Archive for November, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving
Thursday, November 27th, 2008DHEC deja vu
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008By Becci Robbins
Today The State newspaper wrapped up DHEC Under Fire, an “exclusive” series exposing the failure of the state agency charged with protecting South Carolina’s environment. It was oddly familiar. In 1999, the alternative newspaper POINT ran a similar package. I remember it well; I was managing editor and wrote most of the stories. You can read them here.
This was the introduction we ran:
This issue is dedicated to South Carolina’s environment. Seems that while we weren’t looking, this state became the country’s garbage dump. We hope this issue of POINT gives you something to think about and, just maybe, something to fight for.
By way of full disclosure, readers should know that the publisher and editor of POINT have for the past year been working with grassroots groups from across the state on an initiative to restructure DHEC, the state’s environmental agency.
Some will argue that our connection to the project renders us incapable of covering this story without bias. Perhaps.
But we believe our experience lends us a valuable perspective that we could not have as a member of the “straight” media. For many months, we have been meeting with lawyers, legislators, community leaders and environmental activists, some of whom go way back with DHEC. We have heard them talk with the freedom they would not if they were “on record.” While we have not used any quotes from those meetings or discussed what went on in them, the discussions deepened our understanding of how DHEC works — and how it doesn’t.
Finally, we invite anyone at DHEC, including those who declined to be interviewed, to respond to our coverage in this issue. We will gladly publish any written responses in the next POINT.
While it’s good to see The State finally give DHEC the sort of scrutiny it deserves, it’s too bad it took them so long to do it. Frankly, it’s no surprise. The State, ironically, has a long history of doing what it now accuses DHEC of doing: coddling industry and putting the interests of big business above the public interest.
The paper has been unable, or unwilling, to connect the dots that draw the clear picture of systemic problems that allowed DHEC to operate so irresponsibly and with such devastating consequences. There is no excuse. We sent the newspaper the same press releases we sent the rest of the media informing them about our grassroots campaign and legislation designed to reform the environmental agency. They ignored us. No telling how much pollution went unchecked as a result.
The State’s reporters said they interviewed 200 people to write their recent DHEC series. Not one of them was from the SC Progressive Network, the organization that initiated the move to reform the agency and called the first meeting of legislators and activists to explore the issue. That’s shoddy reporting, at best. At worst, it reveals a pettiness unbecoming of the state’s main newspaper.
POINT cover, Winter 1999
Employee Free Choice Act
Thursday, November 20th, 2008AFL-CIO:
In this economic crisis, working families are struggling. CEOs are raking in hundreds of times more than their employees earn and then giving the boot to workers who try to exercise their freedom to form unions. CEOs wouldn’t work a minute without a contract — but they do whatever it takes to keep their workers from gaining contracts. Three minutes of your time today could help restore the balance to our economy.
Watch this video, then click here to sign our petition.
No Excuse for Antiquated Voting System
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008By Brett Bursey, Director, SC Progressive Network
and Rev. Joe Neal, SC Legislative Black Caucus
Were you one of the many South Carolinians who stood in line to vote early this election, only to be told that our state doesn’t have early voting?
If you were confused about how you couldn’t vote early but could vote “in-person, absentee ballot” — provided you had one of 15 excuses to qualify — you were not alone in your befuddlement. Even our election officials don’t always agree on protocol. South Carolina’s voting laws are a hodge-podge of inconsistent rules that are interpreted and enforced by 46 independent county election directors.
Our voting system traces its roots to the constitution of 1895, which effectively codified Jim Crow laws that made it nearly impossible for black men to vote. Women couldn’t vote until 1921. For more than a century, SC citizens have been required to register to vote 30 days before an election. The rules were enacted at a time when horses were used to deliver the ballots to the county seat — way before telephones, the Internet or even Strom Thurmond.
Ben Tillman’s constitution established the county boards of elections we are still using. The governor appoints “discrete electors” to determine who votes and how in each county, some nominated by county councils and others by legislative delegations. There is no consistency in how they run their county’s voting system.
Some very personal thoughts on marriage
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008By Charlie Smith, Charleston
My cousin Wil sent me a YouTube clip today of Keith Olbermann making some observations about how marriage has dramatically changed in this country. Olbermann talks about how on Nov. 4, 2008 we elected a president whose parents at the time of his birth were legally unable to marry in 16 of our 50 states. On this same day, a majority of the citizens of California decided to relegate gay and lesbian people to that same station in life in which Barack Obama’s parents were forced to live just 47 years ago when the soon-to-be leader of the free world was born.
Olbermann’s comments reminded me of something that I don’t think I have ever revealed in public about myself. Something in fact that I have rarely ever mentioned privately even to my parents and sisters. In 1993 my partner of six years, a very handsome and wonderful man whom some of you knew, asked me to marry him. I did not know what to say when I heard those words. I wasn’t necessarily opposed to the idea, but I’d just never really thought that anyone would ask me that question. Why would someone? I mean I’m a guy…and guys were the askers, not the askees…and I knew that I would likely never be asking anyone…at least in the sense that the target of that question would be a woman. I did not know what to say to him, so I said what I always said when my partner asked me to do something that was obviously important to him…I said “Of course I will!”
My next big surprise came when I discovered that Carlos did not intend for us to have a small private ceremony with a handful of our closest friends as I had envisioned. He wanted us to join 2600 other couples in front of the IRS Building in Washington, D.C on April 24, 1993, during the March on Washington to be married by the Reverend Troy Perry, Founder of the Metropolitan Community Church. This was the wedding that became known at the time as the largest same-sex wedding demonstration and celebration in history. And so on that crisp Saturday morning in our nation’s capital we donned our Sunday finest and did just that.
This World Will Be A Better Place
Monday, November 17th, 2008James Holloway, of Riverside Community Development Corporation in Saluda, received the SC Progressive Network’s 2008 Thunder & Lightning Award. Here he sings with his family at CWA Hall on Nov. 15 in West Columbia.
To see photos of the Network’s Fall Summit, click here.
Unify. Organize. Mobilize.
Thursday, November 13th, 2008
Another Tuesday, another vote
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008Miriam Makeba, 1932 – 2008
Monday, November 10th, 2008Trigger-Happy Thanksgiving, y’all
Sunday, November 9th, 2008The South Carolina legislators who passed the measure call it the “Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday.” Thinking people would call it pandering of the worst kind.
Just today The Greenville News reported that, according to the FBI, South Carolina is the most violent state in the nation.
Instead of a tax break for food, or gas, or products to help protect the environment, we get a tax break on guns. Seriously. Beginning at midnight Nov. 28 and ending at midnight Nov. 30, South Carolinians can save money while they beef up their arsenals.
It’s not like they needed the incentive. There has been a run on guns since Barack Obama was elected president, amid fears that he and a Democrat-controlled Congress will pass stricter gun laws.
Apparently, you can take the cowboy out of the White House, but not out of the American household.
Becci Robbins
Network member’s guest column featured in Washington Post
Thursday, November 6th, 2008This essay appeared in today’s Washington Post. It was written by Herb Silverman, founder of SC Progressive Network member group Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry.
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For Secular Americans, Lip Service Beats No Service
By Herb Silverman
About a month before this recent election, some local progressives in South Carolina asked if I would help Democrat Linda Ketner in her Congressional campaign against conservative incumbent Republican Henry Brown. At first they thought I was joking when I said I didn’t even plan to vote for her, and would leave blank that portion of my ballot. They ticked off a number of issues on which Ketner was better than her opponent. I agreed, even adding a couple of my own. My problem with Ketner was a 30-second TV ad in which she proclaimed her love of God three times.
I have gradually begun withdrawing support from otherwise acceptable candidates who make personal religious beliefs a focal point of their campaigns. In taking a longer view, I described how the Religious Right moved beyond merely saving souls to becoming a formidable political force. My friends discounted this reasoning. The Religious Right may have been thrown a few crumbs by politicians, they said, but mainly all they have received in return for their support is lip service. When my companions asked if I, an atheist, would settle for so little, I replied without hesitation: “YES! We’ll take lip service!”
The long road to the White House
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008The 2008 campaign for president was exhausting. But what an ending!
I saw Barack Obama speak twice in Columbia, once at the Convention Center and again at Williams Brice Stadium, when Oprah was stumping for him. Last night, I was in the Stadium again, this time with friends at a party watching the election returns. The mood was electric.
Here’s a look back. And forward.
Becci Robbins
It’s Election Day…
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008Surprise!
By Becci Robbins
The phones have been ringing steadily in the SC Progressive Network‘s office today. We’ve been working with the national Election Protection Coalition, which is staffing a hotline to provide free legal assistance to voters with problems at the polls. As of 5:30pm, the hotline has logged 36,513 reports, 480 in South Carolina. We will provide details about the reports once we’ve had time to review them and complete follow-up phone calls. For now, suffice it to say that election workers were not prepared to handle the unprecedented turnout.
It’s not like they didn’t know Election Day was coming. The large number of new voters was no surprise, either. So it’s been frustrating to watch the process over the last couple of weeks. The Get Out The Vote work we’d intended to do was delayed because election offices were so backed up that new registrations hadn’t been entered into the database. And the long lines of people trying to vote absentee bordered on abusive, with some waiting more than four hours to cast a ballot.
When I voted yesterday, in Lexington County, the wait was over two hours. The gentleman in front of me was using a cane and, worried that he wouldn’t be able to handle standing for such a long time, I went to see if he could use the curbside machines set aside for folks with physical disabilities. I was told that the person who brought him would have to wait in line, and then the machine would be brought out. He drove himself, I told them, so what was he to do? They said he could take advantage of a wheelchair parked by the front door.
It’s hard to understand why the county was so ill-prepared to deal with the needs of such voters – especially since among the reasons people can vote absentee in South Carolina is if they are disabled or over 65. The problems in Lexington were not isolated, as I watched people drive up for curbside voting in Columbia and, when nobody came out to help them, they drove off without voting. I also watched seniors stack up by the door to the election office, where there were chairs, with nobody coming out to advise them.
Clearly, we can do better. The Network is working to make sure that we do. We plan to revisit legislation we introduced last session to make it easier to vote. (For details on those bills, click here.) And we are going to hold town hall meetings in the coming weeks so South Carolinians can tell their stories and share ideas about how to improve election process in the Palmetto State.
In the meantime, if you had a problem at the polls, please make a report to the Election Protection hotline: 1-866-OUR-VOTE. That data will be used to inform legislative and procedural remedies for future elections.
Finally, thanks to everyone who volunteered today and in the days leading up to the election. Thanks, too, to all the voters who braved long lines to vote. Let’s hope that sort of faith in democracy is contagious.
Volunteers needed Election Day
Monday, November 3rd, 2008Volunteers with the SC Progressive Network‘s Missing Voter Project have been helping election officials in the county offices process new voter registrations and at the polls as people wait in long lines to vote absentee. We can use all the help we can get today and on Election Day. If you can lend even a couple of hours to volunteer, call the Network’s office at 803-808-3384 or John Dawkins at 803-467-1981. We need volunteers to help seniors and the disabled, to monitor the polls and to post flyers at precincts with the hotline number voters can call for free legal advice should they encounter any problems. That number is 1-866-OUR-VOTE.
Network Director Brett Busey helps answer voters’ questions as they wait in line to vote absentee in Columbia on Oct. 31. Some people waited for four hours to vote. Click here to see more photos.
Election Protection hotline logs over 1,000 calls in South Carolina
Thursday, November 6th, 2008Calls to the SC Election Protection hotline from voters reporting problems came in at nearly one a minute on Election Day.
“We logged a total of 1,034 calls by 8pm,” said SC Election Protection field manager Brett Bursey. “That’s more that double the number made in the 2004 and 2006 election combined.” More than half the calls came in on Election Day. Charleston County led the state with 131 problems reported. Greenville and Richland counties each logged 83 calls, and Spartanburg had 56.
Spartanburg County Election Commission Director Henry Laye was the hardest to reach of the county directors. Laye allowed a Republican poll watcher to challenge black voters’ reasons for voting absentee, which made long lines even longer. On Nov. 4, Spartanburg had some of the longest lines, with voters waiting up to five hours. Two precincts reported people in line three hours after the polls closed.
The National Election Protection Coalition of nonpartisan advocacy groups staffed call centers around the country that logged 43,207 calls. Calls were posted by state on the organization’s web site, and volunteer legal advisors in South Carolina followed up with phone calls to voters to help them resolve problems.
Nearly 200 calls were from voters who were not listed on the poll books. Most were newly registered and never received their cards. Many of these people were turned away and not given the opportunity – as required by law – to vote a provisional ballot.
It was clear from the calls that counties are not consistent in interpreting the election laws. “Counties make their own rules, and laws are what the poll workers think they are,” said one frustrated legal volunteer.
The SC Progressive Network will be holding town meeting across the state to gather citizens’ input on their experiences voting in an effort to our work to pass legislation next session to improve voting procedures and practices in South Carolina. The Network introduced legislation in 2006 for Early Voting Centers and other reforms that would have reduced both the lines and the stress on poll workers. For details on these bills, click here.
If you have a story to tell about problems voting, please email it to network@scpronet.com. Be sure to include your name, contact information, location of problem and whether it was resolved.
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