News & Commentary

Despite clear and incontrovertible evidence that South Carolina’s capital punishment system is racist, arbitrary, and error-prone, today our legislators passed a bill to keep the state’s machinery of death moving. The death penalty is modern-day lynching. It must be abolished.

Each day that we pretend that procedural reforms can fix policing, more Black, Brown, and other marginalized people are harmed and killed. To truly address the problem of police violence, we must drastically reduce the size, scope, and role of police in South Carolina.

This legislation is a win-win. It makes us safer, strengthens our economy, and better ensures that South Carolinians are judged on their merit, not their mistakes.

It is clear that Charleston City Council and Mayor Tecklenburg continue to write blank checks to CPD. Charleston residents deserve accountability. That is why we have asked for the Budget Item Detail for each division under the Charleston Police Department for FY2020 and 2021.

South Carolina’s death penalty is racist, arbitrary, and error-prone. Today the Committee ignored these realities and moved South Carolina one step closer to resurrecting the electric chair as the state's default method of execution. It is unconscionable.

Governor McMaster's return-to-in-person-work order ignores public health guidelines and the continuing serious health risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and people with disabilities, people of color, women, and caregivers will bear the brunt of the impact.

There's a new sheriff in town, and she wants to reimagine public safety with the people of Charleston, South Carolina.

Today the South Carolina House passed H. 3105, which would forbid the government, including courts, from imposing any “monetary fine, fee, penalty, damage award, or injunction” against a religious organization in connection with the organization’s religious activities. This legislation goes well beyond protecting the right to worship during public emergencies. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, this bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

These radical religious exemptions would be dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional. No criminal liability. No civil liability. A complete exemption from complying with any law whenever a religious organization claims to be engaged in religious activity.