2 challengers seek to unseat Democratic senator in Chester, York district
Voters in Senate District 17 will, in effect, have two choices in next month’s Democratic primary; whether they should stick with the senator who has represented them for eight years, and if not, which of two challengers should replace him.
Creighton Coleman, a Winnsboro-based attorney, has for eight years held the seat that represents Fairfield and Chester counties and the southern portion of York County. He touts his experience in serving the district and his connections in Columbia.
Running against Coleman for the Democratic nomination are Mike Fanning and Morgan Reeves. Fanning is the director of the Olde English Consortium, an educational collaborative that serves school districts in York, Chester, Lancaster, Fairfield, Chesterfield, and Cherokee counties, as well as Winthrop University and USC Lancaster.
Fanning is focusing on educational issues, as well as tax reform, something he focused on as executive director of the advocacy group Reduce Our Awful Rates. He lives in Great Falls.
Reeves is a former pastor and owner of a construction company, who previously played in the NFL. A Winnsboro resident, he previously ran for governor in 2010 and 2014, appearing as a candidate of the United Citizens and Green parties.
The winner of the June 14 primary will face Republican Mark Palmer of York in November. Each candidate recently sat down for an interview with The Herald:
Creighton Coleman
Age: 59
Occupation: Coleman & Tolen Law Firm; Winnsboro city attorney; formerly Richland County Solicitor’s Office, part-time 6th Circuit Solicitor’s office
Family: Married to Marion McNair, 3 children
Background: S.C. House 2000-08, S.C. Senate 2008-present; The Citadel ’79, Winnsboro public schools; St. John’s Episcopal Church vestry
What are the biggest issues facing District 17?
In our district, I think it’s jobs, jobs and more jobs. You can’t have too many jobs for our people, and I think one thing that we’ve done‑ I along with others who represent Fairfield, Chester and York counties – we’ve created what we call the I-77 corridor, basically from Richland County to Charlotte. After we got started, Richland and Lancaster counties wanted to be part of it. We’ve talked to (S.C. Commerce Secretary) Bobby Hitt about it, and before he leaves office, he wants to light up 77 from Columbia to Rock Hill.
You look at what’s going on in Chester Co., York Co., it’s already happening. We need to do better in Fairfield County, and there are some things going on, they just haven’t materialized yet… One thing we’ve done, which I was the primary sponsor of, was the Rural Infrastructure Bank bill. In each budget year, a certain amount of money will be put into this bank, and rural counties, not urban, can apply for money to use for water and sewer… It’s been very successful in York and Chester.
There’s also a fund, what we call the closing fee fund, which is a set amount of money that goes to Commerce, to help lure and bring industry in.
The Legislature has yet to pass a roads bill after nearly two years of trying. Even assuming they do, are we going to have to revisit a gas tax increase next year?
I was very disappointed with what we did with roads. I think the overwhelming majority of taxpayers agree with the gas tax (increase). We got the fourth-lowest gas tax in the country. It hadn’t been increased since ’87. And a third of the money that pays the gas tax is from out of state. To me, it makes sense to pass the gas tax. There were probably about seven or eight people in the Legislature who said they were going to filibuster, they held us hostage, (and) it didn’t pass. Then (two weeks ago) we passed a better funding mechanism for the roads bill, which was (Sen.) Hugh Leatherman who created a $400m that would go to the SIB, and they would bond that for $2.2 billion. That’s better than it was. Is it going to be a long-term fix? Absolutely not. We’re going to have to come back and keep coming back.
The problem with that is, a lot of times these agencies, especially DOT, in order to be able to plan on a long-term basis, you’ve got to have a revenue stream coming in that you can depend on. What happens next year or the year after if the economy sort of tanks and we don’t have the money to fund this? There’s got to be a consistent amount of money that we can all depend on, that we can fix these bridges and these roads.
The next legislative session will likely have to address the Supreme Court’s decision in the Abbeville case that the state needs to address school funding in rural school districts. What can the Legislature do to address the state’s education needs?
I’m not on the education committee, so I can’t discuss the particulars of that. But we’re certainly behind in funding the schools. We’re not paying the per-pupil cost, as we should. We’re below the Southeastern average. It’s a no-brainer to me how we do that; we pay the teachers better. The key is putting the money into the classroom. The teachers who work so hard, we need to make sure they’re adequately compensated. And we can do better.
Give them scholarships and forgive the (student) debt if they come into a rural area. (S.C. Education Superintendent) Molly Spearman, who I think the world of, is looking at getting the ship right. She’s looking at not year-round school, but having some summer programs that can keep the kids thinking and learning. If you have kids from a poor family who haven’t been read to as they’re growing up, you work hard to get them caught up, and then the summer comes and that’s two and a half months where they’re not exercising their brains, and they’re getting behind again. She wants to get some programs going in the summer that can keep their brains going. I’ll do anything I can do to help her with that. Molly’s a good superintendent, and I think we’ll see substantial strides in that area of education.
Contacts: 803-635-6884 (Winnsboro), 803-212-6132 (Columbia)
Mike Fanning
Age: 49
Occupation: Director of the Olde English Consortium; former teacher at Estill High School and Columbia High School, U.S. Army
Family: Wife Stephanie, and son Markell.
Background: Candidate for Richland County Council in 1997, executive director of Reduce Our Awful Rates (ROAR) tax reform group, former chair of Fairfield United, executive committee of the Fairfield County NAACP, board member of the 100 Men group, member of the State Foundation Board of S.C. Education Association, Wofford College ’91, Irmo High School
What are the biggest issues facing District 17?
What we’ve done in South Carolina, and this Senate district is the best example, is gerrymandering. This is the Democratic Senate district. They’ve carved out every possible Democrat to make surrounding districts as much the other way as possible, which has caused that partisan divide.
So they’ve taken all of the forgotten people, the dumped on people, all the last to ever get any attention people, in terms of poverty and everything, and they’ve crammed them into one Senate district. Fairfield has one grocery store in the entire county, and geographically it’s as big as York County.
The forgotten parts of York County are also in this Senate district. You’ve created a situation where people aren’t incentivized to care about other parts of the community. This Senate district goes all the way to Fountain Park, and nobody usually considers that we have two senators in Rock Hill. Imagine the power of having two senators fighting for Rock Hill, to ensure they have the same representation as Greenville, Florence, Charleston and Columbia gets, and fighting for the forgotten parts of York County.
We need somebody who’s going to be fighting for the forgotten areas.
The Legislature has yet to pass a roads bill after nearly two years of trying. Even assuming they do, are we going to have to revisit a gas tax increase next year?
I don’t like the idea of simply doing a tax swap for a roads plan. We need to do that comprehensively, not take some money from a car sales tax cap and using it to off-set an income tax reduction.
I worked for two years on tax reform (with ROAR). I got tired of hearing my educator friends talk about how they never get funded, the education fund is underfunded this year. It’s only been funded eight times in 46 years. I got tired of my friends saying their rates were too high, they had to choose between adding an employee and paying their taxes. So we came up with this plan, and went across the state building a bipartisan coalition on that. South Carolina has wasted too much time for the last 30 years on issues that divide us that we don’t spend enough time on issues that could unite us. With $4.5 billion in exemptions, you would think South Carolinians would find at least $500 million they would agree. And the only time it failed was when we took it up to Columbia, because regardless of party, special interests are the ones that fund the campaigns. It was not in their interest to take up a bill that targets the people who fund their campaigns.
The next legislative session will likely have to address the Supreme Court’s decision in the Abbeville case that the state needs to address school funding in rural school districts. What can the Legislature do to address the state’s education needs?
You want to know what Mike Fanning’s plan is? In 1976, we wrote the education finance act. And that set the defined minimum program. And the EFA at the time was one of the best education finance laws in the country. Other states copied that. It defined what it cost to offer the things a kid needs in school. It defined how much the state should pay. It was called the base student cost.
Since ’76, there’s been some adjustments that have been added, but minor adjustments. The third thing is that it had an equity component; a willingness to tax index. It worked beautifully. But now we’ve got all this accountability testing, and that isn’t reflected in the defined minimum program. But that old formula has only been fully funded eight times in 40 years. There’s an education group pushing a new formula, and I actually oppose them, because my granddaddy said you can’t tell if a leaky bucket needs fixing unless you fill it up once. Before we say more money can’t fix education, let’s try it more than eight times in 40 years.
Contacts: 803-984-2933, FanningforSenate@gmail.com
Morgan Reeves
Age: 57
Occupation: Owner, Site Work Construction Company, pastor, played NFL football with the Baltimore Colts and Detroit Lions
Family: Divorced, three daughters, two sons, two grandchildren
Background: Former candidate for governor for the United Citizens and Green parties, 2010 and 2014; Founder, M.B. Reeves Community Unity; BA Michigan State University; doctorates Bernadean University and Institute of Christian Works; Irmo High School
What are the biggest issues facing District 17?
Education and jobs. Our children have to be competitive in the 21st century, not just in our counties but with other students around the world, not just in District 17, South Carolina or the Western Hemisphere. A lot of them don’t have internet. How can they pass an exit exam when they don’t have internet, they can’t afford a computer, and the library closes at 1 o’clock on Saturday? In some of our counties, you have to drive 50 miles round trip to get to a library. I would provide the equipment and the means for our children to compete.
I wouldn’t make a decision about year-round schools, but I would put it on a referendum for the parents to vote on. That way I would include the constituents. A lot of senators are taking this on without considering the voters.
As far as jobs, I would also put on the referendum to do away with real estate property tax and make it up with a sales tax. We’ll make more money. If you own an investment property, you pay 4 percent on the house you live in, and if you own a business or any residence for rental property, you’re paying 6 percent on that. Where is that extra 2 percent going? You can see it’s not going into the roads, it’s not going into our education.
There are more people in the county who do not own property, so those people would have to pay. Everybody would have to pay sales tax. If you’re a big business and you spend more, you pay more. That’s fair.
The Legislature has yet to pass a roads bill after nearly two years of trying. Even assuming they do, are we going to have to revisit a gas tax increase next year?
As a road-builder myself, there are two ways you can build a road. If you look at our rural roads, the problem is they have these big tree limbs leaning across the road. If I’m elected, I could create an additional, and you may not believe it, but I could see another million jobs. How? Look at the limbs that are leaning across the road. That’s a lot of jobs we could create right there. Trim these trees back on both sides of the road. It’s dangerous.
Fairfield County only has 30,000 people, and I think we could create, overall, close to a million jobs, based on the population. With road work, one thing leads to another. Lake Wateree is going grow like hot cakes because people will want to come here, because they won’t pay real estate taxes. But if big businesses don’t hire people, there tax breaks will be exempt. They’ve got to hire new people, because that’s why we give them the tax breaks.
I wouldn’t see gas tax go up. The answer to that is no, because people will stop traveling. They will be stuck in the mud with gas tax. (The money is) going to come from businesses coming there with sales tax.
The next legislative session will likely have to address the Supreme Court’s decision in the Abbeville case that the state needs to address school funding in rural school districts. What can the Legislature do to address the state’s education needs?
I want the Supreme Court to put me on that committee, whether I’m a legislator or not. The legislators blamed the problem on the kids. They said the school districts shouldn’t have football, basketball, baseball and recreation, because they should be focusing on the books. That’s taking away somebody’s civil liberties, somebody’s civil rights. You’ve got to have exercise and recreation. That’s part of the Constitution. The Constitution says students have to be educated and the state has to pay for it.
If they don’t have an education, and you take away their jobs, you’ve taken away their future. The Supreme Court told our current legislator that you have done nothing, and he hasn’t done nothing. Look at the libraries’ closing at 1 p.m., and the kids driving 50 miles to get to the libraries. These are poor people, they don’t have a chance. But he can fix his mouth to get somebody to vote for him again. And if they fall for it, they’re going to have to suffer the consequences, because he’s part of the good old boy system. And when the Supreme Court said, ‘Who’s fault is it?’ They said, it’s the residents’ fault, the teachers’ fault, the school board’s fault. No, the problem is they were too ignorant and too selfish. They were too busy working for themselves, with their part-time schedules, they neglected the most vital things to keep families healthy, jobs and education.
Contact: 803-523-0309, mail: 119 Cedar Court Extension, Winnsboro, SC 29180
This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 7:21 PM with the headline "2 challengers seek to unseat Democratic senator in Chester, York district."