By Paul Gable
The recent Mica’s Law press conference held by Conway Attorney Regina Ward and the reaction to it by District 33 Sen. Luke Rankin provided a microcosm of why voters are increasingly fed up with government and why change is needed in Columbia.
Mica’s Law is named after Mica Miller, a client of Ward’s who, reportedly, suffered from coercive control domestic violence before she tragically took her own life in a state park in North Carolina on April 27th of this year.
Ward criticized both houses of the SC General Assembly for ignoring bills which were filed in two consecutive legislative sessions, The bills dealt with providing law enforcement authority to investigate a form of domestic violence known as coercive control.
During her remarks, Ward mentioned that Rankin is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary, where the proposed legislation was left to die without any work being done on it. Ward’s press conference was covered extensively locally.
Rankin, who is currently in a tough reelection contest for his Senate seat responded with a Facebook post in which he stated, “Disappointingly, yesterday the family law attorney who represented Mica before her tragic death chose to use Mica’s death to take a political cheap shot at me.”
Rankin just doesn’t get it. Not everything is about him.
The press conference was about fixing a glaring weakness in South Carolina’s domestic violence laws, which could save lives but has been generally ignored by members of the General Assembly, Rankin, as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman. included.
In his Facebook post, Rankin said nobody ever asked him to help make the former coercive control bill a law. That’s a cop out. A bill was filed by a senator and assigned to Rankin’s Judiciary Committee. According to Ward, it was never moved forward in the legislative process, never even assigned to a subcommittee for inspection and review. Instead, the bill was left to die in a forgotten corner of the committee office.
Citizens across the country have become increasingly disgusted with lawmakers whose primary goal is reelection rather than serving the public.
Instead of taking the time to make a Facebook post about a “political stunt”, Rankin should have used that time to prepare a coercive control bill for pre-filing in the upcoming legislative session, in order to close this glaring gap in current domestic abuse law. It wouldn’t take much time, the bill has already been written.
It’s too late for Rankin to ‘have Mica Miller’s back’ on her terrible situation. However, it is not too late to have the backs of others in similar situations. Not everything is about political stunts and reelection.
It has been Rankin’s approach to denigrate and attempt to intimidate his opponents and critics in the past. The same tactics have been applied to the current campaign.
However, Rankin is picking on the wrong people this time. Neither his opponent Autry Benton, nor attorney Regina Ward are intimidated by Luke Rankin or his 32-year record in the Senate.
Ward will be a guest on the Liz Callaway morning show on TALK 94.5 tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. I encourage readers to tune in and hear more about Mica’s Law and the need for the General Assembly to move forward on a bill.
Speak Up…