The S.C. Legislature, composed largely of ultra conservative Republicans, met at noon on Jan. 14 to begin its latest session. Past such Legislatures have proposed and/or enacted harsh legislation detrimental to public education, workers rights and health care. A progressive group of organizations opposed to these developments met on the back steps of the Statehouse to protest the cruel treatment being foisted upon disadvantaged S.C. citizens.
A counter-protest, supporting the Republicans, was simultaneously mounted on the front steps. This latter group was reported as numbering a mere 200.
Grossly under-reported by the AP (also as 200), were those shunted to the back steps numbering instead several thousand. One must wonder how much influence members of the Legislature had in placing their supporters, although small in number, in the front of the Statehouse while protesters, far larger in numbers, were delegated to the back.
Various eloquent speakers passionately spoke regarding the aforementioned, misguided Republican legislation and vowed their groups would diligently pursue every way possible toward a reversal of these various injustices.
Like an earlier Greenville News editorial, speakers reported that, by failing to authorize Expanded Medicaid, the S.C. Legislature has disqualified some 130,000 disadvantaged citizens for coverage under the Obamacare. This, in turn, will result in an estimated 1,300 unnecessary deaths, the loss of 44,000 jobs and make the state, thus taxpayers, responsible for uninsured visits to emergency rooms all at a cost of many millions, perhaps billions, of dollars. This spiteful, insane injustice needs legislative correction. Support its correction.
Thomas M Harrison