Senate in S. Carolina set to debate flag's fate

The South Carolina Legislature is expected today to take up the fate of the Confederate battle flag that flies on the Statehouse grounds, responding to demands that it be removed after the June 17 massacre of nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

The Senate, encouraged by Gov. Nikki Haley and many other elected officials, is scheduled to consider a bipartisan proposal to move the battle flag, long viewed by blacks as a tribute to South Carolina's segregationist past, to the state's Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in Columbia.

If the Senate approves the measure, the debate will shift to the House; Republicans control both chambers. A survey of lawmakers by The Associated Press, the South Carolina Press Association and The Post and Courier, a newspaper in Charleston, found last month that there was most likely enough support in the Legislature to approve the plan.

Still, observers expect an emotional debate, particularly in the House. And in the Senate -- where the church's slain pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, served -- one member, Lee Bright, has announced plans to seek a statewide referendum.

"This flag is a part of our heritage, so the people of this state should have the final say," Bright told supporters on Facebook on Wednesday.

Bright, who sought the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat last year, is also offering bumper stickers featuring the Confederate emblem and the message "Keep your hands off my flag" in exchange for campaign contributions.

But he and others who support the flag are facing harsh political head winds, with many of South Carolina's elected and business leaders becoming increasingly vocal in their backing of the push to remove it.

For instance, Haley, a Republican, was unequivocal last month when she called for the change after the killings, which the authorities have described as a hate crime.

"It's time to move the flag from the Capitol grounds," she said June 22, adding that "150 years after the end of the Civil War, the time has come."

Still, some of the debate in the Legislature this week could focus on the speed with which it began. Many lawmakers had long believed the status of the battle flag was settled.

The flag flew atop the Statehouse for nearly four decades before state lawmakers, pressured by an NAACP-organized boycott and large protests, agreed in 2000 to remove it from the dome and place it at a memorial on the grounds. That agreement, codified in a law known as the Heritage Act, required that two-thirds of the Legislature agree on any subsequent changes to the flag's status.

And for many years, lawmakers said they were reluctant to revisit the subject. But the massacre in Charleston, and photographs of the suspect, Dylann Roof, with the battle flag, prompted anger about its display and led to a rapid debate.

"The South Carolina Legislature doesn't move rapidly on anything, so the fact that this has all come about is remarkable," said Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Citadel Symposium on Southern Politics. "I think we'll look back on this in future years and just be astounded."

The debate will take place during tight security after episodes of vandalism and hostile altercations between the flag's supporters and opponents. Separately, law enforcement officials have been investigating threats against certain legislators.

The revival of the flag issue has also led to lawmakers' being besieged by calls and emails, many of them aggressive.

"I've been threatened [non-physically] more this week than my whole life combined," Rep. Neal Collins, a Republican, posted on Twitter on Wednesday. "Civil discourse anyone?"

A Section on 07/06/2015

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