SC Senate’s top Democrat Nikki Setzler stepping down from leadership role
Following crushing losses in this month’s general election, South Carolina’s Senate Democrats are headed for a leadership change, one some say should put a new generation of leaders at the helm.
Nikki Setzler, the longest-serving South Carolina senator who led the state’s minority party in the Senate for eight years, is stepping down from his leadership role a week after Republicans flipped three seats and gained more control in the Capitol’s upper chamber.
The Lexington Democrat, who won his Senate reelection bid last week, informed his caucus by email on Monday, senators said.
Setzler will “remain committed to being a bipartisan consensus builder in the Senate and working on behalf of his constituents” and South Carolinians, Antjuan Seawright, a political adviser for the caucus and Setzler, said in a statement.
The news was first reported Tuesday by political website FITS News.
Setzler sits on powerful committees, including the Senate Finance Committee which helps craft the state budget every year.
“Sen. Setzler is also dedicated to fostering a new generation of leadership within the caucus, and will offer his continued counsel and guidance moving forward,” Seawright said.
Setzler’s reputation as a moderate Democrat — representing a conservative district including Aiken, Calhoun, Lexington and Saluda counties — helped his party cross partisan lines and hold Republicans off from adopting more conservative policies in a chamber where Democrats were already in the minority. He succeeded former Minority Leader Sen. John Land, of Clarendon, who was majority leader before Republicans took control of the Senate.
But the state’s Democrats, including the 19 in the Senate, were dealt a massive blow on election night.
Republicans flipped three Senate seats — Sens. Floyd Nicholson of Greenwood; Glenn Reese of Spartanburg and Vincent Sheheen of Kershaw — increasing their membership to 30 and gaining more control over the chamber. And with the retirement of state Sen. John Matthews, D-Orangeburg, who was assistant minority leader, Setzler lost four key allies in the caucus.
In that sense, Setzler’s decision to step down came as no surprise to his Democratic colleagues, they said.
“It’s not a shock at all,” said state Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston. “Sen. Setzler has served the state of South Carolina and the minority party extremely well. We’ve been able to take ideas on behalf of the working-class people of our state, including our poorest citizens, and make them law,” particularly in the area of education, from four-year-old kindergarten to college, Kimpson said.
But with the Democrats’ losses and despite “Setzler’s shrewd navigation with the moderate Republicans, and, of course all of the Democratic members,” Kimpson said, “as we go forward, we need to select a leader from a different generation who is more in touch with the soul of what we see happening in states, like Georgia, and other areas of the country where the Democrats are expanding the participants of their party.”
Names of senators interested in the promotion quickly flooded into public conversations on Tuesday.
They included state Sens. Brad Hutto, of Orangeburg; Margie Bright Matthews, of Colleton; John Scott, of Richland; and Gerald Malloy, of Darlington. Kimpson told The State he had no interest in taking the leadership role, and Scott said that though he previously considered it, he has instead decided he wants the role of assistant minority leader.
Hutto, who called Setzler a “great leader,” did not say whether he planned to run.
Bright Matthews and Malloy both confirmed to The State their plans to seek the position.
“We need to first have transparency, and we have to manage our resources that we have,” said Bright Matthews, who told The State she had been among those to push for a caucus meeting after election night. “All of our senators bring to the caucus their own experiences and their own professional abilities and we need to be able to harness those to benefit the entire caucus. I’ve never been shy in saying that we should not just put people in positions because they have been there the longest.”
Malloy, known as a “rules guy” in the Senate, said now is the time for change.
“Democrats got hammered. You lost three good senators with a lot of institutional knowledge,” Malloy said. “Candidly, I think I’m the most qualified. But that’s a family decision,” he said, referring to the caucus’ decision.
That family decision will be of even more importance next year as the entire Legislature starts to hammer out redistricting, the process by which lawmakers draw district lines once the U.S. Census is finished, and any possible rules changes that could pit Democrats further in the minority.
Phil Bailey, who was the director of the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2004 to 2014, said he doesn’t anticipate any real significant change in relationships, despite a new person at the head of the table.
“Setzler’s always been the legislative quarterback for the Democrats, and I just see that continuing in that role with someone who can effectively work legislation and govern. It is a tough job being a minority leader, being the caucus leader,” Bailey said.
The next leader also will have to manage a working relationship with Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, who serves with Setzler in the same legislative delegation.
“Nikki has been a firm and plain spoken advocate for his caucus. I’ve never had to question where he stands and I’ve never had any reason at all to question what he tells me is the truth,” said Massey, who himself will have to seek reelection to keep his role, too.
“He’s always been very straight with me and if he tells me something I believe it. But he is a clear leader of the Senate who works very hard, and I look forward to working with him, even though he is not in a leadership position.”
This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 10:11 AM.
