Blue note 5 4

►The Bimonthly Newsletter of the Dorchester County Democratic Party◄ ►The Bimonthly Newsletter of the Dorchester County Democratic Party◄

August/September 2013 Volume 5, Issue 4

By Richard Hayes The Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” is about to really get started, but there seems a lack of information about this major improvement in our healthcare sys-tems and how it is to be implemented. This healthcare reform is the single most dramatic change in the health care deliv-ery system that has occurred in a genera-tion that affects all of us. A key provision is the health insurance exchanges, and they are to begin on October 1, 2013! Our Governor has NOT implemented the recommended marketing plan – I firmly believe this is on purpose as she wants the Affordable Care Act to fail. So we need to get the word out!

The new, consumer-focused Health-Care.gov website and the 24-hour-a-day consumer call center help Americans pre-pare for open enrollment and ultimately sign up for health coverage. These new tools will help Americans understand their coverage options and select the plan that best suits their needs when open enroll-ment in the new Health Insurance Market-place begins October 1, 2013. Key new provisions are:

Adults with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied affordable insurance

Individuals buy insurance through a new online, state-based marketplace called an exchange

Individuals and families may receive subsidies to help buy coverage from the health insurance exchange. Based on your income, there will be a cap to the amount you will be charged for premiums and your out-of-pocket

expenses will also be capped

Whether you’re uninsured, you’ve been denied coverage in the past, or you just want to ex-plore new options, the Health Insurance Marketplace will give you more choice and control over your health coverage. The Marketplace will operate in all states, including South Carolina!

In the Marketplace, you can compare coverage options based on price, benefits, quality, and other features im-portant to you. You can choose the combi-nation of price and benefits that fits your budget and meets your needs.

You can get lower costs on coverage: The Marketplace application will tell you if you’re eligible for a new way to get lower costs on your monthly pre-miums or out-of-pocket costs for pri-vate insurance. You’ll also learn if you can get free or low-cost coverage through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Essential health benefits are covered in the Marketplace: All plans must offer a comprehensive set of essen-tial health benefits including doctor visits, preventive care, hospitaliza-tion, prescriptions, and more.

Pre-existing conditions will be cov-ered: Plans won’t be able to deny you coverage or charge you more due to pre-existing health conditions, includ-ing a pregnancy or disability.

You can get help in your area: If you need help finding a plan, several kinds of help will be available to give you personalized assistance with the

process.

Fees begin: Beginning 2014, most people are required to have health coverage. If they don’t, they may have to pay a fee.

Open enrollment for Marketplace plans begins October 1, 2013. Coverage begins as early as January 1, 2014. If you live in South Carolina, you’ll use this website, HealthCare.gov, to apply for coverage, compare plans, and enroll. You can apply as early as October 1, 2013. Two great sources on the Internet are: www.healthinsurance.org/south_carolina-state-health-insurance-exchange and www.healthcare.gov.

Let’s Get Obamacare Oba-moving!

INCLUDED IN THIS ISSUE Exec Meeting in St. George—page 2

“Dems Care” for School Supplies—page 2

Cost of Breakfasts Changes—page 2

4-K to be Underway—page 3

Senate 42 Debate on Aug. 6—page 3

DOMA/Prop 8 rulings—page 6

Voting Rights Act ruling—page 7

Fantasy Football League—page 8

Calendar of Events—page 8

As you know, each month the Dorchester County Democrats have a breakfast on the 3rd Saturday of the month at 9:00 a.m., at Ryan’s Family Steak House on N Main Street in Sum-merville. The purpose of these breakfasts is to share ideas, goals and direction to our mem-bers (old and new) and anyone else that cares to join us. We have been charging everyone $8 for the breakfast at Ryan’s, and some of our members have tradition-ally paid $10 plus a tip. Because of recent increases, though, DCDP has been losing money on the deal in recent months. This $10 cost that so many were willing to offer is now the standard rate that we’ll have to pay at Ryan’s. This went into effect in July. (While that $10 includes both tax and tip, please feel free to leave your own tips for the serving staff). We have had breakfasts at different places in Sum-merville, and most recently at Ryan’s, which clearly has the least expensive breakfasts. Everyone has mul-tiple choices of food items, and this includes the choice of whether to eat of not. In fact, Shoney’s told

us that if fewer than 10 people eat, it will charge for the room where we meet. Ryan’s charges us nothing for the room and they even installed a flag in the room for our pledge. We often have speakers including potential candi-dates for political offices. Other times we will have speakers that share information with our members, regarding topics such as voting rights, voter ID, and voter registration. We discuss services such as Meals on Wheels, Social Security, Medicare and other social programs, and we have fellowship. Arrangements for any other breakfast location must be made by the individual making the suggestion and will be voted on. See you at Ryan’s on August 17 at 9:00 a.m. Support your DCDP – please come to our monthly breakfasts!

About those monthly breakfast meetings…

By Marty Turney, Holder of the World’s “All You Can Eat” Record

Next Executive Committee Meeting in St. George

(with a party right after!)

On August 5, DCDP’s executive committee meeting will be held in the upper party of the county. Starting at 7 p.m. on that Monday evening, the committee will meet in the Waggoner Building, 201 Johnston St in St. George. This won’t be just an executive committee meeting, though. Right after we finish all the boring business, the meeting will become a social event, complete with refreshments! County Councilman Willie Davis and state Rep. Patsy Knight helped with these arrangements. If you’d like to carpool to the event, contact party chair Richard Hayes: 843.813.2168 or [email protected].

Dorchester Democrats are collecting school supplies for students in both of our county school districts, and as part of the state party’s new “Democrats Care” program. If you care to donate any supplies to our county’s kids, please contact Debbie Mortellaro at [email protected] or 843.486.6577.

Gov. Nikki Haley admitted finally in her State of the State last February that Public Schools are the state’s Number One issue – her answer was to “talk” about it, and submit a budget with funding that is below “minimally accept-able levels”!! On the other hand, state Senator Vincent Sheheen designed and got passed in a bi-partisan vote a key program to combat one of the major issues in the South Carolina public schools – reading compre-hension. The $22.8 billion state budget that took effect July 1 included $26 million to expand a 4-K

program into 17 school districts where at least 75 percent of the students qualify for Medicaid or free or reduced-price lunch, two measures of poverty. Through Sheheen’s effort and leadership, both De-mocrats and Republicans were willing to acknowl-edge that they can find common ground in provid-ing a leg-up to some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable 4-year-olds in the state.

Senator Sheheen, for his part, said he has fought for “full-day, 4-year-old kin-dergarten because it is the best way to increase op-portunity, improve public

education, help children learn and responsibly in-vest in South Carolina’s economic future.”

The expansion of 4-year-old kindergarten to a group of the state’s poor-est students was a modest step. But while she said she did not favor the 4K expansion approved by the Legislature, Governor Ha-ley did not veto this legis-lation.

Hopefully when Senator Sheheen is elected Gover-nor, he will be able to ex-pand the program so all the state’s 4-year-olds have access to full-day kindergarten. But for that to happen we need to elect more Democrats to the Legislature!

Thank Sheheen for

4-Year-Old Kindergarten By Richard Hayes

The South Carolina Democratic Party will host a Primary Debate for all the candidates running in the Democratic Primary for the Senate District 42 Special Election on Tues., Aug. 6 at 7 p.m. The six candidates are Emmanuel Ferguson, Herbert Fielding, Marlon Kimpson, Margaret Rush, Bob Thompson and Maurice

Washington. The program will be moderated by WCBD news anchor, Carolyn Murray. The debate will take place at Trident Technical College, Confer-ence Center at Main Campus, in the Complex for Economic De-velopment, 7000 Rivers Avenue in North Charleston.

The Democratic candidates for Senate 42 are (counterclockwise, beginning top left): Emmanuel Ferguson, Herbert Fielding, Marlon Kimpson, Margaret Rush, Bob Thompson, and Maurice Washington. The primary election is August 13th, and a runoff (if needed) will be on August 27th. The Democratic nominee will face Republican and Libertarian candidates in an October 1 final election. The only Dorchester County precinct included in this Senate 42 dis-trict is Patriot, which votes at Fort Dorchester High School in North Charleston.

SCDP hosts debate for Senate 42 candidates

A N N U A L

Cicenia Dinner

September 28, 2013 at Holiday Inn Express

6 p.m.—Cocktails 7 p.m.—Dinner

Join us at the next Annual Cicenia Dinner in September!

Contact us at [email protected] for more information

about tickets, which are $30 for the event.

Guest speaker at this year’s annual dinner is Democratic

gubernatorial candidate state Sen. Vincent Sheheen.

Meet the SCG “Uh-Oh” P: Foiled Again! We all know that Republicans are infa-mous for using scare tactics when promot-ing themselves and their own causes. The GOP in South Carolina just hit a new low in that field, however. On the morning of June 30, SCGOP sub-mitted a fund-raising email that called the IRS “Obama’s Gestapo,” even using a graphic image that used that term. (That was the name of the terrorist-like secret police of the Nazi Party, and how using that term would help anyone raise a dime is one helluva mystery.)

That email, which listed its composer to be state Republican Party chairman Matt Moore, circulated so quickly that our state Democratic Party had its hands on shortly

after its original release. And SCDP wasted no time in publicly retaliating, too.

SCGOP’s email was “equating its political opponents to the Nazi police that oversaw the imprisonment and mass-murder of millions of innocent people,” said SCDP chair Jaime Harrison in a press release, issued early that same afternoon, that was quoted by national media. “As the leader of her party, Governor Ha-ley should condemn these hateful re-marks,” Harrison’s statement continues. “And as chairman of the SCGOP, Matt Moore should apologize to the people of South Carolina and donate any money raised from this email to charity.”

At least they owned up after they got

caught in this gaffe. Only about an hour after Harrison issued his retaliating state-ment, the state Republicans were apolo-gizing. Their crude email was only “meant to grab the attention of those receiving it,” said Alex Stroman, executive director of SCGOP. “If anyone was upset, we cer-tainly regret it.”

Image above was included in SCGOP email

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It was a significant move forward for gay rights on June 26, 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a provision in the 17-year-old Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denies federal benefits to same-sex couples. Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan made up the majority of the 5-4 ruling, while Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissented. While the vote is seen as a vic-tory, the U.S. Supreme Court did not address the issue of whether marriage is a constitu-tionally protected right for all couples, gay or straight. In writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy stated, "DOMA is unconstitutional as a dep-rivation of the liberty of the person pro-tected by the Fifth Amendment. The history of DOMA's enactment and its own text demon-strate that interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an inci-dental effect of the federal statute. It was its essence." DOMA was challenged when 83-year-old lesbian Edie Windsor sued the United States government for discriminatory treatment under the Act. Because the government did not recognize her 2007 marriage to her partner Thea Spyer, who is now deceased, Windsor was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in estate taxes since she was the beneficiary of Spyer’s estate. With the Supreme Court’s ruling, Windsor will now have the estate taxes refunded to her. At the same time the court ruled on DOMA, it also ruled that the constitutionality of Califor-nia's same-sex marriage ban (called Proposi-tion 8), had no standing in the court, and dis-missed the case on procedural grounds. Again, the court did not take a stand on the issue of marriage. Supporters of Proposition 8 brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court after a Lower California court struck down the law but California's governor and attorney general declined to defend it. "We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here," Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, joined by Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer

and Kagan. As a result of this ruling, the ban on same-sex mar-riage in California has been lifted, and today, same-sex couples have resumed their right to marry.

The Supreme Court rulings and the growing

number of states recognizing same-sex marriage is a positive move in the right

direction for gay rights. This year, Minnesota, Delaware and Rhode

Island adopted laws recognizing same-sex marriages, bringing the total number of states to do so to 12. But while same-sex mar-riage has gained wide accep-tance by the public at large,

and many politicians are now publicly stat-ing their support for it, there are still 35

states, including South Carolina, which cur-rently have laws or constitutional amend-

ments that will only recognize marriage as be-tween one man and one woman. The debate over

the constitutional right to marry now moves to the state level. Supporters of same-sex marriage, although pleased with the Supreme Court’s rulings, know that getting marriage equality in every state will be an uphill climb. - Debbie Mortellaro

Both Wins and Losses in Recent Supreme Court Rulings In June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued rulings that recognize civil rights, but that also threaten civil rights, too. Here are the opinions of Dorchester Democrats on those cases.

In November of 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassi-nated. His Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, then became president. In part, as a tribute to the slain Kennedy, President Johnson got Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite strong opposition from the South. Congress passed the bill in June of that year. After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Johnson supposedly told an aide “we have just delivered the South to the Repub-lican Party for a long time to come.” He was right. He was elected president by a landslide vote later that year, but lost several states in the Deep South to Barry Goldwater, the Republi-can candidate. The Civil Rights Act had been strongly supported by black lead-ers such as Martin Luther King, Jr. The Act outlawed discrimina-tion in public facilities, such as restaurants, hotels and theaters. It also made it easier for minorities to register to vote. Black vot-ing was still a major issue. Dr. King and his South Christian Lead-ership Conference announced a major drive to register black voters in the South. In the spring of 1965, Americans watching television were shocked to see peaceful marchers in Selma, Ala. attacked by police using clubs and fire hoses. These demonstra-tors were marching in support of voting rights for black Ameri-cans. In 1964, only 19 percent of eligible black citizens were reg-istered to vote and only 6.7 percent were registered in neighbor-ing Mississippi. The violence shocked Americans and a federal judge ordered that the marchers be allowed to continue to state

capital of Montgomery, Ala. President Johnson sent in federal troops to protect the marchers. Three civil rights work-

ers were murdered while trying to register black voters in Alabama.

President Johnson called upon Congress to enact a strong voting rights measure. The result was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed in August that year. Senators Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and John Tower of Texas were the only Repub-

lican senators from the South – the only two Republican senators period – who

voted against the Voting Rights Act.

The Act provided federal oversight of state and local elections, and required that changes in the voting laws in

states with discriminatory practice must be precleared by the Department of Justice. The Voting Rights Act was extended by Congress several times. Black voting in the South increased dra-matically after it passed into law. By 1969, black registration in Mississippi went from 6.7 percent to 66.5 percent. The success of the preclearance portion of the Voting Rights Act led to its downfall. In June of 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down this provision by a vote of 5-to-4. The majority of the court argued that the formula that was rational in 1965 was no longer rational in 2013. Congress could enact a new coverage formula, but that does not seem likely anytime soon. - David Rison

The SCOTUS ruling on the Voting Rights Act started affecting South Carolina elec-tions in only an hour. A recently-passed bill that changes political candidate regis-tration in the state no longer needed approval from the U.S. Dept. of Justice and went into immediate effect.

As a result, registration requirements changed right in the middle of a candi-date filing cycle, leaving four people in need to register again.

Before the June 25 date of this SCOTUS ruling, Marlon Kimpson, Margaret Rush and Emmanuel Ferguson had already filed with the Charleston County Democratic Party for the special election to fill the state Senate 42 seat. Because of the rul-ing, they each had to file again with the county’s Board of Elections.

In this ruling, the Supreme Court said that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires federal oversight over particular districts during elections, is still valid. Section 4, however, which details the criteria used to determine if a district is subject to Section 5, is outdated, the court ruled, and must be changed.

Shortly after the ruling was announced, Dorchester County BEVR director Joshua Dickard submitted email to the county’s Republican and Democratic Party chair-persons that read “since Section 4 was found unconstitutional, Section 5 is now moot.

“Hence, S. 2 (Equal Access to the Ballot Act) which was signed on June 13, 2013 is effective immediately and does not have

to go through [Dept. of Justice] approval.”

The Equal Access to the Ballot Act changes the way candidates must register to run for office in South Carolina, along with other nomination-procedure amend-ments. Whereas Republican and Democ-ratic candidates previously had to file with their parties, they must now register their campaigns for local races directly through the BEVR in their counties and with the State Election Commission for statewide or national offices.

Before this particular Supreme Court decision, the Equal Access to the Ballot Act was not fully in effect, as South Carolina still needed federal approval for any changes to voting and election laws, according to the Voting Rights Act.

In the case of Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court stated that an outdated formula was used to determine if states or counties need federal clearance for any voting laws. This doesn’t remove the Voting Rights Act, but puts part of it on hold until formal updates are made. Since this June 25 ruling, many states are introducing new laws that would further restrict voting, and one law from South Carolina automatically went into effect without Dept. of Justice review.

Calendar of Events

August

August 5 Executive Committee Meeting

7 p.m. at the Kenny Waggoner Building 201 Johnston St in St. George Refreshments/Social to Follow

August 7 SCDP Primary Debate

7 p.m. at the Conference Center at Trident Technical College

7000 Rivers Avenue in North Charleston

August 13 Primary Election for Senate 42 Residents of Dorchester County’s

Patriot Precinct in North Charleston are eligible to participate in this special primary.

August 17

Monthly Breakfast Meeting 9 a.m. at Ryan’s

1314 N Main St in Summerville $10 for breakfast buffet/coffee (pay in the private room

in the front of the restaurant)

August 27 Primary Runoff for Senate 42

In case no Democratic candidate wins the August 13 primary by a majority, there will be

a runoff election on this date.

September

September 9 Executive Committee Meeting

7 p.m. at the County Code Building 500 N Main St in Summerville

(Directly behind the County Council Building when you enter the parking lot from N Cedar)

September 17 Dorchester Democratic Women Meeting

7 p.m. at County Council Building 500 N Main St in Summerville

September21 Monthly Breakfast Meeting

9 a.m. at Ryan’s 1314 N Main St in Summerville

$10 for breakfast buffet/coffee (pay in the private room in the front of the restaurant)

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Check out our website:

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Another year, another season, and another DCDP Fantasy Football League! This year, we’re doing it on www.nfl.com. Easy to use, and adjustable in number of teams (as long as it’s an even number, that is). The league’s draft is scheduled for Saturday, Au-gust 31 at 1 p.m. (If you’d like to be in the league but can’t make that day or time, you can still participate in auto-draft format.) If you’re interested in joining, send an email to Rob Groce ([email protected]); we’ll send you the website link and the password to join our league. If you’ve never registered with the NFL’s website before, you’ll have to do so after signing in with the password for our league. Don’t wait! We need all interested parties to sign up NOW in order to get our league set up cor-rectly.