SC House Democrats walk out to protest abortion bill then walk back in to challenge it
Many of South Carolina’s House Democrats walked out of the chamber Wednesday as the House was poised to start an hours-long debate over the Senate’s “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban proposal that would ban the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected.
Democrats had long privately, and often publicly, acknowledged the minority party did not have the votes to kill the proposal, S. 1.
And more than four hours after debate started, the Democrats did not.
The House passed the bill in a 79-35 vote. A perfunctory third vote on the bill will occur Thursday, when Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to sign it into law.
The measure to ban most abortions when a heartbeat detected, usually at six weeks before a mother oftentimes knows she is pregnant, cruised through the Senate and the House after Republicans strengthened their grip in the state Legislature after the November elections.
In the House, Republicans hold the majority with 81 seats, two more than last year after flipping two seats, giving Democrats only 43.
Republicans hold 30 seats in the Senate and Democrats hold only 16.
“We come here for one reason, and that reason is to do what’s best for the people of South Carolina,” House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, told reporters and the bill’s supporters and critics outside the House chamber after criticizing his House Republicans for backing the bill when the state still faces a COVID-19 crisis. “And that means that every day we come up here and we’re concerned to make sure that from the time of conception to the time of death South Carolinians are taking care of.”
Yet an hour after GOP leadership invoked a rule to shut down any amendments and after a Republican stormed out of the House chamber, throwing his unused amendments into the air, several Democrats walked back inside the chamber to speak against the bill.
“If we are truly concerned about life, we should care what happens to that life once it gets here,” said state Rep. Wendy Brawley, a Richland Democrat who walked out Wednesday but returned to the chamber to speak against the bill. “No one has a right to tell me or any other woman what he believes is best for their body. There ought to be something that I have providence over.”
When Democrats walked out of the House chamber, not every Democratic lawmaker followed them.
House Rep. Russell Ott, a Democrat from rural Calhoun County, said his constituents did not send him to Columbia to walk out.
“I believe that my constituents in House District 93 sent me up here to deal with issues regardless of how tough they are, regardless of what the personal consequences are,” Ott said. “I take my responsibility as a representative, I hold that in high regard.”
Ott, who has backed abortion restriction legislation in the past, but attempted to add four amendments to, for example, allow the bill to remove the reporting requirement if a woman becomes pregnant because of rape or incest, said he planned to support S. 1.
Ott said the minority caucus walking out did not put him in an uncomfortable position.
“Everyone up here is going to do what they feel like they have to do,” Ott said. “I think that they obviously are trying to make a point. They are certainly trying to draw attention to the fact that Republicans are going to drive this bill through the General Assembly and to the governor’s desk without giving it any opportunity for further debate or getting any real opportunity to amend.”
Had the bill been amended Wednesday, it would have been sent back to the Senate instead of straight to the governor’s desk.
Another state representative who chose not to leave her seat was new state Rep. Kimberly Johnson, a Clarendon County Democrat and daughter of state Sen. Kevin Johnson. Like Ott, Johnson said Wednesday that she did not get elected to ignore her duties.
“And I know the people say the majority party, they have the numbers,” said Johnson, who planned to vote against the bill. “Well, to my Democrats, if we’re going to walk out on every cause just because Republicans have the numbers there is no need to drive to Columbia every day.”
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 11:05 AM with the headline "SC House Democrats walk out to protest abortion bill then walk back in to challenge it."
