S.C. Senate gives final OK to remove Confederate flag
The South Carolina Senate gave final approval Tuesday to a measure that would force the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State House.
With the final vote — 36-3, well beyond the required two-thirds majority — the fate of the bipartisan bill moved to the House of Representatives, which quickly voted, 93-18, to bypass the traditional committee process and bring the measure to the floor of the House on Wednesday.
And despite talk of dozens of amendments that could thwart the legislation, the large margin left many people here predicting that the bill would survive and that the flag would soon be removed.
“There will be no flag and no flagpole when we are done with this debate,” Rep. James E. Smith Jr., D-Richland County, said. By midafternoon Tuesday, the House voted to consider the proposal without sending it through the committee process.
The battle flag, which has flown above or near the State House for more than 50 years, emerged as a renewed political flashpoint last month after the killings of nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. The suspect in the massacre, Dylann Roof, had been photographed with the battle flag, and the authorities have described the June 17 assault on Emanuel as a hate crime.
On Tuesday in Charleston, a grand jury indicted Roof on nine counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. Scarlett Wilson, the prosecutor whose territory includes Charleston County, said in a statement that investigators “continue to analyze and evaluate the evidence in this case.”
The attack, which reverberated throughout the state, loomed large during Monday’s Senate debate. At one point, Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, recited the names of the victims and then said, “God is with them, and they are watching us and encouraging us to live our creed.”
Lawmakers have long grappled with the status of the battle flag, and it was the subject of a compromise in 2000, when it was moved from atop the State House’s dome to a 30-foot flagpole near the Confederate Soldier Monument.
And although many people regarded the issue as politically untouchable as recently as this spring, the deaths at the church galvanized lawmakers, as well as Gov. Nikki Haley.
There have been pockets of resistance in the legislature, however, and three Republicans voted against Sheheen’s legislation when the Senate considered it Monday afternoon.