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The following program is made possible in part by SCE&G, A SCANA Company.

(upbeat music) (gavel banging) - Welcome to this segment of "Capital View."

I'm Tom Fowler.

Our guest is Senator Kay Patterson, Democrat from District 19 in Richland County.

He's a retired educator, graduate of Allen University in Temple with a master's from South Carolina State College.

He's a veteran of the Marine Corps.

He served in the House from 1975 to 1985 and has served continuously in the Senate since that year.

Welcome back to "Capital View."

- Thank you, Tom.

It's good to be here.

- This session has been dominated so far by issues of ethics and ethics reform.

(Kay laughing) Will we see any end to this in this year?

Give us an overview.

- I'm hoping that we'll see an end to the ethics bill real soon because just personally, I'm tired of working on it.

I've been working as a member of the Judiciary Committee, one of the five committees on which I serve, I've been working on the ethics legislation for about two months and meeting night and day and compromising, and then coming out to the full committee and someone offering an amendment to just wash away everything that you've worked on and go back to square one.

And now we've debated the ethics bill for about a week, and now today we go back, and we start on it.

We gave it the second reading, and now we go back, start debating on it to give it the third reading.

And just personally, I've had enough ethics, up to here.

- Is that what's bothered you most about that process?

- Well, the posturing number one, how people can come to judiciary committee meetings or get on the Senate floor and just posture for media coverage and posture for old right wing, crazy organizations like the SC Policy Council, they up in the balcony, looking down on you to see how you're voting, talk about they're keeping records on how you vote on ethics.

And, as Senator Nell Smith of Pickens said, what gives them the authority to talk about they're gonna keep tabs on senators and representatives when the fellow who's keeping the tab has never been elected to the President of PTA, calls themself conservative, and from the press, retired from government, which means he's on the government take all his life and eating government slop all his life and now talking about he gonna watch someone.

My response to it is, who gives a damn of him watching?

- When this entire debate is finished and a piece of legislation has passed, what in your mind will make it be worth anything?

What what will make it worthwhile, this whole effort and debate has taken place?

- The only thing that's gonna come out of the House and ethics and the Senate ethics legislation will be inconveniences to all public officials.

It will not right any wrong.

I told them from day one, you can't pass a bill that will stop a person from taking money if that person is so inclined.

You know, if that was the case, we wouldn't have a drug problem in America.

We wouldn't have teenage pregnancy.

We wouldn't have black kids killing black kids, you know, if you could do it through legislation.

You can't do that through legislation.

And most of 'em are just down there posturing, trying to get in front of the TV cameras and trying to get the state paper to quote 'em and say good things about 'em, and I find out that those who preach more about ethics, they are for ethics as long as it doesn't involve them, Tom, as long as it is something for me.

I mean something they could put on me like no cup of coffee rule.

And that's just as silly as it can get.

The governor said nothing's wrong with having a meal with anyone you wanna eat with.

Jim Miles, the Secretary of State said nothing's wrong with it.

I've always said nothing was wrong with it.

What's wrong with me going to Taps, getting a bowl of soup and two corn sticks for $2?

And they said, that's wrong, but still some of them will do business with the government and declare over $200,000, you know, or $2 million.

So the other day we came up with an amendment, said, okay, so since you want ethics so much, we gonna give you some ethics.

And we placed an amendment in there that said no public official, that means the governor, Senator Patterson, all senators and representatives, mayors, city council, county council, school board, all of 'em, you know, now since you want so much damn ethics, we gonna give you some.

We put an amendment in there, so you don't have to do any business with the government.

And my man, you should have heard 'em squealing, just like you hit a Darlington County Hound dog.

You know, you should have heard 'em squealing.

Oh no, we don't mean that.

I said, I know you didn't mean it.

See, you just wanna mean something that's gonna be chunking rocks and bricks at me in the general assembly.

But when it comes to your business, you know, them parking lots and all that kind of stuff where you're doing them, and the governor's included, you know.

He's the gov, he's included in it.

You know, he wants the ethics bill to deal with the general assembly, but he doesn't want the ethics bill to go downstairs into his office.

Are you following me?

You know, it's fine, except, you know, not in my backyard (audio blurs).

And I'm saying, if you want ethics, we gonna give you some ethics.

I don't know what the house is gonna do with it, but if they, since they want ethics, let's give 'em some.

- You think the compromise is gonna be somewhere between?

- Well, I know it will because in the Senate we've loaded it down so heavy, it's not gonna fly.

But it doesn't bother me.

I've always argued that any legislator has a right to go to lunch with a lobbyist, and they look at me and say, oh, (audio blurs) and then you ought to see these things they print in the newspaper about us.

I mean, just crazy stuff.

Refer us as Boss Hogs with napkins on our necks, eating and drinking and all.

You know, it's just so silly.

It's just silly.

And these right wing organizations, they're just as silly.

And the media, the printed media, they help promote that kind of animosity and divisiveness, you know, especially until it comes to them.

Now when it comes to them, then they'll back up off it.

But there will have to be a compromise in it.

Something that, oh, the executive branch, Governor Campbell can live with, and something that Bob Shaheen and the House and we in the Senate can live with.

- The other big issue coming up inevitably this year is reapportionment.

Do you see that heading to a smooth reapportionment year?

What do you want to see coming out of it?

Or is it going to be another historical donnybrook?

- I don't think it'll be smooth.

But we will go through the R&D and with the head of the Justice Department, the Civil Rights Act of, which means pre-clearance of the Justice Department.

They must pre-clear everything that we do.

That will be our savior in my opinion.

When I was chairman of the caucus last year, I formed a statewide committee on reapportionment made up of Dr. Bill Gibson of NAACP, Bishop Frederick Calhoun James of AME Church, Reverend Cureton out of Greenville and other statewide leaders throughout the state.

And we want to come up and be together and know what the other one wants, what the other one is doing.

So there won't be any misunderstanding down the road on reapportionment.

We've purchased on a computer, the software, and it will be housed at Allen University, my alma mater.

And we are gonna go about reapportionment in a serious and business-like manner because Blacks make up a third of this state.

And we have six representatives, and I don't need a calculator to tell me that a third of six is two.

We are entitled to two representatives.

And I have enough common sense to know that you can't cut two black districts because blacks live throughout South Carolina.

But we can very easily cut one up to I would say between 60 and 65%.

And that's what you need to really elect a Black person in South Carolina.

Now some of those persons said, you ought not do anything.

And then what will really hurt my feelings, my representative Spencer, he doesn't believe in cutting districts for special interest groups.

Now that just really hurt my feeling.

You know, here we all make up a third of this state.

And incidentally, when the Persian Gulf crisis came, and they sent those troops to the Persian Gulf, Blacks made up about a third of that and about a third of 'em was up at the front line.

And I didn't hear anybody talking about special interest groups.

I ain't hear nobody talking nothing about quotas.

I ain't hear nobody talking about set aside.

They weren't talking about that.

We went, and we have fought in all wars, Mr. Fowler.

Every war that America has produced, Black people fought in it.

And then if someone, then when I get up and say we gonna cut us a Black district, they tell me that they don't believe in that.

They want something for nothing.

You know, all kind old fool talk.

But we will have a Black district.

And people say, well, you just saying that because you wanna go to Congress.

And I always remind 'em.

I say, look, I was born January 11th, 1931, and I don't need a calculator to subtract 31 from 91 that make you 60.

I'm not interested in going to Congress, none whatsoever.

The only thing I wanna do is stay here and raise my two grandchildren, Eric and Ashley, and see that they go to college and get a college degree and be able to enjoy the opportunities here in America that I fought for in the Marines.

Now that's all I want.

And I wanna see someone else go to Congress, a Black person, because Russwurm said, "For too long "others have spoken for us.

"We can speak for ourselves," and we are entitled to a Congressman.

- When that day happens, and that person is sworn in, what will that day be for you?

- It'll be a happy day for me that we will have our person, a man or woman in Congress representing us from the second Congressional district.

It'll be a happy day for me, for my children, for my grandchildren 'cause then they'll know that they too can aspire to go on and you know, achieve here in America.

And that's what America's all about, for all of us to live together, to treat all of God's children with human dignity and respect, be kind to each other and move America forward and make America what it is supposed to be.

- We have under two minutes left, let's talk a bit about District 19.

Tell us about the communities.

- Oh, District 19 is made up of, it was 58% black and 42% white.

Now it's down to about 54, 53% Black due to the growth in the upper part of the county.

I represent all of the upper part of Richland County, taking in Blythewood, Ballantine, White Rock, Irmo side of, the Richland County Irmo side, Harbor coming on down into inner city, around CA Johnson High School and out in Greenview where I live.

That is District 19 represented previously by representative, not representative by Senator I. DeQuincey Newman.

And due to this poor health, he resigned.

And I ran for the Senate in '85 and won that seat.

- We have under 30 seconds.

Not enough time to get into another subject, but Senator Kay Patterson, thank you for being with us on "Capital View."

- Thank you very much.

Good to be here.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] The preceding program has been made possible in part by SCE&G, a SCANA company.

(upbeat music)