By Paul Gable
Senator Luke Rankin responded to Attorney Regina Ward’s press conference yesterday about a proposed coercive control bill (Mica’s Law) with a Facebook post saying Ward was taking a political cheap shot against him.
Does Rankin actually believe that a press conference aimed at helping a coercive control bill to become law is in South Carolina is all about him?
Ward only mentioned Rankin as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where the bill died in the Senate, in passing during her press conference. But, Ward did note that Rankin thought enough of the problems of domestic abuse to falsely charge his 2020 opponent for the District 33 Senate seat with committing domestic abuse.
Maybe the political stunts are being confused.
Rankin noted there was no bill currently in the General Assembly on coercive control nor had one been introduced since 2021. He is absolutely correct in those statements. However, the statement ignores the fact that such a bill was introduced into the House in 2020 and again in 2021 and was introduced into the Senate in 2021. All three attempts at introducing coercive control legislation were left to die in the Senate and House Judiciary committees, respectively.
For those who may not be aware, a bill introduced in either house of the General Assembly dies at the end of the two-year session in which it is introduced unless passed into law.
A coercive control bill failed in two legislative sessions of the General Assembly. In the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Rankin is Chairman, it did not even get assigned to a subcommittee to begin consideration of moving the legislation along.
In his post, Rankin claimed he was never asked by anyone in the law enforcement, family law or victim’s advocate communities “to help make this bill a law.” Is that really what it takes for the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to assign potential legislation, which may save victims from this type of domestic abuse, to a subcommittee?
Should we believe that we elect representatives to the General Assembly to just sit quietly in their offices waiting for someone to stir them enough to begin movement of a piece of legislation that could save lives? I submit to suggest so is a political stunt.
As I said yesterday, we will never know if the passage of a coercive control bill into law would have saved the life of Mica Miller. But, it would have been good to have given it the chance.
Speak Up…