South Carolina’s “Sister Senators” on finding common ground
If the walls of Sandy Senn’s office could talk, they might not have much to say anymore. The South Carolina State Senator is stripping them of their memories. Meanwhile, Senator Katrina Shealy has her 12-year political career all crammed into cardboard boxes. And we found freshman Senator Penry Gustafson sorting through emails from her soon-to-be former constituents.
All three lost in their primaries this past June.
Asked if she thinks she will get back into politics, Gustafson replied, “I don’t know.”
a six-week ban on abortion.
And yet, not all was lost. All five senators were recognized last year with the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. At the presentation ceremony Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg said, “We’re fortunate to be able to gather to celebrate courageous leadership, which we need more than ever today.”
Noting her award during her goodbye speech on the Senate floor, Shealy said, “I am proud of losing this Senate race, just to get this. Because I stood up for the right thing. I stood up for women, I stood up for children, I stood up for South Carolina.”
According to Bright Matthews, the abortion restriction passed is not popular among the public. “The polling shows that 70+ percent of women in South Carolina do not want a total ban. All of us have stood up and agreed and tried to put forth a referendum to put it on the ballot; they said we can’t.”
Unlike 10 other states that will have abortion rights on the ballot in November (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota), South Carolina doesn’t allow voters that option.
What is clear is that post-Roe v. Wade, abortion rarely breaks down on clean partisan lines.
What the Sister Senators have shown is, it’s in that grey area where compromise, while costly, may not be as endangered as we all think.
“Instead of just attack someone for feeling differently on an issue, it’s better to ask why,” said Bright Matthews.
Gustafson said, “In a world of politics where we’re constantly being told we can’t do that, or we shouldn’t do that, and you’re expected to be this way, we’ve just broke that political, social mores right in half.”
“But, you paid the price for it,” said Cowan.
“We paid the price for it, but look what we have right now,” Gustafson said. “We have this national ear for the most wonderful thing of finding common ground, respect, civility in politics. That is what we gain, that is what America gains, from the Sister Senators of South Carolina.”
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Story produced by Deirdre Cohen. Editor: Ed Givnish.
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Source: cbsnews.com