Blank stares. Open mouths. Furrowed brows.

Those were the common reactions of lawmakers when asked one simple question last week: “Who are your emergency interim successors?”

Among more than a dozen House and Senate members interviewed, only one had even heard of the “Emergency Interim Legislative Succession Act,” which has been state law since 1962.

The provision, section 2-5-10 of the S.C. Code of Laws, requires each lawmaker to name three to seven people who would fill in for him or her in case the state or nation is under attack and the elected lawmaker is unable to tend to his or her legislative duties.

Not a single lawmaker could be found who has actually created such a list. The law requires each legislator to file a list with the S.C. secretary of state.

“My wife always keeps my lists, you’ll have to ask her,” said Sen. David Thomas, R-Greenville.

“Are you available?” asked Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg.

“Well, good gosh,” said Sen. Linda Short, D-Chester.

ARE YOU SURE?

Even the top leaders of the House and Senate were left without an answer.

House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, was incredulous.

“It’s still on the books? How do you know if it’s on the books? It might have been repealed.”

According to current state code books, and the state code of laws on the Internet, the provision was never repealed.

“Yeah, I’ve done that,” Wilkins said jokingly. “I’ve got it in my safe deposit box. I’ve got seven names because I think it will take at least that many people to do what I do.”

He suggested his list includes Christy Cox, his chief of staff. When informed Cox would not qualify because she does not live in his district, it was suggested that Wilkins put his wife, Susan, on the list.

“Yeah, we’ll give it to Susan,” he said.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, considered to have a deep knowledge of state law and procedure, also had never heard of the obscure provision.

“You showed me something I’d never seen and never knew about,” McConnell said.

Senate Minority Leader John Land, D-Clarendon, was tickled to learn something new about state law.

“I thought I knew everything in that book,” he said, referring to the law book he was shown. “But I guess I don’t.”

IN TIMES OF FEAR

Most lawmakers assumed the law had been passed amid fears of a growing Communist threat in Cuba and worldwide nuclear proliferation during the Cold War.

After facing the same query as his colleagues, Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston, thought for a moment and declared that he remembered the act.

In 1962, Altman was press secretary to then-Gov. Fritz Hollings.

“We were crazy over fallout shelters,” Altman said. “This was crazy times. You just don’t know.”

As the Legislature returned to work in January 1962, headlines in The State warned that “Red Agents Paid Visits To Clemson” and “State Laws Recommended to Combat Red Activity.”

USC history professor Dan Carter said he was not familiar with the law but did recall the worries of the time.

“I can remember it very vividly,” said Carter, a graduate student in Wisconsin during the Cuban Missile Crisis of fall 1962.

“My parents called three nights in a row,” Carter said. “I was 1,100 miles from home. They were convinced the missiles were going to start flying.”

The law, Carter said, “has to be a response” to Cold War fears.

In the post-9/11 world, with renewed fears of attack and concerns about the continuity of government, the law might have new relevance.

But Sen. John Hawkins, R-Spartanburg, who said the law is “an anachronism,” rejects a “post-9/11 bunker mentality. This nation is going to be safer. We can take ourselves a little too seriously down here.”

JUST AS WELL

S.C. lawmakers are not alone in this case. Several other states have similar laws.

Delaware first adopted the provision in 1953, Louisiana, in 1963. Texas adopted it in 1985, and South Dakota considered a similar bill in 2003.

USC law professor Eldon Wedlock said he cannot imagine the provision would ever survive scrutiny by the courts. He and McConnell agree that because the state constitution bestows the powers of an office only to the person elected, the act is probably unconstitutional.

That’s just as well, said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, who did not relish having to put together such a list.

“I don’t know anybody who’d want the job,” she said.

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com.