COLOMBIA, SC – Nearly 100 companies in South Carolina announced on Monday that they want the state to join 47 other U.S. states and pass a hate crime law.
The proposal to allow tougher sentences for murders, assaults, harassment, vandalism and other crimes motivated by hatred of race, sexual orientation, religious beliefs or someone’s disability was not heard six weeks after the General Assembly session began.
So the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce got the leaders of some of the state’s biggest employers – Walmart, IBM, UPS, Duke Energy, the pharmaceutical Nephron – to talk to reporters over the phone.
And when companies speak, South Carolina lawmakers often listen. Pressure from industry leaders finally persuaded lawmakers to raise the gasoline tax in 2017, when Michelin suggested it could no longer expand its tire factories in the state because the roads were so bad and other big factories joined.
“It took the business community to finally approve this project. It was a 10-year effort,” said the acting CEO of the state Chamber of Commerce, Swati Patel, who, as chief of staff to former governor Nikki Haley, felt a lot of pressure.
In 2000, a state that attracted the first BMW plant in America was finding foreign companies ashamed to be linked to a state that raised the Confederate flag on the Capitol dome. Lawmakers gave in to years of pressure and moved the flag to the Statehouse lawn for the next 15 years.
The hate crime bill is a similar effort. South Carolina, Arkansas and Wyoming are the only three states without major penalties, and companies want to know why this is not important to South Carolina’s leaders.
“We have to demonstrate to the world that hate will not be tolerated here,” said Tim Arnold, chairman of the state board of directors and president and CEO of Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Co.
The companies were also vital to passing the most recent hate crime bill in Georgia last June, after the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was chased and shot to death while running near Brunswick, Georgia.
The Republican governor of Arkansas and other political and business leaders made a public effort to pass a hate crime law there, but the opposition met before the legislative session began.
South Carolina Mayor Jay Lucas, R-Hartsville, made the hate crime bill a key part of a deep dive that asked representatives to take into account criminal justice issues after the black man’s death George Floyd by a policeman in Minnesota who pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for several minutes while Floyd begged for air.
Lucas relived an effort that never gained momentum, even after the massacre of nine black members at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston in 2015, where a white man aimed for a Bible study at the 200-year-old African American church.
The project supported by Lucas and 29 other bipartisan sponsors would total five years in prison for someone convicted of a violent crime fueled by hatred, three years for harassment or harassment and an additional year behind bars for vandalism. A hate crime would not be a violation in itself.
Opposition to the bill has been silent so far. A Republican lawmaker suggested in public hearings that perhaps policemen could be included on the list. Conservatives have already said that there is no need to add extra penalties for what are already illegal acts based on what, though perhaps vile, could be considered freedom of speech.
The project is awaiting a hearing on a House committee. Meanwhile, the state Chamber of Commerce has created a website and is planning a social media campaign with the companies that are supporting the proposal.
IBM senior state executive for South Carolina Kim Overbay is a South Carolina native and said she was saddened to learn that June will mark six years since the dark day of the Emanuel church shooting, in which the federal government had to intervene and accuse the sniper of crime hate.
“When our employees, customers and their families are safe and can live without fear, businesses and communities thrive,” said Overbay. “There is no room for hate in our society.”