State Sen. Robert Ford Pushing Bill Requiring SC Cities, Counties to Give Their Workers Paid Day-Off for Confederate Holiday

Democratic Senator Robert Ford is pushing a bill that would require South Carolina cities and counties to give their workers a paid day off for Confederate Memorial Day or lose millions in state funds. Here's the scary part. Ford, who is black, won initial approval from a Senate subcommittee Tuesday. It would force county and municipal governments to follow the schedule of holidays used by the state, which gives workers 12 paid days off, including May 10 to honor Confederate war dead. Mississippi and Alabama also recognize Confederate Memorial Day.

Ford is no stranger to this. Apparently years ago, he pushed a bill to make both that day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day paid holidays. He considered it an effort to help people understand the history of both the civil rights movement and the Confederacy in a state where the Orders of Secession are engraved in marble in the Statehouse lobby, portraits of Confederate generals look down on legislators in their chambers and the Confederate flag flies outside.

"Every municipality and every citizen of South Carolina, should be, well, forced to respect these two days and learn what they can about those two particular parts of our history," Ford said Tuesday.

In a state steeped in a segregationist past, "there's no love in this state between black and white basically," he said. That's not apparent at the Statehouse, where black and white legislators get along, "but if you go out there in real South Carolina, it's hatred and I think we can bring our people together." Source: News My Way

Okay, how is this a pressing issue? I guess Mr. Ford hasn't realized the country in in an economic nightmare, with no end in sight. The last thing we need right now is some nutjob trying to push through another holiday. People are losing their jobs in droves and this is the best Robert Ford could do? He has forgotten the costs the cities and counties would have to spend a lot of money to cover this holiday.