COLUMBIA — South Carolina Republicans in the Statehouse used unprecedented parliamentary tactics April 17 to stop the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee from being elected to a circuit court judgeship.
Former state Rep. James Smith, a Columbia Democrat who ran for governor against Gov. Henry McMaster in 2018, was the only remaining candidate in the election for the Columbia-based 5th Judicial Circuit court bench after his opponent, Columbia attorney Justin Williams, dropped out.
But Republicans used parliamentary tactics to send Smith’s nomination back to the judicial vetting panel in a move without precedent in recent memory. The effort led to several minutes of confusion and drama during the joint assembly of the House and Senate.
The move means the process of selecting a new judge will have to start over.
Meanwhile, lawmakers elected Berkeley County Master-in-Equity Dale Van Slambrook of Goose Creek to a newly created circuit court judgeship in the 9th Judicial Circuit covering Charleston and Berkeley counties.
Though, seemingly in an act of vengeance for blocking Smith’s election, Columbia-area Democrats did briefly attempt to interfere with Van Slambrook’s vote.
In the end, Van Slambrook was elected to the bench by a 151-0 vote; a handful of Midlands Democrats abstained.
Van Slambrook has served as Berkeley County master-in-equity handling non-jury civil cases like evictions and foreclosures since 2014. He initially faced seven opponents in the race for the new seat but all of his opponents were either spiked by the judicial vetting panel or dropped out.
Ninth Judicial Circuit court Judge-elect Dale Van Slambrook, currently Berkeley County master-in-equity, poses for a photo at the Statehouse after he was overwhelmingly elected by the Legislature on Wednesday, April 17, 2024.
South Carolina is one of two states in which state judges are elected by a combined vote of the Legislature, the other being Virginia.
There was also a bit of a battle over an open seat on the state’s Court of Appeals.
The Legislature elected Laurens Family Court Judge Matthew Turner with 92 votes over Georgetown Family Court Judge Jan Bromell Holmes, who received 66 votes, on the third ballot. A third candidate, Columbia attorney Whitney Harrison, dropped out after coming in third on the first two ballots.
Turner, a White man who has served six years on the family court, garnered his strongest support from Upstate Republicans while Holmes, a Black woman with 17 years of experience on the family court, picked up the overwhelming support of Black Democrats.
The real drama of the day began when Smith came up for a vote. Most unopposed candidates for judgeships are elected by a unanimous voice vote, but House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, moved to recommit the slate to the Judicial Merit Selection Commission, the state’s judicial vetting panel.
The motion pushed the Legislature into uncharted waters. That’s because the Senate and the House have different rules but joint assemblies of the two bodies don’t have any formal rules. No one has tried to recommit a judicial slate since 2016.
Democratic House members vehemently protested the motion to Senate President Thomas Alexander, a Walhalla Republican who was presiding, and tried to table it before it eventually passed 94-57 with a fair number of Republicans joining the Democrats in opposition.
South Carolina Senate President Thomas Alexander (left) presides over the Senate.
The Democrats then used another parliamentary motion to reconsider the vote and argued that they should be allowed to debate the motion under the House’s rules. House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, repeatedly read sections from a thick copy of Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure to Alexander, but the Senate president ignored the Democrats’ protests and the motion to reconsider failed.
The episode jolted the otherwise tedious judicial election process and appeared to vex Alexander, who is used to presiding over the calm and cordial Senate rather than the often chaotic and clamorous House.
State Rep. Seth Rose, a Columbia Democrat who succeeded Smith in the House, blasted the Republican maneuver, saying that Smith had received high marks during the vetting process and secured the support of more than 100 members before considerable opposition built two days ago.
“I am deeply disturbed by not only how this played out, but also how members were silenced in being able to speak to what was happening,” Rose told reporters afterward. “The elephant in the room is that there are members that are afraid to elect somebody based on their views on abortion.”
Anti-abortion groups had pressured Republicans to reject Smith, who supported abortion rights during his political career.
State Rep. Micah Caskey, a West Columbia Republican who is chairman of the judicial vetting panel, voted to find Smith qualified on the panel but voted to spike his election during the joint assembly. He said that the role of the vetting panel is to check a candidate’s qualifications while the Legislature can consider a broader set of factors.
“More information was revealed with respect to various positions and statements he’s taken in the past,” Caskey said of the opposition to Smith, who was in attendance for the vote.
Rose said that Smith, a decorated combat veteran from the Afghanistan War, would’ve put his personal beliefs aside and called “balls and strikes” as a judge.
In 2009, state Sen. Lee Bright moved to reject then-Court of Appeals Chief Judge Kaye Hearn’s election to the Supreme Court, and in 2016, Sen. Larry Martin moved to reject Court of Appeals Judge James Lockemy’s election as chief judge due to an alleged violation of the judicial election rules.
However, the Legislature tabled the 2009 motion and voted down the 2016 motion. Neither motion had to do with the candidate’s policy views.
Van Slambrook, who was elected to the Charleston judgeship, cited his 41 years as a lawyer, his experience as master-in-equity, his five years as a municipal court judge in Goose Creek and service as judge on the Berkeley County Adult Drug Court as motivation for seeking the circuit court judgeship.
“I think the culmination of all of that makes me extremely well suited to serve in kind of … the next capacity as a circuit court judge,” Van Slambrook told the vetting panel during a hearing in November.
Of the more than 289 anonymous surveys the vetting panel received from attorneys about Van Slambrook, only two included negative comments.
Chief Justice Don Beatty created several new circuit court judgeships in fast-growing counties to tackle South Carolina’s considerable case backlog.
Van Slambrook’s new seat in the 9th Judicial Circuit will be the circuit’s fourth judgeship. At least for the next year, the circuit will still only have three circuit court judges due to the controversial ouster of one of the current trio of circuit court judges, Bentley Price, earlier this year.
The Legislature also elected attorneys Blakely Copeland Cahoon, from Northeast Richland County, and Gina McAlhany, from Summerville, to open seats on the 9th Circuit family court bench April 17.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect failed motions to recommit judicial elections in 2016 and 2009.
