It’s the first city in Lexington County to add a local law against hate crimes. Here’s why
As of Wednesday, the South Carolina had 11 cities and towns that have passed local laws specifically punishing hate crimes, despite the state failing for years to pass such a law.
Now another Palmetto State city joins the list
Cayce unanimously gave final approval to a hate crime ordinance this week. The measure allows the city to add an additional charge if someone is deemed to have committed a crime with the intent to intimidate another person based on their race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, physical or mental disability, or national origin.
The measure makes the city of about 13,500 the first municipality in Lexington County to pass such an ordinance and the third in the Midlands area, joining Columbia (with a population of about 140,000) and Arcadia Lakes (with a population of about 850).
It was championed by City Councilman Byron Thomas, who was voted onto council in November.
“This ordinance lets people know that our culture and our community is a loving culture and hate won’t have a place in the city of Cayce,” Thomas said ahead of the final vote. “And I just challenge the other cities and towns and Lexington County and South Carolina and our amazing state delegation to pass some type of hate ordinance or hate law, because hate has no place in the classiest state in America, South Carolina.”
The addition of the hate crime ordinance was supported by Cayce Police Chief Chris Cowan, who said that while there hasn’t been any crime that would have applied to it thus far in his three years leading the department, that’s no reason not to go ahead with the ordinance.
“Why wait until that?” Cowan said. “We don’t need to wait until it happens for us to say, ‘Oh God, I wish we had a hate ordinance.’ It’s just another tool, but it’s also more importantly, it’s another message that we send to people that we’re going to do what we can to protect you.”
South Carolina and Wyoming are the only states not to have enacted some sort of hate crime law, which Mayor Elise Partin said was part of the discussions City Council had in considering the ordinance.
“It certainly was part of what I heard Councilman Thomas voice, that if the state’s not taking it up he would like for us to,” she said. “Lawyers do have additional tools that they can use to address some of these things right now. But it does send a message to the state to say, ‘Hey, you know, where this fits, where you can make this work on a statewide level, let’s do the right thing.’”
The ordinance specifically notes that it covers antisemitism and stipulates that people are barred from disseminating hate materials within the city. Cowan said both of these inclusions came out of conversations with other municipalities that have added hate crime ordinances, including Clemson, Charleston, Mount Pleasant and Florence, and the language reflects what others have found most successful.
As to any First Amendment concerns with the ban on hate materials, the chief said he isn’t concerned.
“We don’t want people standing in our parks where kids are playing or families are out, and people standing on tops of picnic tables or in the street corner yelling and spewing nasty rhetoric that is just hurtful to people,” Cowan said.
“We’ve seen a lot of that in this country,” he added. “We haven’t seen that, knock on wood, here. But we have seen it across the country. And we don’t want that here.”
Tim James, the city’s mayor pro tem, said he’s proud to see Cayce be the first municipality in the county to add such an ordinance.
“I applauded Byron Thomas, our council member, for being steadfast on this,” he said. “I fear sometimes that any absence of a law on the books could send some type of unintentional message. However, having laws on the books sends a very strong message of what we do and do not support. It’s important that our city recognizes that we support everyone.”
