SC 2 South Caro
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purple?
see lindsey graham
gowdy bailed 2018, came in TP?
cfg seems very interested in both carolinas?
bak 421 html reconstruction
measles 2 26
postandcourier.com
Block this site from all results
SC measles outbreak takes different trajectory as cases spread in community
12 days agoThe number of measles cases is slowing in the Upstate, but people are becoming infected in other areas of SC and North Carolina.
WMBF News
wmbfnews.com
Block this site from all results
Officials confirm 13 new measles cases in Upstate outbreak, exposures at two schools
15 days agoOfficials said the new cases brought the total number of cases in South Carolina related to the Upstate outbreak to 933.
Global News
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AN 1 26
cOLUMBIA — Two dueling GOP proposals designed to stop Democrats from voting in Republican primaries are likely going nowhere after causing a “civil war” within South Carolina’s dominating party.
Rep. Brandon Newton of Lancaster, author of the bill repeatedly endorsed by the state Republican Party, opened Wednesday’s two-hour hearing by saying neither bill should advance amid the internal GOP wrangling. The other bill is primarily sponsored by members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus and backed by U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, who’s running for governor and came to the Statehouse last week to demand its passage.
“This has been the nastiest debate internally I’ve ever witnessed in the party structure,” said Newton, former chairman of the Lancaster County GOP and former state GOP executive committeeman. “The divide on this topic and the divide between two pieces of legislation have truly put, I believe, the party in a civil war.”
The accusations and name-calling flying back and forth on social media is over the top, he said, noting an activist even came to the University of South Carolina at Lancaster, where he teaches business, and put fliers on cars all over campus bashing his bill.
GOP candidate for SC governor demands closed primaries. Gov. McMaster threatens a veto.
It’s unfair to put legislators in the position of “trying to create a kumbaya moment between two warring factions between the party,” continued Newton, who’s also the assistant majority leader of the House GOP Caucus.
Besides, he said, Gov. Henry McMaster has made it clear he would veto either bill: “He didn’t equivocate. He didn’t say maybe.” The Senate has “shown zero interest in taking it up.” And there’s no way it can take effect for the June primaries anyway, Newton said, noting that the process of creating the ballots starts in a couple of months.
The House Judiciary subcommittee heard testimony on both bills but took no vote.
Chad Connelly, who led the state GOP from 2011 to 2013, said it’s been a priority of the party for decades and recalled coming to the Statehouse to advocate for the idea as chairman. With a supermajority GOP Legislature — which didn’t exist in either chamber during his tenure — it’s time to make it happen, he said.
But unless the intra-party strife resolves quickly, which seems highly unlikely, there won’t be another hearing on the bills this year.
Several people said closed primaries are a bad idea because they exclude participation of voters who don’t consider themselves Republican or Democrat, which will further polarize political discord.
Voter participation is already low for primaries, which usually decide the winner of South Carolina contests. Closing the primaries would mean an even smaller faction of the population on the right and left would determine who represents all South Carolinians, said Lynn Teague with the League of Women Voters’ state chapter.
“We believe that independents, who are a growing part of the electorate, should not be excluded,” she said.
Newton agreed, saying any bill that doesn’t allow independent voters to participate is a “red line” he won’t support. His bill would allow unregistered voters to participate, but anyone who voted in a party primary would then automatically be registered with that party. The other bill requires voters to register with the party at least 30 days before a primary in order to vote.
Andrew Boucher, chairman of the Charleston County GOP, said that would create “absolute chaos.” It’s hard enough to get people to the polls. People who don’t know they need to pre-register will be turned away at precincts they’ve voted at for years, he told legislators.
Newton pointed to President Donald Trump’s election to argue against pre-registration. Nearly 140,000 additional voters participated in South Carolina’s GOP presidential primary in 2016 compared to four years earlier. People who’d never voted in a primary before helped fuel Trump’s win in the state’s critical first-in-the-South presidential primary and, beyond that, the White House.
“Barring them from having the ability to vote in a primary is wrong,” he said.
Other speakers said it’s Newton’s bill that prevents participation by narrowing who can run in a primary. They pointed to a provision that requires candidates to have voted in two of the last three statewide primaries. It does allow the party’s executive committee to make exceptions for people who don’t meet that qualification. But that means the party will control who can be on the ballot, they said.
Those supporting the Freedom Caucus bill included Mark Lynch, a Republican running to unseat U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on his right flank, and GOP candidates vying for the coastal 1st District.
Tyler Dykes of Bluffton, who’s among 10 Republicans running to replace U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, said Newton’s bill would bar his candidacy.
The Marine Corps veteran said he and other military veterans who are busy serving their country won’t be able to meet the two-primary requirement. Dykes would have an additional obstacle, as he was imprisoned for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol before Trump pardoned him last January. Arrested in July 2023, he later pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement but now disputes prosecutors’ accusations, saying his plea was only to get a deal.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Alex Pelbath, another 1st District GOP candidate, agreed that the two-primary requirement for candidacy would unfairly keep veterans like him from running.
Rep. Mark Smith of Daniel Island, the only legislator in the 1st District race, took a different tone.
Noting he’s a co-sponsor of both bills, he said he doesn’t care which passes. He also stressed not caring about McMaster’s threat or whether the Senate would consider whatever the House advances. He contended it’s the House’s job to come up with a compromise that can pass.
In addition to Norman, other Republicans running for governor have also chimed in saying they support closed primaries — though without making a demand at the Statehouse.
In news releases, Mace endorsed the Freedom Caucus bill, while Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Attorney General Alan Wilson both advocated for the idea without specifically endorsing either House proposal.
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AP News
Prosecutors say Republican SC lawmaker used 'joebidennnn69' to send ...
Jun 13, 2025COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Republican member of the South Carolina House who prosecutors say used the screen name "joebidennnn69" has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children. RJ May was arrested at his Lexington County home after a lengthy investigation and was ordered Thursday by a federal judge to remain jailed until his trial. The ...
South Carolina Public Radio
SC Republican Rep. RJ May arrested in Lexington County
Jun 11, 2025South Carolina Republican lawmaker RJ May was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Lexington County Detention Center, jail records show. May was first elected to the S.C. House in 2020 and represents part of Lexington County. He is a co-founder of the hardline House Freedom
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https://www.alternet.org/**south-carolina-supreme-court**-2664304733/
8 23 abortion ban
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teacher taught racism
https://www.alternet.org/i-did-not-feel-safe/
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// texas bounty law
anyone any state aids and abets ~ press
https://www.businessinsider.com/south-carolina-lawmakers-propose-prison-sentences-25-years-abortion-providers-2022-7?op=1
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/south-carolina-governor/
sound like neo-confd soviergty states rights? ~ HR 1
no lnx
Republicans aren't making any secret of their approach to winning future elections. It has nothing to do with coming up with better positions. Nothing to do with expanding their base. It has everything to do with restricting the number of people allowed to vote and creating those restrictions in such a way that they favor the rural white population that is increasingly the only stronghold of the Republican Party.
The structure of both the Senate and the Electoral College already gives Republicans an unwarranted advantage by discounting voters in more populous states and elevating the votes of those who live in the least populous states. With each passing year, that lopsided valuing of voters grows. However, it's clear that Republicans are completely aware that this is not enough to save them. In order to preserve any chance of Republican victory, not just at the national level, but in a growing number of states, they need a system that makes in-state voting as unequal as federal voting. And then some.
That's why, as of April 1, there were 361 bills spread across 47 states with the pure intention of making it harder for Americans to vote in local, state, and federal elections. That's why conservative magazines are openly making a plea for "fewer, better voters." And it's why South Carolina's governor is using language that's lifted straight from not just the era in which men like him fought openly against extending voting rights in the 1960s, but from the time men like him fought against freedom in the 1860s.
On Tuesday afternoon, the all-too-appropriately named Gov. Henry McMaster delivered a speech in which he threatens to defy federal law in order to uphold the "constitutional sovereignty" of South Carolina because the federal government is seeking to protect equal rights for Black citizens. Sometimes history doesn't just rhyme, it recycles.
The direct target of McMaster's ire is House bill H.R. 1, also known as the For The People Act. The legislation is designed to provide more uniform access to the polls, and to prevent Republicans from throwing up the kind of voting roadblocks enshrined in the new Georgia law. It also happens to be the subject of Sen. Raphael Warnock's first floor speech.
Republicans have no illusion about H.R. 1. They know it represents a substantial threat to exactly the sort of suppression that is absolutely necessary for them to long maintain any semblance of power. But the card that McMaster is playing is something beyond Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp making false claims about the legislation passed there.
Here is McMaster explaining his position (and I encourage you to spent a minute listening to it).
"This bill, H.R. 1, threatens the constitutional sovereignty of the state of South Carolina. And those are not just words. That's very important. This country, our state, is built on the sovereignty of the states. This bill takes that away. Like others, I have sworn an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of this state, and the United States. An oath, 'So help me God.' Many of you have taken such an oath. As long as I am governor, I will stand against those who seek to infringe or deny South Carolinians their Constitutional protections, freedom, and liberty."
If that language tickles something deep, compare it to this 1956 article from The Asheville Citizen.
"South Carolina was today one step away from interposing its claimed constitutional sovereignty between its schools and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against their segregation. The general assembly ordered final action on the resolution which should reach Gov. Timmerman for his promised signature next Tuesday. Thus South Carolina becomes the third state to resort to this old, but never completely tested, doctrine that the federal government cannot enforce acts a state claims are unconstitutional."
And it that doesn't completely silence the "where have I heard that before" buzzer, how about this:
"In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; … expressly declaring, in the first Article 'that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence..."
That's from the statement issued when South Carolina become the first state to officially secede from the United States on December 20, 1860. The language it cites isn't actually from the Constitution, but the 1777 Articles of Confederation—a name that was soon to be recycled.
In 1956, Gov. Timmerman actually signed that "imposition" bill. He then joined the governors of Mississippi, Georgia, and Virginia to promote federal legislation that would prevent "federal encroachment" on state sovereignty. That included not just segregation of schools, but sustaining segregations in other public facilities. Timmerman also signed a law which barred members of the NAACP from holding any public job in South Carolina.
The language Gov. McMaster is using is a deliberate callback to those previous statements. South Carolina used the concept and language of "state sovereignty" to keep Black Americans in bondage. They used that same language to defend segregation. They're using it now to deny voting rights. McMaster could not have been more clear in his racist intent had he made his speech while aiming a canon at Ft. Sumter.
It's easy to believe that Donald Trump had no accomplishments in his four years, unless the needless death of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the shattering of trust around the world counts as an "accomplishment." But for Republicans, Trump actually did provide them with a gift. His unabashed willingness to embrace racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia has provided them with a certain, noxious version of "freedom." One in which they are free to drop their dog whistles for bullhorns and to say "the quiet things" out loud.
In response to the decision to secede, former South Carolina state Attorney General James Petigru famously said this of his state: "South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum." McMaster may not be quite at the point of testing the former, but his statements certainly come close to challenging the latter.
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dirty dregs of dixie: rino purge
publication reports that a local South Carolina Tea Party leader named Pressley Stutts is at the center of the political shakeup. While he admitted that he is aware of the stark changes, he claims there is a reason for it. Trump had a request and he and others feel obligated to fulfill his request.
"There are a lot of good people that did lose their positions. Some are my friends," Stutts admitted during a recent chat with The Daily Beast on Tuesday. "Some people say, Pressley, what have you done?"...
https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/trump-gop/
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/supreme-court-revives-gops-ballot-witness-requirement-in-south-carolina-enabling-state-voter-suppression/
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1020
https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/even-in-deep-red-south-carolina-biden-has-become-shockingly-competitive/
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920 icn
Inside Clean Energy: In South Carolina, a Happy Compromise on Net Metering
:{:{BY: DAN GEARINO}:
The agreement between Duke Energy and Sunrun may allow other states to resolve the debate after years of conflict. Read More}:
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920 ew
city of Charleston, South Carolina made history Wednesday when it became the first in the U.S. South to sue the fossil fuel industry for damages caused by the climate crisis.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/he-defended-the-confederate-flag-and-insulted-immigrants-now-hes-a-judge/
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intercept 719 on ohio bailout
The cost of the nuclear bailout for Ohio ratepayers is a bargain compared to the bill being given to residents in **South Carolina. The cost of a failed program to build a nuclear power plant there topped $9 billion. Two of the companies involved — Dominion Energy and SCANA Corporation — entered into a buyout and settled a large portion of the bill, leaving ratepayers responsible for footing the remaining $2.3 billion, more than twice the Ohio figure. Not a single kilowatt of energy was produced in South Carolina by the project, which consisted largely of a hole in the ground.
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sue s facing so
https://www.facingsouth.org/2019/03/institute-index-south-pays-dearly-nuclear-industrys-failed-renaissance
In the decade after the meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which took place 40 years ago this week, number of nuclear plant orders that U.S. utilities canceled nationwide amid skyrocketing costs: about 100
In today's dollars, estimated amount those abandoned plants cost taxpayers and ratepayers: over $40 billion
Amount ratepayers shouldered in cost overruns alone for the approximately 100 nuclear power plants built around that time: over $200 billion
Year in which Forbes magazine called the U.S. nuclear power program "the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale": 1985
Year in which the nuclear power industry began using the term "nuclear renaissance" to hype a hoped-for revival of reactor construction: 2001
Between 2007 and 2009, number of applications for new reactor construction projects submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by utility companies: 18
Of those proposed projects, number that were in the South, where electricity markets are dominated by the monopoly utility model with guaranteed profits, and where some states allow utilities to force customers to pay in advance for construction projects: 13
Of the 18 proposed reactor projects, number that are still proceeding today, with others canceled amid skyrocketing costs driven in part by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan: 1
Amount Duke Energy wants to charge its South Carolina customers for a decade of planning for two reactors that were never built at its Lee plant in Cherokee County: $240 million
Amount Florida Power & Light has already charged Florida ratepayers for two new proposed reactors at its Turkey Point plant in Miami-Dade County, construction of which is on hold and may never resume: over $300 million
Amount South Carolina ratepayers must pay for SCE&G's and Santee Cooper's now-canceled project involving construction of two new reactors at the Summer plant in Fairfield County: $2.3 billion
Number of powerful 5 kilowatt home solar electric systems that could be installed with $2.3 billion: more than 65,000
Initial cost estimate for the one commercial nuclear project that's still proceeding, Georgia Power's construction of two reactors at Plant Vogtle in Burke County: $14 billion
Current cost estimate for the Vogtle project, now set to finish in 2022: over $27 billion
Because of Georgia's nuclear prepayment law, approximate amount the Vogtle project has already added to the average annual Georgia Power electricity bill: $120
Year in which Democrats angered by the prepayment scheme's economic injustice and Republicans upset over its violation of free-market principles united in Georgia's legislature to quash similar deals for any other commercial reactors built in the state: 2018
Amount in additional taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantees that were announced for the Vogtle project last week amid a visit to the plant by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who called it "the real new green deal": up to $3.7 billion
Total amount in federal loan guarantees the Vogtle project has received to date: $12 billion
(Click on figure to go to source.)
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2012 howard rich
Palmetto State Politics
Rich may have made his biggest mark in South Carolina— a state where he appears to have no personal connections or obvious business interests. But since 2006, Rich has spent large sums in the state, largely to pursue one of his favored causes: School vouchersto allow parents to send their children to educational institutions other than their local neighborhood schools.
In 2010 alone, Rich’s organizations gave more than $1.7 million to a handful of South Carolina non-profits — groups like South Carolinians for Responsible Government and Conservatives In Action. South Carolinians for Responsible Government is actually two separate nonprofits, one a 501(c)(3) and another a 501(c)(4). Both groups are based at the same address and have the same president and identical boards of directors. Combined, they listed having more than $1.6 million in revenue in 2010.
“South Carolinians for Responsible Government is a statewide grassroots non-profit organization,” the group claims on its website. “Unlike our opponents, who use tax dollars to fund their operations, we depend entirely on the generosity of citizens like you.”
But that’s true only if “citizens like you” includes four of Rich’s groups, which, according to their tax filings, made five grants to the two South Carolina organizations totaling $1.5 million — about 90 percent of the recipient groups’ revenues. It’s a classic Rich maneuver, indirect and complicated.
As is Rich’s sidestepping of South Carolina’s campaign finance laws: A recent investigation by The State newspaper found that since 2008, Rich had contributed at least $188,000 to 38 members of the South Carolina House of Representatives. An OpenSecrets Blog review of South Carolina’s campaign finance disclosures indicate that since that article was published, Rich has given at least another $19,000 to three state Senate candidates facing primary fights.
But since South Carolina caps individual donations at $2,000, Rich had to be creative. Instead he made his gifts through shell companies with names like Stillrich LLC, Coolcal LLC, 188 Claremont LLC, 123 LaSalle, Inc., and 51 First Avenue, LLC. The companies, many of which appear to linger from Rich’s time in real estate – a realm in which it’s common for each property to exist as its own LLC — all list 1420 Walnut Street, Suite 1011, Philadelphia, PA, as their address.
That’s the address of the Center for Independent Thought, the libertarian think tank run by Rich’s wife, Andrea Millen Rich.
Dick Harpootlian, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, is blunt in his assessment of Rich.
“He owns the whole f***ing state,” Harpootlian said recently in an interview with OpenSecrets Blog.
Phil Noble, a Democratic party activist who in 2010 traveled the state confronting candidates for taking Rich’s campaign contributions, is almost as blunt.
“He’s basically bought the Republican Party and virtually all the state House candidates is what it boils down to,” Noble told OpenSecrets Blog. “God knows how many millions he has spent here.” According to Noble, Rich first came to the state to back former governor Mark Sanford, who was a prominent school voucher proponent.
Noble said that Rich has targeted candidates, often moderate Republicans, in primary contests, usually shortly before an election. One left-wing South Carolina blog found that in 2008, LLCs and individuals affiliated with Rich contributed $40,000 to a conservative state Senate candidate, Lee Bright, in the final two weeks before he faced off against an incumbent Republican. The contributions, which were not made public until after the vote, accounted for 20 percent of Bright’s funds in that election.
Simultaneously, the South Carolina Club For Growth — a group affiliated with the national Club For Growth, where Rich is a board member — dropped
, blasting him for taking money from trial lawyers.
Bright narrowly won the race.
Noble blames Rich for corrupting South Carolina’s political culture by encouraging the development and use of secretive non-profits to attack political enemies.
“He was sort of the impetus for the the creation of a whole (c)(4) support network for Sanford and his agenda,” Noble said. “He brought that whole culture with him.”
Furthermore, said Noble, Rich and his network “don’t care at all” about bad publicity. “They just spend what they have to, and they keep spending big.”
Continuing to Spend
...
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Solar's Hitting a Cap in South Carolina, and Jobs Are at Stake by the Thousands
BY: JAMES BRUGGERS
Solar energy's popularity jumped with net metering. Now, utilities plan to cap the program 3 years earlier than expected, and it’s an issue in the governor’s race.
Read More
https://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=3ff154ff26&e=06876ede6b
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RAGA ballotpedia bs
- Arizona won a successful challenge against the National Labor Relations Board which challenged the state’s constitutional amendment guaranteeing worker’s rights to vote by secret ballot on whether to join a union. This case set valuable precedent that will allow these issues to be resolved at the state, not federal, level.
- Republican AGs played a pivotal role in defeating the NLRB's politically motivated attempt to disallow Boeing's business expansion in South Carolina.
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so carolina 14 billion $
https://www.ecowatch.com/summer-nuclear-station-canceled-2467656474.html
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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/republican-lawmakers-surprised-learn-no-black-soldiers-served-under-confederacy
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http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/5-most-dangerous-states-live-and-5-safest
According to the study, the five safest states to live in are Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Hawaii.The least safe states to live in are New Mexico, Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Mississippi. Massachusetts is the state with the lowest share of residents who lack health insurance, the second fewest number of fatal occupational injuries, and the second lowest rate of fatal automobile accidents.
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South Carolina Prepares for Solar Revolution With Historic 105-0 State House Vote
The clean energy legislation is expected to hit Gov. Nikki Haley's desk soon for a signature ...
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AlterNet [1] / By Kristin Rawls [2]
North Carolina Becomes the Front Line of a Brutal Corporate Assault on Education Raging in America
July 31, 2013 |
Corporate education forces are on a destructive march throughout the U.S. While busting teachers' unions has been long been an initiative of the GOP and Christian Right, it’s also on the agendas of urban mayors like Chicago Democrat Rahm Emmanuel and New York City independent Michael Bloomberg. And it’s a large component of the regressive agenda that has sparked mass popular uprisings in Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin.
Enter the notoriously right-wing North Carolina General Assembly. The NCGA has been on the warpath since 2010, when the Tea Party took the state legislature and for the first time in over 150 years of NC history, conservatives gained control of both houses. Since coming to power, they have mounted vicious attacks on voting rights, abortion rights, Medicaid access, unemployment benefits, and public education.
The extreme agenda has prompted the North Carolina NAACP and its president, Rev. Dr. William Barber [3], to spearhead the Forward Together [4]coalition movement, a broad-based group of 150 organizations [5] in the state, including everything from NARAL Pro-Choice NC to Black Workers for Justice joining together in the fight. The coalition is best-known for drawing tens of thousands to the General Assembly between April and July to protest the aggressive legislative session. The protests galvanized public support throughout the state and led to 925 civil disobedience-related arrests [6] in the NCGA.
It’s no accident that the NC-NAACP-led coalition has made public education a rallying point. Rev. Dr. Barber first gained widespread recognition [3] in the state for his advocacy on behalf of public schools. He became a central figure in Triangle-area organizing against the resegregation of Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools, as well as school choice policies in Wake County that would have destroyed the area’s progress fostering diversity and equal opportunity.
Privatized Education Takes NC by Storm—And NC Teacher Association Fights Back
So the NC-NAACP and its coalition partners were ready when the GOP mounted a full-on assault on public education: In 2013 alone, North Carolina deregulated charter school administration, introduced school vouchers into the state budget, terminated most teaching assistants, raised class sizes, reduced funding for schools, ended supplemental teacher pay for graduate education and dismantled due process protection for teachers, called tenure. The new budget provided no teacher raise – remarkable only because it marked a six-year period in which teachers received virtually no raises and only one 1 percent raise to cover new health insurance costs.
Now North Carolina, long near the bottom in teacher pay, is lowest in teacher salary growth [7]. Plus, the state is rapidly approaching the bottom [8]when it comes to per-capita student spending. The cuts were so severe that when the punitive state budget passed almost two weeks ago, school superintendent June Atkinson, who usually stays below the radar of education politics, noted that she was worried about students [9] in North Carolina for the first time in 30 years.
The GOP’s attacks on education have antagonized the state’s major teacher union affiliate, the North Carolina Association of Educators [10], which assumed a leading role in the Moral Monday protests after the draconian budget passed. President Rodney Ellis spoke at the July 22 rally, where he said [11] he committed disobedience on behalf of the more than 95,000 teachers and 1.5 million students who would be negatively affected by the state budget. He also challenged teachers to play an active role on July 29, the final Raleigh Moral Monday protest of 2013.
Like every other Moral Monday, the final one had a theme: This time it was the future of education in North Carolina. According to organizers, the protest drew an estimated 10,000 participants. Teachers wearing “red for public ed” T-shirts crowded the lawn by the NCGA Building that day, and helped lead the march to Fayetteville Street. The downtown area became a sea of protest signs contesting corporate education “reforms “with messages like, “Say no to vouchers,” “I’m a teacher, not a tester,” “I teach the new voters of 2014,” “Just another public school teacher with a second job” and many others.
Barbara Parramore, 81, began her education career in Raleigh in 1954, serving as a teacher, principal and then NC State professor until her retirement in 1996. Though her career began during Jim Crow, Parramore says the future of education in the state looks bleaker now than at any time she remembers in the past. This is why on May 20, she committed civil disobedience alongside other protesters and suffered arrest (an experience she chronicled for AlterNet) [12].
Harnett County principal Angela Hill and teacher Gary Hill (husband and wife) share Parramore’s dreary assessment. Angela Hill, an educator of 12 years, tells AlterNet that finding and hiring good teachers is becoming more difficult. “Educators in North Carolina never wanted to go to South Carolina before, but now we have teachers and principals who are beginning to look for jobs there.”
Seventeen-year teaching veteran Gary Hill, meanwhile, discusses the inequitable system that vouchers and under-regulated charter schools will create. He also worries that dismantling pay raises for graduate education will diminish incentives for teachers to acquire greater expertise.
Retired Lenoir County public school teacher Lendell Wayne, who taught for 33 and a half years, says the changes “will be disastrous for the students of North Carolina. The very future of our children depends on every person who took time out to come to Moral Monday and take part in this struggle.” She says the policies will benefit an already privileged minority of students while leaving the masses in the dust, and she strongly opposes the use of her tax dollars to fund private school tuition.
North Carolina’s Historic Resistance to For-Profit Education
In Chicago, Mayor Emanuel has made fighting the Chicago Teachers Union—and replacing so-called “failed schools” with charters managed by for-profit companies—a central component of his program for the city. But North Carolina’s education landscape did not look much like that of Chicago in 2010 when the GOP took power. Because of North Carolina’s status as a right-to-work state and its generations-long suppression of labor organizing, the NCAE never had nearly as much leverage in negotiations as the Chicago Teachers Union.
But the story isn’t quite so simple. While North Carolina labor policy has always been backward, the state has served as an example of progressive approaches to education policy in other ways. During the late 1940s, Parramore says, the public became more aware that education opportunities for white and black students should be equalized. So an initiative to build better facilities for black schools meant that some were in better condition than white schools. In 1948, schools began paying equal salaries to white and black teachers, also a forward-thinking initiative for its time.
That the state government never really blocked challenges to Jim Crow made NC an unusual case. Over decades, the state—and especially the cities—developed a culture that was enthusiastic about promoting educational equity and student diversity. This is why many large school systems emerged during the 1970s and 1980s; the urban/suburban mix in places like Wake County allowed educational resources to be distributed equitably across large, diverse school districts.
While the populism that always inflected state education policy never quite helped unions, it did render the state more suspicious of the large-scale corporate reforms further along in other states. Policies that advanced disparity were looked on with disdain among both Democrats and some Republicans. Even former Wake County school board chair Bill Fletcher, a Christian conservative who pushed for abstinence-only education policies in the 1990s, backed Wake’s popular diversity policy. Wake was one of the South’s most successful turnarounds from the days of Jim Crow. Such idealism could be found virtually nowhere else in the U.S., not even in the Northeast’s highly segregated schools.
Before 2010, the state resisted opening its schools to expansive charter proliferation because charters are known [13] to entrench inequality and cause racial segregation in schools. Charters were capped, and Chicago-style “chain store” schools were never a part of the educational landscape. Those charter schools that did get off the ground were usually small parent- and/or teacher-led entities that had very little in common with Chicago charters.
While the right wing in other Southern states has long pushed vouchers—that is, the diversion of public resources into private school tuition—they were never part of the political discussion in NC, not even among state Republicans like former Governor Jim Martin. Even the state’s powerful Christian Right contingent has been slow to pick up the cause as a talking point or major policy initiative. Rather than pushing for vouchers, the movement has traditionally isolated itself in homeschools and private Christian schools.
It took a Tea Party super-majority in both houses of the General Assembly—and a puppet governor in Republican McCrory—to turn this tide. But now that it has turned, Barbara Parramore tells AlterNet, the progressive legacies of North Carolina public education could take generations to restore and the best things about North Carolina education are disappearing. So educators will continue the fight.
What’s Next?
No one denies the seriousness of the problem: This is one of the most severely GOP-gerrymandered states in the U.S. Combined with new voting restrictions, the redrawn voting map will make it difficult to unseat Republicans. Though barely 20 percent [14] of North Carolinians approve of the NCGA’s work thus far, true democratic elections will be difficult at best.
Teachers understand that a long-term battle is needed to stem the tide of Tea Party politics and save public schools. But many are hopeful since, like so many other North Carolinians, they are energized by Barber’s insistence that Tarheels must never again succumb to Old South politics.
Looking ahead, "Mountain Moral Monday" takes place in Asheville on August 5, and after that the movement goes on tour. Over the coming months, it will organize statewide resistance before the next legislative session and resumption of Raleigh protests. Meanwhile, the NC-NAACP and coalition partners have mounted what Rev. William Barber calls the “most aggressive” legal battle against civil rights challenges North Carolinians have seen in 50 years.
I have always said that North Carolina contains the very best and the very worst things about the U.S. The Moral Monday movement shows the state at its gentle—and deeply inclusive—best. If anyone can make a difference, it's these people. “What do we do?” Barber has often asked the crowd. “We fight, we fight, we fight” everyone responds. And given the righteous indignation of the charismatic preacher, people begin to believe they can really win.
See more stories tagged with:
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Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/activism/moral-monday-and-education
Links:
[1] http://alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kristin-rawls
[3] http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/firing-up-the-faithful/Content?oid=1196519
[4] http://carolinajustice.typepad.com/hkonj/forward-together.html
[5] http://carolinajustice.typepad.com/hkonj/hkonj-coalition-partners.html
[6] http://www.wsav.com/story/22897539/authorities-73-arrests-at-nc-legislative-protests
[7] http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2013/07/17/north-carolina-is-dead-last-in-teacher-salary-growth/
[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/02/states-education-spending_n_3375632.html
[9] http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/newsroom/news/2013-14/20130722-01
[10] http://www.ncae.org/
[11] http://www.wral.com/about-70-more-arrested-at-nc-legislative-protests/12691206/
[12] http://www.alternet.org/activism/80-year-old-north-carolina-educator-why-i-got-arrested-protesting-right-wing-agenda-schools
[13] http://www.prrac.org/projects/fair_housing_commission/los_angeles/orfield-mcardle.pdf
[14] http://www.wral.com/polls-mccrory-popular-legislature-not-so-much/12367948/
[15] http://www.alternet.org/tags/alternative-education
[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/angela-hill
[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/armed-attack
[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/asheville
[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/barbara-parramore
[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/bill-fletcher-0
[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/bloomberg
[22] http://www.alternet.org/tags/charter-school-0
[23] http://www.alternet.org/tags/chicago-teachers-union
[24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/chicago
[25] http://www.alternet.org/tags/christian-right
[26] http://www.alternet.org/tags/education-economics
[27] http://www.alternet.org/tags/education-united-states
[28] http://www.alternet.org/tags/education-0
[29] http://www.alternet.org/tags/emanuel
[30] http://www.alternet.org/tags/forward-together
[31] http://www.alternet.org/tags/gary-hill
[32] http://www.alternet.org/tags/governor-0
[33] http://www.alternet.org/tags/jim-crow
[34] http://www.alternet.org/tags/jim-martin
[35] http://www.alternet.org/tags/june-atkinson
[36] http://www.alternet.org/tags/lendell-wayne
[37] http://www.alternet.org/tags/lenoir-county
[38] http://www.alternet.org/tags/mayor
[39] http://www.alternet.org/tags/michael-bloomberg-0
[40] http://www.alternet.org/tags/nc-teacher
[41] http://www.alternet.org/tags/ncga-building
[42] http://www.alternet.org/tags/new-york-city
[43] http://www.alternet.org/tags/north-carolina-association-educators
[44] http://www.alternet.org/tags/north-carolina-general-assembly
[45] http://www.alternet.org/tags/north-carolina
[46] http://www.alternet.org/tags/person-attributes
[47] http://www.alternet.org/tags/person-career
[48] http://www.alternet.org/tags/person-location
[49] http://www.alternet.org/tags/person-party
[50] http://www.alternet.org/tags/politics-0
[51] http://www.alternet.org/tags/president-0
[52] http://www.alternet.org/tags/quotation
[53] http://www.alternet.org/tags/rahm-emmanuel-0
[54] http://www.alternet.org/tags/republican-governor
[55] http://www.alternet.org/tags/republican-party
[56] http://www.alternet.org/tags/rodney-ellis
[57] http://www.alternet.org/tags/school-superintendent
[58] http://www.alternet.org/tags/school-choice
[59] http://www.alternet.org/tags/school-voucher
[60] http://www.alternet.org/tags/scott-walker-0
[61] http://www.alternet.org/tags/south-carolina
[62] http://www.alternet.org/tags/tea-party-0
[63] http://www.alternet.org/tags/united-states
[64] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wake-county
[65] http://www.alternet.org/tags/william-barber
[66] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wisconsin-0
[67] http://www.alternet.org/tags/workers-justice
[68] http://www.alternet.org/tags/charismatic-preacher
[69] http://www.alternet.org/tags/democratic-elections
[70] http://www.alternet.org/tags/ended-supplemental-teacher
[71] http://www.alternet.org/tags/former-wake-county-school-board
[72] http://www.alternet.org/tags/large-school-systems
[73] http://www.alternet.org/tags/major-teacher
[74] http://www.alternet.org/tags/professo
[75] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
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In South Carolina, after the state outsourced its water system, the for-profit corporation failed to pay state employee payroll taxes, lost track of tens of thousands of dollars, and lost millions of gallons of water. But the private company refused to come clean about what happened and comply with the public records law's transparency requirements, despite being funded by public dollars.
"Time and again, when we have privatized public infrastructure, the promises of better, faster, cheaper have failed to be delivered," says Donald Cohen, chair of In The Public Interest, a group that has long tracked the outsourcing of public services and assets to for-profit firms. "Outsourcing [in many cases] means taxpayers have little say in how tax dollars are spent and how services are run." Cohen's group is fighting to put control of public services and assets back into the hands of taxpayers.
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Southern Congressman Preston Brooks savagely beats Northern Senator Charles Sumner in the halls of Congress as tensions rise over the expansion of slavery.
When the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed, popular sovereignty was applied within the two new territories and people were given the right to decide the slave issue by vote. Because the act nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the debate over slavery intensified. Northerners were incensed that slavery could again resurface in an area where it had been banned for over 30 years. When violence broke out in Kansas Territory, the issue became central in Congress. On May 19, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, an ardent abolitionist, began a two-day speech on the Senate floor in which he decried the "crime against Kansas" and blasted three of his colleagues by name, one of whom—South Carolina Senator Andrew P. Butler—was elderly, sick, and absent from the proceedings.
Butler's cousin, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who had a history of violence, took it upon himself to defend the honor of his kin. Wielding the cane he used for injuries he incurred in a duel over a political debate in 1840, Brooks entered the Senate chamber and attacked Sumner at his desk, which was bolted to the floor. Sumner's legs were pinned by the desk so he could not escape the savage beating. It was not until other congressmen subdued Brooks that Sumner finally escaped.
Brooks became an instant hero in the South, and supporters sent him many replacement canes. He was vilified in the North and became a symbol of the stereotypically inflexible, uncompromising representative of the slave power. The incident exemplified the growing hostility between the two camps in the prewar years.
Sumner did not return to the Senate for three years while he recovered.
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Rep. Tim Scott, an ALEC Alum, Nominated to U.S. Senate
by Brendan Fischer — December 18, 2012 - 7:31am
- Projects: ALEC Exposed
Representative Tim Scott (R-SC), who was a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as a state legislator and was voted into Congress in the Tea Party wave of 2010, has been nominated to replace Jim DeMint in the U.S. Senate.
"I was a member of ALEC,” Rep. Scott told the right-wing *Washington Times* earlier this year.
As a Congressman, Rep. Scott discussed impeaching President Obama over the debt ceiling negotiations and said he believes the federal government should "never" regulate guns "in any way." He has also been described as one of the most anti-union members of Congress, proposing a bill to strip the National Labor Relations Board of its power to limit employers' union-busting activities and co-sponsoring legislation that would kick families off food stamps if one member went on strike.
As the Center for Media and Democracy has documented, ALEC has been a key avenue for the National Rifle Association to advance its pro-gun agenda in the states, and has been a major proponent of anti-union legislation, with Michigan copying ALEC language verbatim for its recently enacted "right to work" laws.
"They were very receptive when I was a member of [ALEC]," Scott told the Washington Times.
Scott will replace Senator Jim DeMint, who is retiring from the Senate to lead the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank co-founded the same year as ALEC by the same person, Paul Weyrich. The Heritage Foundation is also an ALEC member, and at ALEC's meeting last month in Washington DC, the Heritage Foundation's James Sherk gave a presentation titled "how to limit union influence and expand worker choice."
Scott was appointed to DeMint's seat by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley who herself was an ALEC member when she was in the state legislature. As Bob Sloan has described at the Voters Legislative Transparency Project, Governor Haley appears to have become an ALEC "Legacy" member, which would allow her to maintain a formalized, ongoing relationship with ALEC even after leaving the state legislature.
Scott will be the first African-American to represent the South in the U.S. Senate since reconstruction....http://www.atinstitute.org/ati-fellow-john-droz-convinces-state-to-rethink-climate-related-policy-2/">http://www.atinstitute.org/ati-fellow-john-droz-convinces-state-to-rethink-climate-related-policy-2/.... American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to limit access to the ballot box. A nearly identical version of an ALEC voting bill is moving through the state Senate and comes on the heels of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) blocking South Carolina's ALEC-inspired voter ID law as discriminatory against people of color.
S.C. Sen. Chip CampsenState Senator Chip Campsen (R), an ALEC member, introduced SB 304, which is almost a mirror-image of the ALEC Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act (pdf). The bill requires proof of citizenship to register to vote and has opened up a new round of debate over voting rights.
DOJ Blocked S.C. Voter ID in December
http://www.prwatch.org/node/11265
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