COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Senate moved forward with plans Monday to lower the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds and retire it to the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.
The 37-3 vote gave a bill removing the flag the second of three readings. The Senate must take one more vote Tuesday to send the bill to the House. The final vote requires a two-thirds majority vote for passage, a rule set under set in the 2000 law that moved the Civil War icon off the Capitol dome.
The House could take up the proposal as early as Wednesday.
The vote was emotional in Senate where senators debated remembering the heritage of Confederate soldiers and the memory of state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who was one of nine African-American parishioners killed June 17 during a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
The shootings were called a hate crime by authorities. Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old Columbia area man known by friends for spouting racist remarks, was charged in connection with the murders.
Gov. Nikki Haley began the calls for banishing the flag two weeks ago at a State House news conference with South Carolina’s two U.S. senators, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, and number of state lawmakers from both parties.
Before lawmakers took a vote on the proposal to remove the flag and place it in the Relic Room, several senators took to the well.
“Let today be the beginning of a story about a new South Carolina,” said Democratic state Sen. Joel Lourie, encouraging lawmakers to vote for the bill.
Lourie continued: It’s “a story that starts after a very bitter and somewhat toxic legislative session, a story about how this General Assembly came together in the wake of unspeakable horrors to work to unite the people of South Carolina, a story of how we helped remove a symbol that helped heal a nation and a state in their mourning.”
Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler, a Republican, said he would not vote to remove the Confederate flag.
“It’s been suggested that the flag be removed from the State House grounds and placed in a museum to give it proper honor,” Peeler said.
But, he continued, “The greatest museum in the state of South Caorlina is right here” on the State House grounds.
Peeler said removing the flag from the grounds would be like removing a tattoo from the corpse of a loved one — an action that would not change that person’s life or history.
“Moving the flag won’t change history,” he said.
“Do what you think you feel we must for the healing of this state,” Peeler told senators. “Do what you think we must do, but you will not accomplish it with an affirmative vote by me least we forget our ancestor.”
Democratic state Sen. Marlon Kimpson thanked Senate Republicans for “having the courage” for supporting and speaking out for the flag’s removal.
“This is our moment to live our creed,” Kimpson said, adding that the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston whose members were slain “called for justice and humanity for all.”
Before the Senate vote, a few amendments were offered but failed.
GOP state Sen. Lee Bright offered two proposals. One that would ask voters to weigh in on whether they would like to see the flag remain where it currently flies or come down.
Bright’s other proposal would replace the Confederate battle flag with the 1st National flag of the Confederate States of America.
Both failed by wide margins.
A third proposal by GOP state Sen. Danny Verdin, to take the Confederate battle flag down but allow it to fly from dawn until dusk on Confederate Memorial Day, failed by a narrow margin of 22-17.
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