Hugh Leatherman, powerful SC budget chairman from Florence, dies at 90
Hugh Leatherman, South Carolina’s oldest lawmaker who held immense power and influence over state spending and government, died Friday morning.
The Florence Republican was 90.
Leatherman had been moved into hospice care in October after the discovery of inoperable cancer. He had recently undergone surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina to address an intestinal blockage but was allowed to return home.
Leatherman’s family said the senator was surrounded by his wife, Jean, children and grandchildren.
“While his passing brings us great sorrow, we take solace and joy knowing that up until his last days, he was active in the Florence community and continued serving the people of Florence and South Carolina as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,” the family said in a statement.
“Ever the stubborn optimist, he had legislation drafted and received budget briefing(s) for the next legislative session from his hospital bed. While most knew him as Mr. Chairman, we do and always will know him as a loving and caring husband, dad, and granddad,” the family wrote.
A special election will be held next year to fill his District 31 seat, which covers parts of Darlington and Florence counties.
“A powerful force for the progress and prosperity of our people has left us,” Gov. McMaster said in a statement. “For over 50 years, Hugh Leatherman poured his life into our state and we are the better for it. He loved his work and kept his word. He never quit. We will miss him. May God bless him and his family.”
McMaster said the flags atop the State House will be lowered to honor Leatherman once funeral arrangements are announced.
As the oldest lawmaker and considered the most powerful inside the State House in large part because of his chief role over the state’s purse strings and important committees, Leatherman was highly respected throughout the Legislature and beyond.
It was a power that often stirred critics, who viewed his grip over state government as too much for one person.
Though his Senate career influenced all of South Carolina, Leatherman was most loyal to the Pee Dee region and particularly his home, Florence County, where he helped lure economic development and expand investment particularly for Francis Marion University.
“Chairman Leatherman’s unwavering commitment and more than four decades of service to the people of the Pee Dee has enriched countless lives and left a legacy of accomplishments that will continue to better our state and region for generations to come,” said state Rep. Jay Jordan, R-Florence.
Leatherman was in his 11th term — serving from 1981 to 2021 — a tenure that few in South Carolina’s history attain.
“It’s been a good ride and I think I’ve had a positive impact on the state and particularly on the Pee Dee,” Leatherman said in 2017, when the Senate unveiled his portrait, showing the senator with a Francis Marion pin, a Boeing 747 and plans for the Port of Charleston. “I know it sounds sort of corny but I’ve always said I want to leave this state in a better shape than when I came in. We’ve got more work to do, in the Florence area and across (the) state.”
Born and raised on a cotton farm in Lincoln County, North Carolina, Leatherman graduated from North Carolina State University with a degree in civil engineering. He moved to Florence County to start his own company, Florence Concrete Products. He still drew a salary from the company up until his death.
“Why I chose civil engineering, I’ll never know,” Leatherman told The State in 2014.
His political climb started in 1967, when won a seat on the county’s Quinby Town Council. He stayed on the small community governing body until 1976, serving the majority of those years as mayor pro tempore.
He ran for the Senate in 1980 as a Democrat, joining the upper chamber the next year. Six years later, in 1986, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor, securing 9% of the primary vote.
Leatherman’s political party switch in 1995 as part of a wave of southern Democrats in response to the 1994 Republican revolution didn’t hurt the senior senator’s ability to gain clout and power in the 46-member chamber.
“Hugh Leatherman made South Carolina a better place,” former Republican Gov. David Beasley, who was governor when many lawmakers made the political party switch, wrote on Facebook. “Throughout his career, he dedicated himself with incredible energy to the task of improving the lives of the people of our state.”
Some Democrats didn’t mind the switch, particularly those on the Senate Finance Committee — a committee Leatherman chaired for about two decades.
“I’m actually glad he did switch parties, because if he had not, somebody else would have been in that position as chairman of finance, other than Hugh Leatherman,” said state Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland. “And I’m not sure that would have worked out as well for South Carolina.”
‘He knew how to wield power’
Many, from a former governor to his own colleagues, tried but few were ever able to reduce Leatherman’s power and influence.
In 2014, Leatherman was elected Senate president pro tempore, presiding over the chamber, after then-Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, resigned his seat to become College of Charleston’s president.
Three years later, Leatherman briefly resigned his presidential position to avoid becoming the lieutenant governor — a powerless job, which the Legislature ultimately did away with, giving it to the governor as a running mate — after then-Lt. Gov. McMaster was elevated to governor when former Gov. Nikki Haley joined the Trump administration.
When senators eliminated a rule allowing a committee chairman to also preside over the Senate, Leatherman did away with the presidential title, sticking instead as chairman over the Senate’s budget-writing committee.
That position gave him far greater influence over the Legislature and the entire state of South Carolina.
Frank Rainwater, who heads the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office and worked for the Senate Finance Committee in the mid-1990s, called Leatherman a “great person to work with” who valued the input from staff members and made them feel appreciated.
“He listened to all sides. From a staff perspective he was always considerate and respectful when dealing with staff. He put a lot of trust and confidence in the staff to provide him the information,” Rainwater said. “I always found him to be a gentleman in how he dealt with people. He was always kind and considerate, whether he agreed with you or not.”
Calling Leatherman a “tough-as-nails negotiator,” his counterpart, House budget chief Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, said Leatherman never wavered once he was committed to something.
“He was old school in that his word was his bond and he would never change his mind once he’d committed to something,” Smith said. “We have lost a giant, but Hugh Leatherman will live on through the legacy he has left in his family, in the Senate and in the State of South Carolina.”
In 2016, Haley endorsed Leatherman’s primary challenger Richard Skipper, aiming to completely remove the legislator.
“He’s a nice man, but my job is not to go and help respectful and nice people. My job is to make sure that we have fighters who help the people, not their own pockets,” Haley said in a 2016 stump speech for Skipper, the Florence Morning News reported. “I will tell you, the hardest part of my job these last five years has been Sen. Hugh Leatherman.”
Haley was unsuccessful, and Leatherman won the three-person primary with 54% of the vote.
Leatherman’s tenure in the Senate helped lure serious companies to the state, from Boeing’s North Charleston manufacturing site to Honda in his home county. And it gave him centralized influence over the earmarking process — often referred to as pet projects or pork — doling out state dollars to help specific projects in lawmakers’ districts.
It was a practice which often bristled some colleagues, even up until his final year in the State House.
“People have needs in their district all over this state and to them and their constituents those are real needs,” he told The State in 2014. “I don’t view anything in the budget as pork.”
Leatherman also took a key role after the now-defunct SCANA and state-owned utility Santee Cooper abandoned the construction of two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer nuclear site in Fairfield County.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey was among senators Leatherman had tangled with in past years, mostly over Leatherman’s “concentration of power,” the Edgefield Republican said.
The two eventually reconciled, finding common ground on the multi-billion-dollar nuclear scandal — a sizeable state endeavor that has led to the downfall of a utility company, lawsuits and jail time for former utility leaders.
“I think he realized he could trust me and I could trust him,” Massey said. “He was very straightforward and direct with (now defunct) SCANA and its leadership at the time, and they were pushing back on the Legislature getting involved. Looking back on it now, they were bluffing about a number of things. He read the situation very well.”
But it was Leatherman’s ability to compromise that colleagues say was his greatest political gift.
“Is there compromise in marriage? Yes,” Leatherman said in 2014. “Is there compromise in life? Yes. Is there compromise on the floor of the Senate? Yes.”
State Sen. Jackson described Leatherman as “wise as Solomon and slick as a fox.”
Part of that may have been helped by Leatherman switching political sides in the ‘90s. As Senate Finance Committee chairman, unusual for a Republican with GOP in the majority, Leatherman named Democrats to chair key subcommittees.
“What it does result in though is a better budget because it more accurately reflects the needs and desires and practicalities of the people of South Carolina,” said former state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, D-Kershaw, who previously chaired the committee’s K-12 panel. “By including Democrats, you still got a budget that was predominantly reflective of Republican values but that also strongly supported public education.”
Up until his death, Leatherman was in contact with colleagues about priorities in the next state budget.
“He was working and continuing to work from home there, and certainly again with a focus of continuing the broadband, continuing what needs to be done with mental health and, of course, the port, there’s work that needs to be done there, and other initiatives that need to be done for the future of the state,” said state Senate Finance Committeeman Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee.
It was Leatherman’s role over spending state dollars — arguably his most important legislative job — where he could often find enemies, who, in turn, often became allies.
“He was a capable ally on some issues and a worthy opponent on others. We locked horns on more than a few things,” said former Gov. Mark Sanford, famous for trying to slash spending. “He knew how to wield power.”
‘Passion’ for his home county
South Carolina was a large focus for Leatherman.
“He helped the whole state,” said state Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington. “He was a good man.”
But Florence County was home.
Beyond his work to develop the Port of Charleston — which includes a terminal named after him — and luring Boeing, Leatherman was a large proponent of Francis Marion University, and he helped to secure millions of dollars to open buildings, a medical complex and performing arts center.
Two buildings on the campus are named for Leatherman.
Fred Carter, Francis Marion’s president and Leatherman’s close friend, said every building was built with a view toward workforce development and satisfying critical work needs in the area and across the state. And any development, he said, was secured also with local money from community partners, Carter said.
“Almost every appropriation, the senator’s question began with us, ‘What can you bring from other commitment sources from inside the community?’” Carter said.
Francis Marion University didn’t only benefit.
Florence Mayor Teresa Myers Ervin, who’s been on city council for about a decade, said she worked closely with Leatherman on road infrastructure and pedestrian safety. Leatherman was heavily involved in getting the Legislature to pass a higher gas tax, a an effort that continuously hit roadblocks.
“For me, there’s too much to say to even name,” Myers Ervin said.
“He was able to bring equal focus to the needs. His attribute was to bring balance to make sure no one was overlooked. He made sure that the growing cities that needed the funding had equal access to the funding.”
His work went beyond Florence and the Pee Dee, said Carter said, who knew Leatherman for 33 years.
“I’m proud of my friendship with Sen. Leatherman, but I also know I’m not the only person in this community that got (that) kind of attention and got that kind of support,” Carter said, recalling Leatherman’s frequent calls when Carter went through chemotherapy. “This community has an enormous amount of affection for Hugh Leatherman and it’s not predicated exclusively on what he can bring here. It’s predicated to a large extent on the kinds of calls that would come in the afternoons after you had a chemotherapy infusion.”
After his own cancer diagnosis, Carter said Leatherman continued to talk about how he wanted to leave the state better off.
They talked, in part, about how to spend federal dollars and mental health issues in rural counties
“He’s talking about his passion,” Carter said, “and his passion is that policy continues.”
A “tireless advocate” has been lost, said Senate President Harvey Peeler, who was elected to the Senate the same year as Leatherman.
“Hugh Leatherman’s impact on the state of South Carolina cannot be overstated. No one worked harder or longer hours than the senator from Florence. His detailed knowledge of the state budget was unmatched,” said the Cherokee Republican, who is likely to succeed Leatherman’s chairmanship.
“His imprint on the state of South Carolina is firmly fixed, not only in history, but the future as well.”
The State’s reporter Zak Koeske and senior editor Maayan Schechter contributed to the article.
This story was originally published November 12, 2021 at 8:08 AM.
