2 state senators face primary challenges in Richland

When S.C. lawmakers ponder court-mandated fixes to the state’s public education system, Monica Elkins wants educators to have a seat at the table.

“So many times, we have the House members and senators making decisions for us, and they’ve never been educators,” said Elkins, whose first term on the Richland 2 school board ends this year.

The former teacher and principal said giving educators a seat at the table is why she is among three candidates running in the June 14 primary for fellow Democrat Mia McLeod’s up-for-grabs S.C. House seat.

Elkins is running against pastor and chiropractor Ivory Thigpen and attorney Vannie Williams Jr. for the seat, which McLeod will leave as she tries to leap to the state Senate. Elsewhere in Richland County, four Democratic lawmakers and one Republican House member have challengers in the June 14 primary.

Among them, state Sen. John Scott, D-Richland, faces opposition from Richland County Council Chairman Torrey Rush, and state Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, hopes to ward off a second challenge from political activist Wendy Brawley.

Fight for an open seat

Democrats Elkins, Thigpen and Williams all think they have something to offer to constituents in McLeod’s House District 79 seat in northeast Richland County.

Thigpen, the pastor of Rehoboth Baptist Church, said he felt drawn to run after the Charleston massacre last summer.

Thigpen has never held public office, but he said state Sen. Clementa Pinckney’s death in the shooting “inspired me to get off the sidelines” and follow in his footsteps.

“My platform is hope,” Thigpen said. “It’s healing racial tensions, opposing domestic abuse and drug abuse, and expanding health care and educational funding.”

Columbia attorney Vannie Williams Jr. is seeking the Democratic nomination for the seat for the third time. Williams lost in a landslide to McLeod in 2014 and was disqualified in 2012, when the state Supreme Court ruled hundreds of candidates had failed to properly file financial paperwork.

Williams said he is open-minded and a quick learner who would push for better education and health care funding.

“The greatest resource of the state of South Carolina is its people, period,” Williams said. “You ought to have an educated populace. You want to have a healthy populace. After that, everything will fall into place.”

Elkins says he hopes to champion education, pushing for higher teacher salaries, more professional development for school staff and a full-time nurse in every school.

“I would hit the ground running with new bills,” she said. “That’s always been my passion.”

Old guard vs. the new

Torrey Rush says it is time for new ideas in the State House, but veteran legislator John Scott counters that his experience makes him more valuable.

“That’s the problem we have with the state,” Rush said. “When you start looking at issues like infrastructure, issues we should have tackled years ago, these are the same people that have been in place 30 or 40 years, and they haven’t gotten it done.”

Rush said he would push for creative, long-term solutions to the state’s crumbling roads and for more local government funding.

Legislators also need to give Richland County control over the county’s embattled recreation and elections commissions, which the county funds but doesn’t oversee, he said.

“Those are serious issues, and no one wants to step up and be accountable for saying that things need to change over there,” Rush said.

But Scott, who has been in the General Assembly for 26 years, said he is “not comfortable turning over such a large responsibility to someone who has just four years in county government, and it has not been a successful four years.”

Scott said he wants more time to work on a roads fix, and to increase education funding and the minimum wage.

“Fresh ideas with no answers is just not the direction you go in,” said Scott, first elected to the Senate in 2008. “Answers come with experience on the job.”

Senator draws a former challenger

Wendy Brawley says residents of eastern and Lower Richland need a state senator more responsive to their concerns. The incumbent she is challenging, state Sen. Darrell Jackson, says his constituents already have one.

Brawley – the publisher of a lifestyle and personal growth magazine, and a former Richland 1 school board member – said many District 21 constituents “truly feel left behind and out of the process.”

They need more youth programs, jobs and access to hospitals, urgent-care facilities and other services, she said.

“Each community I’ve gone to has given me a laundry list of things they’re concerned about,” Brawley said. “They’re happy to see someone who is coming into the community and is willing to listen.”

Jackson, who has been a senator since 1993, said he simply doesn’t trumpet all he does for his constituents.

“The proof is in the voting booth,” Jackson said, noting he beat Brawley by 30 percentage points when she challenged him for the seat in 2008, voicing similar concerns.

Jackson said he considered retiring when fellow state Sen. Joel Lourie, D-Richland, decided not to run again, but he decided against it because he said he has unfinished business.

Jackson said he wants to tackle issues his constituents care about, including fixing the state’s roads and bringing economic development to Lower Richland.

“I just felt like there were some things that I wanted to see done,” he said.

This story was originally published May 22, 2016 at 10:09 PM with the headline "2 state senators face primary challenges in Richland."