of her platform as education, healthcare, and neighborhood revitalization. Angela prides herself on being an active member of the community. She is chairman of Supervisory Committee and Board of Directors for Carolina Foothills Federal Credit Union and a member of the Kiwanis club and a host of other community organizations.

 

Neither Abusaft nor Geter have run for political office in the past and will face two sitting members of city council Rosalyn Henderson Myers and Jerome Rice Jr.

Rosalyn Henderson Myers is currently member of city council member for Spartanburg’s 3rd district. She is also a former prosecutor, Alabama state court judge, criminal defense attorney, and corporate lawyer. Myers obtained her B.A. from USC and J.D. from Tulane University. According to her website the issues she intends to focus on are improving affordable housing and education. Myers hopes she can “engage and empower legislators about the issues that impact [the Spartanburg] community.”

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Jerome Rice Jr. is currently the city council member for Spartanburg’s 5th district. He received his B.A. from USC Upstate. Rice is a Parent Facilitator at Mary Wright Elementary School and has coached Varsity Football at Spartanburg High for more than 20 years. According to his campaign website he plans to focus on improving education, affordable housing, and job creation. Rice says he’s running to “take the voice of the Spartanburg community to Columbia.

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The District 31 primary takes place on July 25th and the special election will be held on September 26th. The Spartanburg County Democratic Party will host a debate between the candidates, two days prior to the primary, on July 20th.

P.I. will keep you updated with news about the race.

A Conversation with SCLBC Chair John King

Since his election to the South Carolina House of Representative in 2008 Rep. John Richard C. King, current Chair of the SC Legislative Black Caucus, has never been one to backdown from any challenge or any person. He is unapologetic about stating his case on what he considers the, “right thing to do.” His 2013 meeting with Nikki Haley, which led to him being uninvited by Haley to a Governor’s Mansion reception, has become a mythical tale of insiders around Columbia. King’s unwavering focus and leadership during the 2015 Flag debate was critical during that long day on July 8th. His ascension to Chair of the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus has put a new spotlight on him, and has given him a platform to speak out and up for the challenges, priorities, and dreams of the African American and minority communities in SC.

We were fortunate enough to be able to spend a little time with him, which coincided with the SCLBC releasing a statement on the Republican led Senate version of the national GOP efforts to destroy Healthcare in America, or as they see it repeal and replace.

PI Question: So, what do you think of the plan put out by Senate Republican leadership?

King: After seeing and reading about the House bill, I was certain the Senate would offer something that was at least responsible and pragmatic; after all they are the deliberate body that takes their time. Gosh was I wrong. But, I am not surprised. We should remember Senate Republicans are led by a man who stated after President Obama was sworn in that Senate Republican’s number one priority was to defeat Barack Obama. How unbelievable of a statement is that…not work to create new jobs, expand healthcare, promote education, the number one priority for Senate Republicans would be a political and partisan goal. Although the Republicans now control the US Senate, I don’t believe they have changed their focus. Their whole healthcare plan revolves around defeating Obama. This is so sad for our country. There used to be a time when Republicans and Democrats would work together after an election. If your party won, you would have control but you still knew that compromised bills make the best laws.

The CBO scoring of the bill is all that needs to be read to see how destructive this partisan, politically motivated plan would be on actual American citizens. It is truly a sad time when we live in a political climate where only winning truly matters, not the needs of the people you represent. The SC Legislative Black Caucus is calling on all South Carolinians to call their Congressmen and Senators and remind them that they work for the people. That we don’t care about political wins, we care about American wins!

PI Question: What do you and the SCLBC believe are the pressing issues facing the state…what issues needs more attention?

King: Well we can start with Healthcare in this state. Because Nikki Haley didn’t expand Medicaid like other Republican Governors (like in Arizona and Florida), South Carolina is on the sideline of the national debate. Republican Governors are leading the fight for pragmatic solutions, but we are a non-player because Nikki Haley chose to play politics instead of truly leading. This has been the problem with South Carolina Republican leaders the past 15-20 years. We only have politicians that hope to become elected and not ones that truly embrace leadership. Haley’s choice to play politics has literally led to the pain, suffering, and even death of some South Carolinians. I believe this is shameful.

 But issues we feel are most important include all the things we as state leaders are supposed to be addressing…including fixing the funding system as it relates to our public schools, expanding healthcare service, making state colleges and universities more affordable for SC students, and bringing new jobs to the state. The issues have been identified but progress has been slow…we believe it is time South Carolinians start asking why? Why haven’t we moved on issues that benefit us all? Issues like passing medical cannabis. Would we rather continue to play politics with outdated facts instead of helping sick children, adults, and our veterans? It bothers me that a veteran first state like South Carolina would rather have prescribed opioids, that are leading to the death of thousands of soldiers, be used to treat illnesses instead of medical cannabis that  has been documented to effectively treat without the side-effects and addiction. I am truly baffled by these limited government conservatives on this issue.

 I sincerely believe the people of this state are reaching a point where they are tired of politicians playing political games. It is unfortunate that the current McMaster Administration has continued to the trend of politics over commonsense.

PI Question: Your thoughts on the McMaster Administration?

King: I like many in the General Assembly were optimistic about Governor McMaster. Coming off Nikki Haley, one of the most self-centered leaders I have ever seen, but very skilled as a politician, we thought McMaster would be a positive change, a throwback of sorts to leaders like Dick Riley and Carol Campbell. We got that one wrong! It is truly unfortunate that the Governor has chosen to play campaign politics instead of leading. Easy examples of what I mean include his decision to ignore business leaders in the state and vetoing the Infrastructure bill, and his decision to place SC students in danger by vetoing new bus funding. It seems in every instance the governor has failed to truly lead and instead has chosen to focus on his reelection not citizens of our state. South Carolinians deserve better.

PI Question: So how do Democrats begin to win again in SC?

King: It will start with finding great candidates with new ideas and new messages about solving our challenges that really resonate with voters. We must begin to tell what it truly means to be a South Carolina Democrat. I believe some of what we believe in differs from what national democrats are saying. South Carolinians have more in common than not. I hope the people of this state will begin to see that it has been Republican leadership that has failed to lead on the major challenges we face. However, it is also the job of Democrats to do a better job of explaining how we would lead differently than the status quo. The status quo in SC has been failed GOP leadership. It has actually been the SC Dems leading the fight for better healthcare and more options, fighting for medical cannabis for sick kids and veterans, combating the opioid epidemic, helping our farmers after the devastating flood – I am still shocked Nikki Haley choose politics over SC farmers during that time…truly unbelievable, but predictable.

 PI Question: What does the Caucus have planned for the remainder of the year?

King: We have been busy, we will be busy…planning. The best thing about the SC Legislative Black Caucus is that we are non-partisan organization. We can work without partisan labels and partisan politics. Our primary objectives include expanding healthcare services and opportunities for all South Carolinians. We believe the state should do more to protect our senior citizens. We believe in properly funding our public schools, helping small businesses start and grow. One issue we are beginning to focus in on that has not gotten a lot of attention from the media is helping minority contractors start and grow their businesses. We find that too often contracts that are designated to be filled by minority owned and/or disadvantaged businesses aren’t being filled by ethnic minorities at an acceptable rate or percentage, resulting in a lack of representation in the industry.To aid in this effort, the South Carolina Black Caucus will closely monitor the rollout of the Hemp Legislation that was passed this year. Because of the limitations placed in the bill, we want to make sure that the SC Minority Farmers Community are able to participate and access this new opportunity. This is another issue we will be focusing on during the coming months. 

PI thanks Chairman King for talking with us.

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Oh, yeah…we forgot about this one from House Budget Week 2017

With the buzz associated with our recent post, Bamberg Set to “Explore” for 2018 Gubernatorial Run?, it reminded us of a post that we meant to publish during the 2017 House Floor Budget debate. We haven’t endorsed any candidate yet, but Bamberg has been an extremely active legislator during his short time in the House. He has proven himself to be a lawmaker always thinking about the future for his District and all rural communities across South Carolina.

From Budget Week 2017…

During this year’s budget debate Representative Justin Bamberg offered up an amendment  to create “a study committee to examine the feasibility of legalizing gambling, the possible revenue generated by legalizing gambling, specifically casinos, and to determine possible appropriations of revenue generated by gambling including, but not limited to, road improvement projects.” Sounded like a good idea to at least begin to study an issue that could bring billions in new revenue for state and local economies, while at the same time creating thousands of new, good paying jobs for South Carolinians.

In other southern states like Mississippi gaming accounts for billions of dollars worth of new economic activity and over $900 million in federal, state, and local tax revenue on an annual basis.

While some cite a moral opposition to gaming, it’s hard to disregard the fact that South Carolina voted solidly for a casino profiteer in President Donald Trump during the SC GOP Presidential Primary. It stands to reason that the same Republican lawmakers in the House who supported Trump would at least consider studying the impact of how allowing gaming in the state could potentially impact the state…both good and bad.

So how did the body vote on this study committee to bring in new revenue without raising taxes and/ or fees? It was defeated/killed by a vote of 68 to 40. A freaking study committee!!! We really can’t study the issue but yet our so-called “limited government” Republicans continue to support a government-ran gaming system, the SC Lottery.

It was encouraging to see that the forty who voted to at least STUDY the issue were a bipartisan coalition of members. I guess we should be somewhat thankful there are a growing number of lawmakers in the SC House of Representatives who believe it is time we at least study the feasibility of expanding gaming in SC and what this expansion could mean for the state, communities, and people of our state. These 40 lawmakers truly believe it is important to study ways we can grow state revenue without taxing or “feeing” us to death.

Check out the vote and tell us how your Representative voted…in fact you should ask them how they voted.

As we have stated before, the only way we will bring the much needed change to this state is by bringing new revenue, new jobs, and new hope to our state. So we applaud Rep. Justin Bamberg, “The People’s Rep,” for at least trying to convince his colleagues to study this potentially life-changing issue. We believe the vote count ultimately shows that tides may be changing in the chamber on the issue.

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PI’s Most Influential Women in the Statehouse

We like our list here at PI, so we thought it would be fun to share our ranking of the “Most Influential Women in the Statehouse” (on both sides of the aisle) .We do believe all legislators are important, and applaud all women and men that make the difficult decision to serve the public. After all, they are often criticized, and rarely thanked for their service. Our list reflects the women that Columbia Insiders notice are always at the center of everything that happens in the State.

We ranked the Top 5, all others are listed in alphabetical order.

If you don’t agree, please share your list on our Facebook page…enjoy!

1. Katrina Frye Shealy (R)

After defeating incumbent Senator Jake Knotts who served in the South Carolina General Assembly for 18 years as a petition candidate, all eyes have been on Katrina Shealy and she has yet to dissappoint. At one point Shealy was the ONLY woman in the South Carolina Senate and currently sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of the most influential committees in the Senate. She’s only three years into her first term, but has already succeeded in passing important legislation that increases protection for minors who are victims of domestic violence. Shealy remains one of several potential candidates that could really shake-up the 2018 Gubernatorial Campaign if she decides to throw her hat in the race. Her legislative skills, popularity among Republican primary voters, and ability to build coalitions would make her an extremely viable candidate.

 

2. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D)

Cobb-Hunter is undeniably influential in the SC House of Representatives and in the SC General Assembly as a whole. She is currently the second most senior member in the House and remains the leader of the progressive movement in South Carolina. With 25 years in the House, the majority of which she has spent sitting on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Cobb-Hunter’s influence is felt on nearly every important piece of legislation that comes before the SC House. Cobb-Hunter is a former House Minority Leader, outspoken advocate for civil rights, women’s rights, and workers’ rights, as well as the founder of the newly established Progressive Caucus. In addition to being a house-hold name around the state, regardless of party affiliations, Cobb-Hunter is also know nationwide through her service as a Democratic National Committee (DNC) member and serving as chair of the DNC’s Southeastern Caucus. It has been said that, “when Gilda speaks, everybody listens.”

 

3. Merita A. “Rita” Allison (R)

Representative Allison is one of the foremost advocates for education in South Carolina. Allison presides over the Education and Public Works Committee and is THE ONLY female chair of one of the Standing Committees in the Statehouse. Allison started her long political career as a member of the Spartanburg County School Board in 1992, and has since served in the SC House of Representatives the past 17 years. In her time in the SC House she has served as the GOP Majority Leader, chaired the SC Republican Women Caucus, and the General Assembly Woman’s Caucus. Representative Allison continues to be one of the most influential members in Columbia or as insiders’ state, “Mrs. Rita gets what she wants in this town.”

 

4. J. Anne Parks (D)

Representative Ann Parks started her political career in the Greenwood City Council where she served for eight years, and in 1997 she was elected to the S.C. House of Representatives where she has served since. Rep. Parks holds the leadership position of 1st Vice Chairman of the Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee, where she also sits as the Chair of the Occupational Regulation & Licensing Boards Subcommittee. Parks although quiet by nature is one member that has always been able to build coalitions across party lines. Insiders state that, “when Parks gives you her word, you can believe that the job will get done.”

 

 

5. Shannon S. Erickson (R)

Erickson has been a member of the S.C. House of Representatives for the past ten years and has been incredibly effective and impactful during her time. Her work on issues related to education and well-being of children have helped  her garner respect on both sides of aisle. The Beaufort Representative has served as Chair of the General Assembly’s Republican Women’s Caucus and the first chair of the General Assembly’s Women’s Caucus. Erickson currently sits on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and her voice on the committee is always met with respect or as insiders say, “if you decide to go to war with Erickson, be prepared for a long, bitter fight…one in which you will probably lose.”

 

Beth E. Bernstein (D)

Representative Beth E. Bernstein photoRepresentative Beth Bernstein is also a member of the famous 2012 class that has brought some of the most respected and influential members of the SC General Assembly. Bernstein’s defeat of Joan Brady has been one of the few pickups by Democrats over the past twenty years, and she has not disappointed since being elected. Bernstein serves on the powerful House Judiciary and Ethics committees, and despite being only in her third term has been able to claim some huge legislative wins. During the 2017 Session Bernstein introduced the South Carolina Pregnancy Accommodations Act, which passed the House favorably. She was also successful in passing legislation out of the SC House of Representatives dealing with the issue of requiring health insurance plans to cover a 12-month birth-control prescriptions, and  Anti-Semitism legislation. With a track record like hers, Bernstein is bound to accomplish great things and leave an unforgettable mark on politics in South Carolina.

 

Raye Felder (R)

Representative Raye Felder photoFelder is quickly building a reputation as a sincere and dependable leader within the SC House of Representatives. She has garnered respect within the General Assembly for her commitment to putting politics aside in order to do what’s best for the citizens of this state. Felder is a leader and outspoken advocate for education in SC, and currently serves as the 1st-Vice Chair of the House Education and Public Works Committee. Another member of the class elected in 2012, Felder has been instrumental in passing key legislation, one in which makes it easier for foster children to be adopted in the state. Insiders say, “Felder always shoots it to you straight…you can depend on her to keep it real, all the time.”

 

 

Phyllis J. Henderson (R)

Representative Phyllis J. Henderson photoGreenville Representative Phyllis Henderson, a House member for only seven years, has some indispensable political experiences that have made her one of the most watched fairly new members of the SC House of Representatives. As one insider stated, “she is tenacious when focused on an issue.” Before her service in the House, Henderson served as Jim DeMint’s campaign manager and chair of the Greenville County Council. Henderson is unapologetically outspoken and an experienced and well-accomplished business woman. She currently serves on the influential House Labor, Commerce, and Industry Committee and the House Legislative Oversight Committee.

 

 

Patsy G. Knight (D)

Representative Patsy G. Knight photoRepresentative Patsy Knight began serving in the SC House of Representatives in 2006 after spending 26 years as Dorchester County Treasurer. Representative Knight currently serves on the House Education and Operation & Management Committee and has garnered the reputation for knowing the Floor Calendar like no other. Knight’s colleagues consider her the quiet conscious of the House— in that she doesn’t take to the well (podium) often, but when she does she commands the attention of the entire body. Her picture with the Minority Leader after the 2015 Flag Debate has become an iconic image of that challenging time in SC history.

 

Mia S. McLeod (D)

Senator Mia S. McLeod photoThe former Richland County Representative, and now Senator has certainly made a name for herself in palmetto politics and even nationally in a very short time span. McLeod served early in her political career. Before her political career McLeod was known for her work in the Hodges Administration, and for being one of the top business minds in the state. Her work as a legislator advocating for issues including women’s health, education, and domestic violence reforms have made her a legitimate rock-star among Democratic advocates, and well respected by her Republican colleagues. She made national headlines with her “Viagra bill”, a piece of legislation that sought to require patients to wait 24 hours before getting a prescription for the erectile dysfunction drug –aimed at bringing attention to the invasive and intrusive nature of obtaining legal abortion services in South Carolina. Senator McLeod sits on the Senate Committees of Corrections and Penology, General, Judiciary, and Transportation. Her blog continues to be a must-read for her constituents and Columbia insiders…unless you are the target of her wrath.

 

Mandy Powers Norrell (D)

Representative Mandy Powers Norrell photo

Despite her relatively short time in the SC House of Representatives, Mandy Powers Norrell holds a seat on the notable House Judiciary Committee, as well as the House Legislative Oversight Committee. She has garnered the reputation as being one of the most thoughtful and respected members of the House, and is often praised by her colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The upstate attorney’s notoriety soared with South Carolinians after giving the 2016 Democratic response to then Governor Nikki Haley’s State of the State address. Norrell’s poignant and attentive address held Republicans accountable for failures in the state under their leadership, while giving hope to all South Carolinians that better days were ahead. Her unique quality of communicating with people, while maintaining a tough-as-nails persona, have made her a woman to watch, and the “dream candidate’ for SC Democrats for the past several campaign cycles. It’s also worth noting that time she tried to save us all from Mick Mulvaney with her 2008 Senate run. As one insider stated, “Mandy makes everyone feel good about being from South Carolina.”

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