While state legislators were inside gaveling in the first session of the new year, protesters on both sides of the Statehouse flooded the grounds Tuesday, demanding representation that lined up with their views.
South Carolina’s first “Truthful Tuesday” rally followed in the footsteps of North Carolina’s “Moral Mondays,” which started after Republicans took control of that state’s governor’s mansion, state House of Representatives and state Senate.
But while the “Truthful Tuesday” protesters discussed issues of education and voting rights, both of Tuesday’s protests homed in on one issue: health care reform.
On the south side of the Statehouse, a silver coffin adorned with a black wreath sat atop the steps. Protesters dressed in black, a tribute, they said, to the lives lost without Medicaid expansion.
Several Democratic state legislators joined the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP, the South Carolina Christian Action Council, the South Carolina Education Association, the South Carolina Progressive Network and the South Carolina chapter of the National Association of Social Workers at the rally.
“I thought Jim Crowe was dead, but Jim Crowe Esquire is sitting in the Statehouse right now,” said James Felder, former South Carolina NAACP president.
On the opposite side of the Statehouse, a gaggle of protesters argued for the passage of a bill that would nullify and defund the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
The nullification bill would refund South Carolinians who are taxed higher because they don’t follow the federal law, allow the state attorney general to sue anyone who is hurting people or business by enacting the law and ban state agencies and local governments from buying health insurance through the federal exchanges Obamacare set up.