What’s a key to SC Senate’s judicial election plan? Water, crackers and windowless room

A Senate deal to reform on how the state elects judges came together after a working group of 11 senators spent 12 hours together in a room in the Gressette Building.

The Senate on Tuesday and Wednesday met for a short time to allow the group, comprising state Sens. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston; Wes Climer, R-York; Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland; Greg Hembree, R-Horry; Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg; Michael Johnson, R-York; Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington; Shane Massey, R-Edgefield; Luke Rankin, R-Horry; Ronnie Sabb, D-Williamsburg; and Scott Talley, R-Spartanburg.

The first day of discussions was in a windowless room in on the State House grounds, and all the senators had during the private discussions was water, cookies and crackers.

“Over a 30 hour period, we were in the same room for 12 hours. That’s a long time to be in a room with the senator from Richland,” Massey said jokingly about Harpootlian. “We spent some time talking about this.”

What was produced is a compromise that makes changes to how the state elects judges.

Details of the judicial reform package

The deal raises the cap of who could be nominated in front of the General Assembly from three candidates to six. It also requires a judicial candidate to receive a majority of the House and majority of the Senate to be elected. The bill also increases the number of people who sit on the Judicial Merit selection commission from 10 members to 12. Instead of five being appointed by the Senate and five by the House, four would be appointed by the governor, four by the Senate and four by the House.

The 12 hours spread over two days of hammering out issue after issue, eventually led to a compromise that “nobody loves but everybody could live with,” Climer said on the Senate floor.

The package still needs approval from the House, which may make changes, and signed by the governor.

Just bringing up this bill, which previously went through a committee process, was part of an agreement to allow judicial elections to go forward this year after a group of senators blocked the election process of judges earlier this year including the chief justice.

“I don’t think this a perfect bill,” Malloy said. “I think this is the best we could come up with, the group we had at this time.”

The bill’s status in the Senate prevented lawmakers from working on any other piece of legislation.

So coming up with a deal was imperative in order for the chamber to move on.

Senate President Thomas Alexander chose the 11 senators who were part of the working group because they were the most interested in the topic and had amendments to the bill during the first week of debate.

“Eleven is a big group, and I would tell you that 11 is probably too big of a group most of the time for this,” Massey said. “But the president made a point he didn’t want to exclude anybody. He wanted to make sure that anybody who had a real interest in this would be part of the process.”

They met six-and-half hours Tuesday and close to five-and-half hours Wednesday.

It led to passionate discussions, but good tempers prevailed, Massey said.

“Honestly, it was a very good conversation. So we had people who were interested, everybody in there was engaged. Now we had some very differing points of view, and some different opinions,” Massey said. “And I’ll tell you, there were a couple times that I thought on this issue, we’re not going to get an agreement, we’re going to move on to something else. But they always worked out and so to get some of these different perspectives to the point of being able to reach a consensus on an entire package was pretty impressive, but I think everybody came in good faith, they expressed their opinions and we worked through them.”

After the first day in a windowless room in the Gressette Building, the group moved to a room where they could look outside on what were two of the nicest days in Columbia this year.

All they had for refreshments were water, cookies and crackers, which was Massey’s decision.

“I’m the one who’s in charge of it, and I’m the cheapest guy here,” Massey said.

Huddles before the vote

Even before the full Senate discussed the group’s proposal, others had to be brought up to speed.

Several group discussions happened Thursday, culminating in a large gathering that looked like a team huddle before a football game.

Senators were being updated on different provisions of the bill as the compromise was explained before the Senate came back into formal session.

“This is the product of 12 hours plus of a working group to fix what is thought to be broken and not mess with what is not broken,” Rankin said as he explained the compromise on the floor in front of S.C. ETV cameras streaming the proceedings.

Eventually the Senate approved the package in a 41-0 vote.