It may have taken the racially motivated and cold-blooded murder of nine people to do it, but we may be one step closer to seeing the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina State House. Earlier today, Governor Nikki Haley called for the state legislature to move the flag from the grounds of South Carolina’s state capitol in Columbia.
The flag was placed atop the State House dome in 1962 in protest of the civil rights movement. In 2000, it was moved to a nearby Confederate war memorial–a move that angered both those who wanted the flag to stay where it was and those who demanded its outright removal. However, in a press conference in the State House, Haley said to loud applause that “the time has come” for the flag to be moved from the grounds altogether. Watch the full press conference here.
Flanked by Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott and Congressman Jim Clyburn, Haley said that while South Carolina has changed for the better, it hasn’t forgotten its past. She said that many people saw the flag as a symbol of “traditions that are noble”–something that was not represented by Dylann Roof, the man who murdered “our brothers and sisters” at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on Wednesday. At the same time, she acknowledged that for many others, the flag represented “a brutally oppressive past.”
To Haley’s mind, while people have every right to display the flag on their own property, “the State House is different.” Haley couldn’t have been more right. It’s one thing to fly that flag on private property, but it’s quite another to fly it at a state capitol–especially when it was originally intended to give the finger to those calling for an end to Jim Crow. I say this as a black man who has dated at least two white women who fly that flag–and I personally know that neither woman has a racist bone in her body.
While the flag was “an integral part” of South Carolina’s past, Haley felt it “does not represent the future of our great state,” and it was time for its removal. As she saw it, it was the best way to honor the nine victims of Wednesday’s bloodbath. Haley let it be known that if the General Assembly doesn’t vote for the removal of the flag this summer, she will call the legislature into special session for that purpose.
Several state legislators on both sides of the aisle have also called for its removal. One of them, state representative Doug Bannon, a Republican from a district near Spartanburg, says he will table a bill to remove the flag in December, the earliest possible date under normal circumstances. Bannon regrets he didn’t introduce this bill sooner, but now feels that the best way to honor Pinckney, a close personal friend, was to do what he could to effect “fundamental change in South Carolina.”
The law regarding the placement of the flag requires a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers to approve any change in its display, or its outright removal. However, just before the press conference, Clyburn tweeted that he doesn’t think this provision is valid.
Current SC law may require 2/3 vote to remove the Confed Battle flag but legislators could change that law w/ a simply majority. #takeitdown
? James E. Clyburn (@Clyburn) June 21, 2015
State representative James Smith agrees. Smith, a Democrat and practicing attorney from Columbia, told ThinkProgress that he believes the provision calling for a supermajority is “facially unconstitutional.” The flag’s display is governed by ordinary statute, not a constitutional provision. Smith believes that if a removal bill garnered only a simple majority, South Carolina courts would allow it to stand. He believes, though, that when all is said and done, “we’ll have more than a two-thirds vote” to remove the flag.
Before you think Smith is being starry-eyed, consider that Haley, one of the most conservative governors in the nation, has given her full-throated support for the flag’s removal. From my perch 20 minutes north of the state line in Charlotte, I’ve seen times where she’s acted like Sarah Palin with brown skin. It also has the support of Scott, one of the most conservative members of the Senate. When Bannon said earlier this week that he planned to push for the flag’s removal, he worried he may be ending his political career with this bill. But considering that the removal push appears to have the support of people with solid conservative street cred, we have good reason to hope that, at long last, this flag will finally come down for good.
