NEWBERRY — Newberry College designated Sept. 19-22 as Politics Week, four days of politically-themed events designed to educate and engage students and community members ahead of the Nov. 8 election.
U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) addressed a full house of Newberry College students and faculty, answering questions before enjoying a meal in Kaufmann Dining Hall on Monday. Topics of conversation included the presidential election, term limits, the national debt and deficit, and political parties.
Mulvaney’s campaign manager and State Rep. Eric Bedingfield (R-Greenville) provided a glimpse into the inner workings of campaign organization and finance, and constituent services and interaction.
On Tuesday, S.C. Supreme Court Justice Kaye Hearn delivered a speech and answered questions as part of a forum commemorating Constitution Day.
Officially celebrated on Sept. 17, the day in 1787 on which the United States Constitution was signed, Constitution Day requires federally-funded educational institutions at all levels to educate students about the Constitution.
Hearn addressed the origins and drafting of the Constitution, its relevance today, and the different styles of constitutional interpretation used by the judiciary. Hearn also provided students with her three secrets to success: “show up, work hard, and be nice.”
On Wednesday, members of the South Carolina Progressive Network’s Missing Voter Project presented their long-term initiative to get out greater numbers of “missing voters.”
The project’s representatives refer to a “missing voter” as one of the nearly 2.5 million eligible South Carolinians who are either not registered to vote, or who have not voted recently.
The presentation also covered the evolution of voting rights throughout American history, as well as the current voter registration process in South Carolina.
On Thursday, Newberry College welcomed former S.C. Sens. Tom Pope of Newberry and Tommy Moore of Aiken, along with Dr. John Crangle, executive director of S.C. Common Cause.
The event, entitled “Political Corruption in S.C.,” focused on Operation Lost Trust, an FBI sting operation launched in 1989 that was designed to weed out drug use, then later corruption, in the S.C. Legislature.
Crangle told attendants that before the passage of the Ethics Reform Act in 1991, state government was wrought with abuse of office, blatant corruption, and unlimited bribes from lobbyists to lawmakers.
Pope, a former state senator and Newberry attorney, discussed the effects of the most recent ethics reform legislation, passed and enacted last session, as well as the need for principled voters and the media to help keep government accountable.
Former Sen. Moore chaired the Conference Committee, made up of lawmakers from both the Senate and House of Representatives. He said that the 1991 ethics bill was the toughest piece of legislation he’d ever had to pass.
After the panel discussion, Crangle told The Observer that the fundamental problems in state government can be attributed to a shortage of capable candidates, caused by insufficient pay for lawmakers and the high costs of conducting an effective campaign, which can create a black market for bribes and special interests.
S.C. Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to exposing and reforming corruption in local and state government.
As another component of Politics Week 2016, volunteers with the S.C. Progressive Network and the Newberry College Sociology Department operated four voter registration tables across campus Thursday. The initiative registered an estimated 111 new voters, with 20 total absentee ballot application requests for South Carolina, Georgia, and New Hampshire. The deadline to register to vote in South Carolina is Oct. 8.