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| Monday, Feb 24, 2003 |
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Posted on February 23, 2003 Judicial candidates wait for answers
tom.langhorne@shj.com Mark Hayes and Don Beatty are candidates for judgeships, but in another sense they are hostages. The Spartanburg attorney and circuit judge, respectively, are among the half-dozen or so high-profile judicial candidates whose aspirations have been put on hold while legislators squabble over S.C. Public Service Commission reform. Each man has been burning up I-26 over the past several weeks, campaigning for legislators' votes in Columbia while trying to do their jobs in Spartanburg. Elections have been tentatively scheduled and postponed at least twice, but a powerful group of House members won't permit elections for judicial candidates until elections for open PSC seats have been held. The matter is further complicated by the insistence of some senators that PSC elections not occur until reform has been affected. In the meantime, Hayes and Beatty continue to haunt General Assembly hallways and legislative receptions, pressing the flesh in a campaign that has no end in sight. The Legislature is set to vote in about 16 judicial elections during the session scheduled to end June 5, but most of those elections are uncontested. Hayes and Beatty's two races are among just three that are contested. Beatty, one of Spartanburg County's two resident circuit judges since 1995, is seeking the South Carolina Court of Appeals seat being vacated by retiring Judge Jasper Cureton on June 30. He is competing for legislators' votes with Family Court Judge H. Bruce Williams of Columbia. The appeals court is South Carolina's second-highest court, and Beatty's race against Williams is the highest-ranking one on the Legislature's board. The election is considered important also because Cureton is the state's highest-ranking black judge, and Beatty is African-American. Black lawmakers have long said that African Americans are underrepresented on the bench in South Carolina. Hayes is seeking the at-large circuit judgeship vacated by Gary E. Clary on Sept. 30. He is competing for legislators' votes with Cheraw attorney C. Anthony Harris Jr. The race to succeed Clary is of grave concern to Spartanburg County legislators and lawyers, who argue that losing the at-large seat to a resident of another region – it has been held by a resident of Spartanburg or Cherokee counties since its creation in 1979 – would severely clog the 7th judicial circuit's already-bulging criminal and civil court systems. But the legislative stalemate over PSC reform has left Beatty and Hayes with no choice but to continue seeking office meetings with busy legislators and choosing opportune times to approach them outside the Senate and House floors. "It's one of those, 'we're not budging until you budge' situations, and that's where the judicial elections have been trapped," said Rep. Scott Talley, R-Spartanburg, an attorney and a member of the House Judiciary Committee. "There's a lot of frustrated people on both sides." Rep. Phil Sinclair, R-Spartanburg, also an attorney and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said most members of Spartanburg County's legislative delegation are eager to vote on the Hayes-Harris race because the 7th circuit has had to make do with fill-in judges in Clary's absence for almost five months. "I'd be glad to go ahead with the elections whether they're linked to PSC or not," Sinclair said. "We'd like to go ahead and bring this to a conclusion so we can work on other issues. "These candidates have been campaigning for a long time." Attempts to reach Beatty for this story were unsuccessful, but Hayes said the extra time for campaigning has actually helped boost his chances to defeat the better-connected Harris. Harris is a former legislator himself whose mother served in the General Assembly for nearly 20 years, while Hayes said he knew no legislators outside Spartanburg and Cherokee counties' delegations when he began to campaign. "(The delay) has given me the opportunity to get to know the lawmakers a little better and it's given them time to get to know me," he said. Hayes said he has spent an average of three days a week in Columbia for the past several weeks. "I intend to continue to work as hard as I can every moment the Legislature is in session - no matter how long that is," he vowed. Tom Langhorne can be reached at 582-4511 Ext. 7221 or at tom.langhorne@shj.com. |
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