News & Commentary

South Carolina’s death penalty is racist, arbitrary, and error-prone. Today our state Senate 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.

Such an extreme policy violates the United States Constitution and federal civil rights law, puts South Carolina at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, and harms transgender youth, all to solve a problem that plainly does not exist.

Abolition is the Fix

It has been nearly nine months since the Charleston Police Department and other law enforcement agencies brutalized people protesting police brutality on May 31. At a minimum, this report should have acknowledged this abuse of power. Instead, CPD has continued to deflect responsibility.

Today our legislature and Governor placed politics in front of the health, safety, and privacy of South Carolinians. Shame on them.

Instead of continuing to tinker with a death penalty system that is broken beyond repair, South Carolina legislators should repeal the death penalty.

Civil asset forfeiture allows the government to take and keep your property without even charging you with a crime.

Tomorrow a subcommittee of the SC Senate Medical Affairs Committee will consider a bill (S.1) that would prohibit abortions after any embryonic cardiac activity is detected, which is usually at six weeks. Make no mistake, this bill is intended to ban abortion in South Carolina.

From colonization and slavery, though modern racist and exploitative policies that include regressive taxation, redlining, and voter suppression, America has systematically exploited and denied the basic human rights of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. White supremacy is America's foundation.