The Confederate battle flag that has flown at the South Carolina State House for more than 50 years will soon be gone after lawmakers capped a tension-filled session early yesterday and voted to remove it from the grounds of the state Capitol.
The final vote in the South Carolina House of Representatives — 94-20 — was well above the two-thirds majority that was required to send the bill to the desk of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, who called for the battle flag to come down after last month’s killings at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.
“It is a new day in South Carolina, a day we can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state,” Haley said in a statement after the vote, which she watched from her wing of offices just below the House chamber.
Photo: AFP
A spokesman for Haley said the governor would “move quickly” after formally receiving the bill. Once she signs the measure into law, the state will have 24 hours to take down the battle flag, which will be moved to the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, near the Capitol building.
Lawmakers were by turns elated and stunned by the outcome, which came after hours of debate on amendments that could have extended talk about the flag deeper into the month.
South Carolina Representative David Mack, a Democrat, had said late on Wednesday that lawmakers were dawdling to such an extent that the flag could still be flying on July 18, the day the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is scheduled to stage a protest in Colombia.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy; there’s a lot of feelings on both sides as it relates to the flag,” Mack said. “I’m just very happy with the outcome.”
However, the church shooting, in which nine people, including a state senator, were killed in what the authorities have called a hate crime, loomed over the proceedings.
The man charged in the killings, Dylann Roof, had been photographed before the attack with the Confederate battle flag.
“It’s unfortunate that such a tragic event was required to bring about change, but in the end, if any good came of it, it’s that we put a contentious issue behind us,” said South Carolina Representative James Merrill, a Republican.
The final vote came after the flag’s opponents defeated a series of amendments intended to derail the proposal. At one point on Wednesday night, South Carolina Representative Jenny Anderson Horne, a Republican, tearfully pleaded with her colleagues to advance the measure without amendment.
“The people of Charleston deserve swift and immediate removal of that flag from these grounds,” Horne said. “I cannot believe that we do not have the heart in this body to do something meaningful.”
When one amendment, which would have prolonged the legislative process, appeared close to receiving enough support to pass, lawmakers reached a late-night agreement that allowed the bill to receive not only preliminary approval, but also a final vote just a few minutes later.
“I don’t think there was ever an intent of most to vote against moving the flag,” Merrill said.
Instead, he said, many critics were frustrated because they felt that their views were not given “equal balance” during the frenzied few weeks of deliberations about the flag’s fate.
Indeed, before the final vote, one lawmaker complained that the Senate, which had approved the bill on Tuesday, had too much sway during the debate.
However, such protests were ignored for the most part in the House. Lawmakers moved quickly to implement the accord by employing a series of parliamentary and scheduling maneuvers to bring the bill to a final vote just minutes after it received tentative approval.
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