Lawmaker wants South Carolina out of business of creating Confederate flag images
A Confederate flag flew at the South Carolina State House for decades, until it was taken down almost 10 years ago. One lawmaker wants the state to stop producing one item where the image is still present.
Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, prefiled a bill in the House that would stop the production of South Carolina license plate tags with a Confederate flag on them.
The plates are available only to members of the South Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans at the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles. The license plate has the group’s name at the top and a photo of a Confederate flag on the left side, with the organization’s name and the year, 1896, surrounding the flag.
A portion of the fees collected are given to the S.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans. It’s a $30 fee for every two years in addition to the regular motor vehicle registration fee, according to the South Carolina DMV website. This is one of the 97 specialty plates supporting organizations available on the site. Other plates include American Red Cross, Boy Scouts of America, Marine Corps League and SC Troopers Association. Some require membership, like the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Those who already have a Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate won’t have to remove them, they just wouldn’t be able to get new ones once the state stop producing them, if the bill passes. The tags will eventually expire and those who had one will have to get another without a Confederate flag on it, Rutherford said.
“It’s not an immediate thing I’m not going to declare them contraband,” Rutherford said. “Just simply put, we just don’t need to be in that business anymore, producing things that we know have been like an anchor around the people of South Carolina for decades.”
If people want to buy Confederate flags, buy bumper stickers or window stickers of it, that’s fine, Rutherford said. But the state should not be involved in the production of Confederate flag images, he added.
Rutherford said the idea occurred to him when he saw one of the license plates with a Confederate flag on it.
“I saw one of the license tags and when I remembered what South Carolina used to be like and how much progress we have made since then,” Rutherford said. “We don’t need things that take us back to that era.”
Rutherford attempted to pass similar legislation in years past that would also remove the flag from plates, including in 2021, but the legislation didn’t move out of subcommittee.
Rutherford said he believes the license plates are the only state produced entity with a Confederate flag on them. He said it’s not an attack on “any one group,” either, but to make sure the state isn’t producing it.
The S.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans is a group that works to preserve the history of confederate soldiers, particularly the years of 1861-1865. They describe themselves as the “oldest hereditary organization for male descendants of Confederate soldiers,” and a “historical, patriotic, and non-political organization.” Attempts to reach the S.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans by phone and email were not successful in time for publication.
The Confederate flag was flown on top of the South Carolina state house until 2000, when it was removed from the dome, but the South Carolina Infantry Battle Flag was raised onto a 30-foot flagpole at the Confederate soldier monument directly in front of the State House.
On June 17, 2015, Dylan Roof killed nine people during a bible study at Mother Emmanuel AME church in Charleston.
The flag came down when Nikki Haley was governor, who had supported the flag flying before the shooting, but changed her mind once the shooting happened, and even urged lawmakers to pass a bill to take it down quickly. It was removed from the state house grounds July 10, 2015.
Rutherford said “it ain’t gonna be easy,” when asked about the likelihood of the bill passing and if he expected any strong opposition.
This story was originally published January 8, 2025 at 11:38 AM.