COLUMBIA -- State Rep. Brenda Lee, D-Spartanburg, the first black woman to be elected from her district to the General Assembly and who played a key role in moving the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome, has resigned to promote a national program that offers low-income people credits on phone bills.

"I hadn't planned to run again," said Lee, who has held the District 31 seat since 1995. "I wanted to do something else, and this gave me a wonderful opportunity."

Lee will go to work for the Office of Regulatory Staff, a state agency that represents the public in utility regulation.

"She fits everything," said C. Dukes Scott, the agency's executive director. "Her background is excellent in the field. She's worked with so many grass-roots organizations."

Scott said Thursday that Lee will earn $70,000 annually in her new position.

Officials estimate that almost a quarter of a million households in South Carolina qualify for the federal phone assistance program but do not receive it, mostly because they don't know the help exists, Scott said.

Rep. Leon Howard of Columbia, chairman-elect of the Legislative Black Caucus, said Lee brought class, expertise and organization to her job.

"I can't find words to express what Brenda Lee means to the S.C. General Assembly," he said. "I commend her and I'm happy for her. It's bittersweet. But we're not going to let her get too far away from us."

Lee took office after winning a special election in November 1995, the second time she had run for that seat.

In 2000, she was one of three black House members who sided with a Senate compromise to move the Confederate flag off the Statehouse dome and onto a flagpole in front of the building. The 23 other black House members wanted the flag removed from the grounds completely. The Senate plan passed the House by four votes.

"I think my role as a peacemaker was major," she said of the flag fight. "I still feel today that I made the right choice and voted the right way."

More recently, Lee said, she was proud of her work in helping to provide $100,000 in this year's budget to help educate black women about the problem of breast cancer.