Four years ago, the Lowcountry had what looked like a chokehold on state politics, with the five top statewide offices being held by its residents:

• Gov. Mark Sanford hailed from a plantation near Beaufort;
  
  
• Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, with houses in as many congressional districts as he could afford, lived at the time in downtown Charleston;
  
  
• Charlestonian Glenn McConnell was the president pro tempore of the state Senate;
  
  
• Bobby Harrell lived in the same area in Charleston and was still House Speaker;
  
  
• And former state representative from Summerville Converse Chellis was treasurer, having replaced yet another Charlestonian, Thomas Ravenel.

Power shifts

This was not the first time a region of the state dominated the top five, as evidenced by the Upstate’s dominance during Gov. Carroll Campbell’s tenure, which included Speaker David Wilkins, Lt. Gov. Nick Theodore and others.

Fast forward to Tuesday’s election and there was only one candidate (Ginny Deerin for secretary of state) from the Lowcountry on the ballot for statewide positions.

Now that the election results are in, it is apparent that the political power base has shifted from the Lowcountry to the Pee Dee/Midlands portion of the state.

Both House Speaker Jay Lucas (R-Hartsville) and President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman (R-Florence), also chair of the Finance Committee, are from the Pee Dee.

The Columbia area, center of the Midlands, is home to not only Gov. Nikki Haley, but also for Treasurer Curtis Loftis and Henry McMaster, who will be sworn in as the state’s new lieutenant governor in January.

But several observers said not to read too much into the geographical homes of the officeholders because proximity did not lead to true dominance. As evidence, look to “milk” remaining the state’s official beverage during the Lowcountry’s rein, versus something a bit more inebriating, one observer cracked.

USC political scientist Todd Shaw said while there may be some consolidation of power in the center of the state, voters were not going into voting booths influenced by the candidates’ addresses. 

A quick look at committees in the Senate shows the Upstate still has power, as evidenced by the nine of 14 chairs of committees from the region. The Pee Dee and Lowcountry each have two Senate chairs, with only one hailing from the Midlands.

Winthrop political scientist Scott Huffmon, boss of the state’s most influential polling center, agreed, saying voters picked candidates that were closest to their political hot-button issues.

Factionalism

Four years ago, a Republican candidate was going door-to-door discovered an important trend, according to a player requesting anonymity: voters were angry. Obamacare topped the list of things they were angry about, and fueled much of the power behind the rise of the tea party faction of the Republican Party, the player said.

Statewide, GOP candidates quickly became very reactive to the rising anger and power base, taking more aggressively conservative positions to mollify intemperate voters, by all accounts. By tapping into that anger early, the GOP may have insulated itself in South Carolina in 2014.

Last week’s election also may have shown the tea party’s thrall weakening over the right-wing of the state Republican Party, according to Huffmon.   He said the partiers had made their big push to oust U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in the primary, but to no avail.

That push may have also prompted an “all hands on deck” call in the state Democratic Party to get state Sen. Brad Hutto (R-Orangeburg) into office, the thinking being that a tea party candidate might be too far right for the majority of South Carolina voters.

With Graham squashing all comers in the primary, Huffmon said the tea party faction was “keeping its powder dry” during Tuesday’s election. 

That same observer drew parallels with the mid-1990s success of the Moral Majority, which faded during mid-term elections.

The tea party’s anger, it appears, just wasn’t there in South Carolina this year, but no one interviewed for this article thinks the faction’s days are done in the Palmetto State.

Incumbentism

How could state Sen. Vincent Sheheen (D-Camden) hope to beat Gov. Haley in his second attempt with the state and national economies on the mend and unemployment in South Carolina having dropped by half during her first tenure?

As it turned out, he had no hope of winning, as he lost by a little more that 14 percent of the vote.

In both gubernatorial elections, Sheheen lagged behind Haley by 9 percentage points a month out, said Huffmon. In 2010, Sheheen regained 5 percent of the vote in the waning weeks. This time with allegations of ethics violations and extramarital affairs a distant rumble, Haley took the same 5 percent and won going way with 180,000 more votes, the pollster said.

Another bellwether of voter anger, or lack thereof in South Carolina, may have been the scant number of incumbents challenged by opposing major party candidates. Of the 124 seats in the S.C. House, only 35 of them involved more than one party. That meant 89 candidates in 124 seats faced no challenger, as described more fully in Palmetto Politics below.

No one in the state Senate is up for reelection for another two years.

Additionally, voter apathy seemed to have replaced voter anger. Consider that nearly 44 percent of registered voters turned out for the election, one of the lowest turnouts in years, even for a midterm election.

Huffmon said that only about 35 percent of voting-aged residents actually voted in the Tuesday’s election, since the percentage of those who are also registered to do so is so low in South Carolina.

“I guess the moral of the story is to vote in mid-terms when your vote counts even more,” said Huffmon, with a laugh. “Yay, democracy?!”

Bill Davis is senior editor of Statehouse Report.  He can be reached at:  billdavis@statehousereport.com.

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Around the Statehouse next week:

• Education. The EIA and Improvement Mechanisms Subcommittee of the Education Oversight Committee will meet 10 a.m. Nov. 10 in 433 Blatt to hear testimony on learning, recruitment and technology. Agenda.
  
  
• First Steps. The study committee established in 2014 will meet and receive comments from requested speakers, although their names weren’t on an agenda. Details: 1 p.m. Nov. 10 in 433 Blatt.
  
  
• Children. The Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children will hold a public hearing in Greenville at county council chambers (301 University Ridge) at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 10. It will hold a meeting at 3 p.m. Nov. 13 in Columbia in the third floor conference room of the Statehouse, followed by a hearing in the first floor auditorium.
  
  
• Medical marijuana. A study committee will meet at Clemson’s ICAR campus in Greenville at 1 p.m. Nov. 13. Click here to learn how to be put on the agenda, which was not available.

The effects of gerrymandering seem to be crystal clear in the election results from Tuesday. Just look at these stats:

• Incumbents safe. Of the 124 seats in the S.C. House, 83 House members -- 53 Republicans and 30 Democrats -- had no challengers in the general election.
  
  
• Easy for some newbies. Six seats also are so obviously slanted toward one political party or the other that six new people were elected without a general election challenge -- five Republicans and one Democrat.
  
  
• Few real challenges. Of the 27 current House members who had challengers, most of the results were so lopsided that incumbents faced little threat at the polls. As highlighted by the chart, there were only five House races this year involving incumbents in which the winner got less than 60 percent. Of those five races, all incumbents won.
  
  
• Few competitive open races. The remaining eight races involved newcomers, but only three races were competitive with the winning percentage for the victor being less than 60 percent.

So take those numbers and you’ll see a whopping 94 percent of House seats -- 116 out of 124 -- are safe for Democratic or Republican office-holders -- and the overwhelming reason?  It's pretty obvious that it's closely related to how the districts are drawn to protect incumbents.

In South Carolina, they’re so mad that they voted to return every single Republican incumbent on the ballot to Columbia to continue to run state government. Yes, the state GOP benefited from voter anger -- even though Republicans have been running the legislature and governor’s office for the last 12 years. 

With all of the problems across South Carolina, it’s pretty remarkable that mad voters wanted to keep Republicans in control, despite a thin record for a dozen years. The coattails of anger must run pretty deep.

So as a state, we’re going to start off next year in pretty much the same fix we’ve had since 2003. We’re going to start out with folks in charge who know how to win elections, but have a hard time putting pen to paper to actually govern.

Republican leaders need to recognize that balloons come in more colors than red, as one Facebook wag noted. Governing means state Republicans need to get out of a self-serving campaign mode and do what they are elected to do -- the hard work to make government work better for all people in the Palmetto State, not just Republicans in South Carolina.

This shouldn’t be a novel concept, but it seems that those in power in Columbia still don’t understand what it means to make the state run effectively, efficiently and fairly.

Governing means actually doing something to fix our state’s crumbling road infrastructure, not just talking about what might happen. It does not mean promising to come up with a plan after an election (thanks Gov. Nikki Haley) or borrowing a little bit when the bill that is due for fixing roads is upwards of $40 billion.

Governing means funding public education as required by the law, not steering a half billion dollars a year away from students by fiddling with formulas, as has been done for the last six years. Governing means coming up with innovative education solutions, not refusing federal money or accepting the low court-defined requirement of the state’s role to provide only a “minimally adequate” education. Folks, if we don’t have educated workers, how in the world do you think we can continue to compete in the global economy? It’s in our self-interest to put more into public education, not less. 

Governing means implementing real and comprehensive tax reform, not forming another study committee to write a report that will gather dust on a shelf. Governing is not crafting a public law to shift the tax burden away from the rich to the middle class and businesses. If next year’s legislators really want to accomplish anything for the greater good of the people of the state, they will make the tax code fairer to all starting with broadening the tax base, lowering rates, eliminating a boatload of sales tax exemptions, restructuring income tax brackets and revamping the failing policy of lowering property taxes for a few by raising sales taxes on all.

Governing means passing real ethics reform, not succumbing to cynicism and failing to do whatever it takes to clean up South Carolina’s culture of backroom deals, buckets of soft money and opaque cronyism.

Governing means making sure people are healthier, not posturing and grandstanding over federal help to expand Medicaid to 200,000 of the state’s poorest. Republican governors from all over the country have accepted federal Obamacare money and, despite what many closed ears want to hear, the program is dropping the percentage of uninsured people like gangbusters and keeping down health costs.

Regardless of political party, governing means taking responsibility for what happens and working to make things better. It’s time for Columbia’s politicians to stop all of the blather and nonsense and actually do something ... for a change.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report.  He can be reached at:  brack@statehousereport.com.

• 10/31: Sheheen's flub highlights media's problem
• 10/24:  State plays shell game with local governments
• 10/17:  See if you can find the "liberal"
• MORE BRACK:  See our archives
• FEEDBACK:  feedback@statehousereport.com
  
  

By Victoria Middleton
Special to Statehouse Report

NOV. 7, 2014 -- Turnout for mid-term elections is traditionally light, but there are ways to encourage more people to exercise their fundamental right to vote. Regrettably since 2006,  34 state legislatures have worked diligently to chip away at  voting rights.

In the past year alone, 14 states implemented legislation that would end same-day voter registration, limit early voting and require voters to present forms of ID that many voters lack and cannot easily obtain.   What these measures have in common is that all would disproportionately impact African-American voters, making it more difficult for them to vote or have their vote count in a meaningful fashion.   This, despite the fact that in Shelby v. Holder, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts declared that "no one doubts" that race discrimination in voting still exists.

We need the new Congress to modernize the Voting Rights Act as the Supreme Court invited.  We need to go beyond a static, geographically-based statute and instead get one that is flexible and forward-looking, capturing jurisdictions that have most recently engaged in acts of discrimination while also providing new nationwide tools to respond to race discrimination wherever it occurs in the country. In light of the new modest coverage formula, these other nationwide protections are critical in fulfilling the Voting Rights Act mandate of preventing race discrimination in voting for all citizens.

At the state level, we need to push back against legislation that would deny access to the ballot to eligible voters and urge measures that would make voting easier.  State-level efforts to expand access to the polls include expanding early voting, online voter registration, and same-day voter registration.

• feedback@statehousereport.com
  
  

Haley, GOP. Hats off to all of the winners in Tuesday’s election, particularly Gov. Nikki Haley and Henry McMaster, who will be the last lieutenant governor elected separately. Now it’s time to really govern.