The SC Senate Could Be A Roadblock To a Flag Removal

[Are_grits_groceries]

The South Carolina House of Representatives is expected to move quickly this week to amend an adjournment resolution so that lawmakers can immediately take up the latest controversy surrounding the Confederate flag. According to our sources, the House has the two-thirds majority necessary to address the flag by amending the legislature’s “sine die” resolution – which went into effect when the S.C. General Assembly adjourned earlier this month.

(This is precisely the scenario we laid out – and encouraged – in this column).

But will the State Senate follow suit? S.C. Senator Lee Bright has made it clear he opposes taking down the flag – referring to the effort to remove it as a “Stalinist purge.” Meanwhile the Senate’s majority leader – Harvey Peeler – angrily left a meeting on Monday with S.C. governor Nikki Haley, who reversed her prior support for the flag and called for it to come down (news of which was reportedly exclusively here on FITS).

Peeler did not stand with Haley at her press conference Monday afternoon.

Nor did S.C. lieutenant governor Henry McMaster – who presides over the Senate and (despite calls for him to withdraw) remains a member of a prominent “whites only” country club in Columbia, S.C.
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Read more at http://www.fitsnews.com/2015/06/23/sc-senate-could-be-roadblock-for-confederate-flag-removal/#i20QEiJISkbO55PL.99

If Haley tries to lead them, she could sink the whole thing with her skills. She has called for people to vote several of them out and they are GOPeas. They are also Senators with a lot of power.

She couldn't round up a BBQ sammich in Columbia much less votes.

[tularetom]

1. Has the momentum of this flag thing gone beyond the point where some local Foghorn Leghorns

can stop it?

I know nothing about SC politics but it seems suspicious that Haley did such a quick 180 on removing the flag. Makes me wonder if she was being pressured from higher up the food chain. When I read that heavy hitters in the GOP want that thing out of there, is it possible that the RNC or some big money guys are turning the screws on her?

I doubt that her decision will play well with the majority of SC voters, so she has probably killed any senatorial ambitions she might have, unless she was offered something attractive on a national level for reversing her previous stand.

Or is the whole thing just kabuki, where she did what she did knowing the senate would put the kibosh on the flag removal and all would be forgiven after some time passed?

[Are_grits_groceries]

3. I think she got some pressure from the business community

and heavyweights in the GOP. I don't think this is kabuki.

I never thought it would be this easy. There is still plenty of time to work on some recalcitrant Senators. However, Haley is the kiss of death doing it. She needs to let other people take the lead.

Some of the GOP Senators and Reps are putting their offices on the line especially if they are from the upstate.

I have ZERO idea how this will go. If I had to bet, I'd predict a huge fight followed by some weasley move. However, they have surprised me so far. There is no telling what will happen. There never is.

[Orsino]

2. That would be terrible if that happened. n/t