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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
S.C.'s Minor Parties Dealt Major Blow With Potential Fusion Voting Ban
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 1:01 PM
The S.C. House is expected to give final approval today to a ban on candidates representing more than one party on the election ballot. The measure will then go to a Senate committee for consideration. Candidates have occasionally sought the support of more than one party as a way of adding up votes over a single-party opponent.
The use of this fusion voting is also a way for minor political parties to get the attention and support of Democratic and Republican party movers and shakers — too often, they're ignored because of their inability to bring a larger base to the polls.
Multi-party voting can also be helpful to voters. It's hard to say what a candidates particular politics might be when only labeled a Democrat, but as the "Rock of Love" Party nominee, the voter would likely sense the candidates support for their most important issue: namely, fishnet stockings on stripper polls.
In 2006, James Island resident Eugene Platt lost his race against Republican Rep. Wallace Scarborough to represent Dist. 115 in the Statehouse by a scant 40 votes.
Platt's name appeared twice on the ballot — representing Democrats and the smaller Working Families party — and the WF nomination got him 400 votes he may not have received if Platt had just ran as a Dem. It still wasn't enough.
But things could have gone different if he had put his name on a third line — the Green Party. Platt says that 57 Dist. 115 residents voted a straight Green Party ticket and those votes would have put him over the edge.
Platt says that he's surprised that several Democrats voted for the ban on fusion voting, considering it has benefited Dems in the past.
Working Families first came to South Carolina as an effort to pull in voters who would support traditionally Democratic principles like pro-labor and fair pay, but they voted Republican because of social issues like gun control and abortion, says Erin McKee, president of the Charleston Central Labor Council and a Working Families organizer in South Carolina.
"We have union member who vote against their best interest because of social issues," she says. "Working Families sticks to pocket book issues."
If the Senate approves the ban, it could be devastating for Working Families, McKee says. She hopes the measure will stall in the Senate.
Running under different parties doesn't always work out well, though. In '08, Platt decided he would try to clinch the endorsement of all three parties and pull out a win. He received the nominations of the Working Families and the Green parties early. But he lost the Democratic Primary, and things went downhill from there.
Working Families nominated three South Carolina candidates who were also appearing on the Democratic Primary ballot. When none of them won, the WF refused to place any of the candidates on the General Election ballot.
The Greens were ready to go ahead with Platt's nomination, but he was kept off the November ballot because a candidate that loses in the primary isn't allowed on the ballot in the general election. The law was likley created to prevent losing candidates from acting as spoilers to sabotage the party that scorned them. Platt argued that he locked in the Green Party endorsement prior to the Democratic Primary, therefore he wasn't running out of a sense of retribution, but the court didn't accept his argument.
It's important to note that Platt's one-time Democratic opponent, Rep. Anne Peterson Hutto, was one of only 17 House members who voted in support of a candidates right to represent more than one party. It remains to be seen what the Senate will do with the bill.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
NIOSH Report Calls For National Shift In Firefighting Standards
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:18 PM
In some of the most pointed language yet in studies of the 2007 Sofa Super Store blaze that killed nine Charleston firefighters, a new report calls for a change in state and federal firefighting standards and implores departments everywhere to take note of the fatal lessons learned at the West Ashley store.
There weren’t any surprises in the final report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Problems in staffing, coordination, and equipment have been highly publicized in the past and the department says it has already taken strides to address those issues.
But every NIOSH recommendation is directed at “fire departments” in the plural. Fire Chief Thomas Carr says it’s standard practice for all 35,000 U.S. departments to use these incident reports as manuals for changes in their own departments.
“This provides a good opportunity for departments across the nation,” Carr says. “Everyone pays attention to every one of these reports. They can take lessons from them no matter how far away you are.”
One recommendation calls for federal and state agencies to improve regulations regarding the safety of firefighters.
“Firefighters have a high rate of injury and death compared to other occupations, yet federal and state regulations addressing the risks of firefighting are sparse,” the report states.
City To Release Final NIOSH Report Later Today
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 12:12 PM
The City of Charleston's Fire Department will release the final report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at 2 p.m.
The report stems from the June 18, 2007 death of nine Charleston fire fighters who were trying to battle a blaze at the West Ashley Sofa Super Store. Other investigations have suggested the fire was caused by an errant cigarette and that the resulting deaths were likely due to a mixture of circumstance, environment, and deficiencies in department training and equipment.
The NIOSH report is expected to offer recommendations on what the department can do in the future to avoid a similar tragedy.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
DeMint: Charleston Firefighter Grant Awarded By Merit and The Grace of God
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 1:53 PM
Sen. Jim DeMint just sent out a release announcing a $2.53 million staffing grant for the City of Charleston aquired through a competitive, merit-based selection process from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The funniest part of the release is the great pains that DeMint's office goes to in order to make it clear he had nothing to do with bringing this money to Charleston.
"These funds were not awarded at the direction of Sen. DeMint who works to prevent the allocation of taxpayer funds through congressional earmarks."
In other words. Jim DeMint is happy to announce that Charleston received federal aid, but he wants to make sure it is clear that he had absolutely nothing to do with it. This differs from Congressman Henry Brown or Sen. Lindsey Graham, who note with pride when they helped bring money like this back to the region.
We reported on the danger in DeMint's principaled stand last year.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Top 10 of 2008: Sofa Store Fallout
Posted by Greg Hambrick on Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 2:16 PM
A daily glance at the top 10 Charleston stories of 2008. Look for the entire list in this week's Charleston City Paper.
3. Sofa Store Fallout
The June 2007 blaze that killed nine Charleston firefighters left much to be resolved in 2008. Critics had suggested that the fire department was partly to blame for the fatalities, but it wasn’t until days before a report from an independent investigation in May that Charleston Fire Chief Rusty Thomas announced his plans to resign. The report that followed cited failures in staffing, training, and equipment at the department, as well as a careless, cavalier attitude toward fighting fires. Thomas was replaced by Thomas Carr, a Maryland fire chief.
In 2009: The Charleston Police Department has only recently handed over its finding to the county solicitor for a possible criminal case, while several civil cases brought by the families of the firefighters work their way through the court system.
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