Interviewee: Laura Woliver
Interviewer: Mark Harris
Location: Remote interview (Columbia, SC and Columbia, SC)
Date: September 24, 2020
Accession #: ELEC 001
Length of Recording: 44:34
Summary
Dr. Laura R. Woliver was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1954, and moved frequently due to her father’s military service. The interview includes discussion of her early life and how growing up in the environment she did led to her work in politics. She describes her work as the President of the League of Women Voters of the Columbia Area and the history of that organization, the integrity of the 2020 Election, which the League is attempting to address, a discussion of the issues at stake, particularly for women, in the 2020 Election, as well as the issue of gerrymandering and mal apportionment of voting districts. She discusses the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as well as Senate Republicans’ hypocrisy in the matter of lame-duck presidents appointing new justices., Senate Democrats’ chances in 2020, including Jaime Harrison’s race against incumbent Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. The interview also includes a discussion of the importance of civic engagement and voting.
Keywords
South Carolina | League of Women Voters | Democracy | 2020 Election | Women in Politics | Voting | Ruth Bader Ginsburg | Supreme Court Appointments
Recording
Transcript
Mark Harris: This is an oral history interview for the 2020 election, sharing stories of civic engagement oral history project, part of coursework for honors college class, SCHC 326, documenting the perspectives and experiences of those who are engaged in some way in the 2020. election. This is Mark Harris, and the date is September 24, 2020. And today I’m interviewing Dr. Laura R. Woliver remotely. I’m in Columbia, South Carolina, and she is as well. So, would you start by please, giving me your full name, including your maiden name and spelling it?
Dr. Laura R. Woliver: Sure. So, my name is Laura. And my middle initial is R and my last name is Woliver, W-O-L-I-V-E-R.
MH: Perfect. So where and when were you born?
LW: So I was born in 1954. In El Paso, Texas.
MH: Wonderful. Is that where you grew up?
LW: No, my father was in the army, and so, we moved quite a bit and I grew up in a lot of different places.
MH: Okay, from the places that you grew up, what was something that stood out to you about… I don’t know anything similar between those places that you grew up or the community at the time?
LW: Hm, let’s see. Community at the time, when I was in high school, I lived in Busan, B-U-S-A-N, Korea on a military base. And I learned a lot about politics from being an American teenage girl on a huge United States military base at that time, and so that was something very formative for me.
MH: Wonderful. Could you talk to me about your parents and grandparents both on the maternal and paternal side? What were their names?
LW: On my father’s side, their names were Owen and Etta Woliver. And then on my mother’s side, their names were Michael and Rose Taeschner.
MH: From what you recall, where were they from? And perhaps what did they do for work?
LW: On my father’s side, the Wolivers were from Harlan County, Kentucky, and they had small subsistence farms. And they also… the men were coal miners in that family. And on my mother’s side, my grandfather, her father, was a stevedore on the docks of New York City. They lived in Staten Island, New York, and my grandmother was a stay at home… mother.
MH: Okay, what were the family traditions that you experienced? And were there any that you carried forward?
LW: Let’s see just the usual Christmas holidays, Easter holiday, Halloween. A value to school, and an interest in what’s going on in the world and interest in politics. So, politics, American foreign policy, the world scene was always something that was discussed in the house.
MH: Okay, great. Well, shifting gears and now moving from the past to the present. Could you tell me more about your work as the president of the League of Women Voters of the Columbia Area?
LW: Yes. So, the League is a group of volunteers. Everyone is a volunteer, and you have to coordinate the volunteers and have people who help you coordinate the volunteers. And what we do traditionally is register people to vote, and help them with voting questions, and encourage them to go out and vote. We monitor legislation at the state and national level that would impede voting or enhance it. Like the motor voter law, or extensions of absentee voting. We make sure that voting is accessible to everyone, no matter what their languages, their primary language, or their physical abilities. And we make… we are very concerned about making sure in this day and age that the computer systems that often are used to tabulate the vote are accurate and verifiable. Because the integrity of the democracy depends a lot on the integrity of the election. The League of Women Voters also cares about public education. Because to be a viable democracy, you need people who are not just voting but are informed voting voters. And so, we have always supported the public-school system, access to quality education through the public school system, and the health of children and families.
The beginning of the league 100 years ago, the League was concerned about things like community health standards. So, issues like water being purified and available to everyone, water, because neighborhoods would have outbreaks of dysentery or all kinds of illnesses because of microbes and germs in the water. The League of Women Voters wanted all of the neighborhoods, no matter what their political affiliation or income, to have sewage systems and to have sidewalks and playgrounds for healthy families. Just many, many issues the League has been responsible for, and the League has worked in tandem with other groups on this as well. So, for example, in South Carolina, one of the first things the League of Women Voters did when they formed in 1920, was to raise the age of consent to protect young women, young girls from being much too young to consent on their own, you know, to intimate relations and especially to a marriage.
MH: Right. Well, there’s certainly a lot of great issues that the League has done good work with there. What are some big issues that the League is supporting this election year in particular?
LW: This election year, we are concentrating on getting out the vote and telling the truth about the vote because there’s a lot of misinformation on social media, or put out by people who spread falsehoods about how you vote, where you can vote. Who can’t vote, who is eligible for an absentee ballot, where you need to register, what’s the deadline? If you have any outstanding tickets, or issues with the government, can you vote and issues about immigration status or criminal background checks and voting? We tried to tell the truth to people about this and help them get to a place where they’re able to vote. So, there’s the voting issue. And we are very concerned about how long it took the South Carolina legislature in this election to open up absentee voting to any person because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So we’ve worked very hard with other groups to have healthy voting so that people do not have to stand in long, long lines on November 3, and possibly be exposed to COVID-19 but could vote early, where the lines would be a lot less. And then, by many people voting early, the lines on election day might be, hopefully, they are smaller as well.
MH: Right. Well, given what we’re doing as a state, even if it is a slow response to try to mitigate that, what can be done to try to counteract the threat posed by Donald Trump in his administration, with his attacks on mail-in voting?
LW: This is, this is a serious issue, we just have to make sure that people understand that mail-in ballot voting doesn’t have a history of, of fraud, that it’s quite safe, that many states have used it for a decade, and there’s been no problems, that some of these statements are partisan, and they’re not based on fact. We also want to make sure that the vote is respected, and not demeaned in any way so that the outcome of the November election is respected.
MH: Definitely. From your perspective, what is at stake for women’s issues or women’s equality in this election?
LW: Well, in every election, women’s equality is at stake in terms of if the government is going to maintain women’s access to their own choices on their reproductive life, be able to make safe choices about their reproductive decisions, whether women are going to be able to count on protections for equal pay, paid leave, not being penalized because they’ve taken maternity leave or or parental leave. The protection of women and girls from sexual predators like in the Me Too Movement, just a whole list of things that affect women and making sure that, for example, access to quality health care is not restricted by things like preexisting conditions. Because a lot of women and their families have preexisting conditions or have issues that would really make it hard and prohibitively expensive for them to purchase on the private market. Health insurance policies for women and girls, also, just the economic well-being of their families and themselves is very important. The pandemic’s economic crisis has really affected a lot of women and people of color and families that are headed by women, the service industry, teaching, a lot of the hands-on work that women do, like in health care, has put them at economic peril, and also at risk of catching the virus themselves. So, there’s a lot at stake. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
MH: Right. Relating to those issues, what is perhaps one project that the League of Women Voters is working on in Columbia to address those issues?
LW: The League in Columbia is working on two things I want to mention. One is there’s a project called Vote411.org, and that is a grassroots based national League website where people can access it and click their address in and find where they’re going to vote, what the criteria are to vote, what the deadline is to be registered, what the criteria are for absentee ballots, who the candidates are and what their positions are on issues. So, it’s a very powerful website, and it’s called Vote411.org. The League of Women Voters at their local level, they maintain all the information for local races. And the national office does it for the national level, of course, and in the state does it for the state races like state senator, Governor, things like that. So, it’s… it’s a remarkable effort. The other thing that the league is doing, and the pandemic has put this on the back burner a little bit, but the League of Women Voters is very concerned, this is one of its top national priorities. About not only that people vote, of course, but then when they vote, as I said, their votes are counted correctly and fairly. And then those votes are distributed into representative districts that are fair. So, we have this program called Fair Maps. The 2020 census, which is going on right now will determine the reapportionment in the state in the country. In 2021, when the state legislature and the Congress convene to look at the census maps and redraw all the districts, they can redraw those districts in a way that is unfair to democracy, and that favors partisan interests, or incumbents and partisan interests. Or the maps can be drawn in a way that that reflect better their voting population and what their preferences were. So, this is called reapportionment and mal apportionment or gerrymandering, and the League is very concerned that the very bad gerrymandering in the past or mal apportionment in the past be corrected. Because the majority of the people’s preferences on social policies are not reflected in many state legislatures or in the United States Congress, because of a disproportionate representation of voters by maps that divide majorities and make them minority interests in those districts.
MH: Okay, great. Well, um, is… so on the issue of mal apportioning, is that something that historically we have faced here in South Carolina? And does it seem to be something that is at risk in 2020? Just as much?
LW: Yes, South Carolina, has been mal apportioned. For a very long time. South Carolina was one of the states that had a disproportionate power to the railroad, or farm areas, the low population areas were disproportionately represented in the South Carolina legislature for generations. And that was addressed in Baker versus Carr, the one person one vote, system. And so, after that there had to be reapportionment after every census. And, it had to be, it was supposed to be fair. The other thing is South Carolina has a very long history of dividing black communities into fractions, so that their power isn’t reflected in representation. So, the 1965 Voting Rights Act stipulated that that was against the law and shouldn’t be done. But recently, the Voting Rights Act has been watered down by the Supreme Court. And so, there’s a long history in South Carolina of that kind of malfeasance, but also since about 1992-94, the Republican Party in South Carolina has been very strategic about the remapping. Okay, so 90 to 94 was after the 90 census. And so that redistricting was one of the first steps where you saw the previous favoritism toward the Democratic Party in South Carolina then shifting toward the Republican Party. So, both parties, you know, when they’re in power, they do this. And right now the Republican Party is in power so they have really protected incumbents and made very safe districts for… for their partisans at the state level and in the congressional delegation, and in 2021, there’s no doubt that that will come into play once again.
MH: Certainly, well, is this an issue that can be addressed through legislation? Or would it take more like the enforcement and more regulatory side of enforcing the laws that have been passed?
LW: It could be addressed by legislation, if you had a legislature that wasn’t concerned with keeping its own power. You know, if you had a legislature that wanted it to be fair and democratic with a small d, but it is… it’s very circular, because the legislature, at the time that you’re asking it to reform itself is the very same legislature that got elected from the system that you want them to change. So, they’re not very interested in making those changes. So, in the past, courts have forced them to change. But recently, the courts have pulled back from that. And we’re kind of in a stalemate. Now in some states, there are recalls, referendums, and initiatives. And in some states with initiatives, and referendum, they’ve been able to demand that the legislature do a different way, have a different procedure for reapportionment like nonpartisan commissions of citizens and do the remapping. Instead of in South Carolina, the legislators draw the maps themselves or their staff and their consultants. But in some states, it is an independent commission that does the maps and they are not supposed to be influenced by partisan considerations, but rather by the fairness of making sure that the people’s votes are reflected in their houses of representation.
MH: Right. It’s certainly a very interesting topic, and I’ll be curious to see how it changes moving forward. You had briefly mentioned the courts. And I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the unfortunate recent passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and I wanted to capture your thoughts on the whole situation, as you know, there’s talk of trying to fill that seat before the election. What are your thoughts on that matter?
LW: Well, my personal thoughts are pretty complex. The League’s thoughts on this are about protecting the social contract of a democracy and doing things that are consistent and, and fair. And so, the League is quite concerned, as an organization, that in 2016, when there was an opening on the court after Antonin Scalia passed away, Barack Obama, President Obama made a nomination and the majority party in the US Senate, the Republicans under Mitch McConnell, as the speaker, as the Senate Majority Leader, refused to have any hearings on it, wouldn’t do anything about it, and said that it could not be taken up at all or discussed at all on the state on the Senate floor until after the next election, because it was too close to the next election and the people should speak. Now in 2016 McConnell and Lindsey Graham and a lot of other Republican senators, said that emphatically, and it was nine months before the next election, nine months. They said that in late February, early March of 2018. And so right now, it is about 45 days, till the next election, and they’re saying the opposite. So, what is sad about it is that partisanship is the most important thing in in our country right now. And it is a toxic kind of partisanship. There isn’t much mutuality or community. This is a real rendering and shredding of a lot of social norms about decency that we had in our democracy. And we’re going to, you know, suffer the consequences. I think that this was… this is really very unfortunate.
MH: Well, I agree. And I think that’s very well said, particularly bringing up, you know, the reversal of positions. What do you think the voters of South Carolina… Is there enough attention on Lindsey Graham, for example, completely doing a 180 on his very clear position in 2018 that a lame duck president should not be able to appoint a new justice? Do you think voters in South Carolina are paying enough attention to that?
LW: Um, I don’t know. Voters in South Carolina are influenced by many, many things. And one of them is the politics of resentment, and the politics of some, well, prejudice. You know, there’s a lot of issues that the Republican president right now, Donald Trump brings up that are signals about race. And so, there’s a very strong vote in this state. That is quite… What would I say? It’s very conservative, and it’s conservative in a way that is conservative about the white maj- the white, ruling, that, you know, the white ruling, dominance continuing, and… and it’s an interesting conservatism, because it’s not the conservatism of, you know, don’t run up the debt kind of conservatism, because under President Donald Trump, that debt has risen, astronomically. And so, it’s hard to say. It is very hard to say. On the other hand, many of the people who have been harmed economically by the Coronavirus, shut down and by their family members, getting the virus and maybe getting very sick and maybe passing away. A lot of them have been working class people who maybe didn’t have access to quality health care, so had underlying conditions. And then maybe waited a while to, you know, to get treatment for certain things because they didn’t have good health care. Remember that South Carolina is one of the states did not… did not expand Medicaid under the Obama… under the Affordable Care Act. So, South Carolina has a lot of people who don’t have access to health care. And so, people might be thinking about those things as well. It is very hard to say.
One thing that is for sure is that the Black Lives Matter movement and all of the people who agree with you know, the issue that black lives do matter. They are mobilized to vote and there will be a big turnout in November of a lot of people who maybe sat out the election in 2016. But we’re voting in 2018 and are even more so voting in 2020. So, it’s really… we’re just going to have to see… what is telling in South Carolina already is that things are in conte- in contest. Usually an incumbent Republican senator like Lindsey Graham, has a cakewalk in the general election. Maybe no opposition at all, or token opposition from the other party. And this time around the Democratic Senate challenger to Lindsey Graham is making a very strong campaign to be… to be elected and to replace Lindsey Graham and Lindsey Graham has to campaign. So, it’s, it’s very different than what it’s been in the past.
MH: Definitely, the race between Jaime Harrison and Lindsey Graham is certainly heating up in certain polls have indicated that, at least at times they might have been equal in the polling. Do you think with the coalition that’s building behind Jaime Harrison is it possible that even in a red state like South Carolina, would it be possible for Jaime Harrison to beat Lindsey Graham?
LW: I don’t know. It would be possible; all things are possible. But it would be really, really, really an upset. But it’s possible. Yes.
MH: Right. Well, focusing on these movements on the national scale, what do you think will happen? And of course, this is just conjecture that I’m asking for, but um, does it seem like there would be more of this movement, leading the country further left, and perhaps the Senate maybe flipping Democrat in 2020?
LW: Yeah, that’s gonna depend on how…Yeah, it’s so interesting, because in some states right now, people are actually voting now. So, they’re, you know, in many states, they’ve already voted for the November election, because they have such… such easy access to early voting, and they have paper ballots, and they can turn them in even, you know, six weeks out. So, people are already voting. And so, it’s some of it will depend on what happens between now and election day. But some of it won’t, because a lot of people have already voted, as I said. But what will happen, I think, is that the Senate, I think the Senate will… it has a very good chance of of becoming a Democratic majority, but it would be a slim Democratic majority. And I think that is one of the reasons that Mitch McConnell is and his colleagues are so emphatic about, we will replace that Supreme Court, Senator, that Supreme Court seat now, because they probably have a suspicion that they might not be the majority party, after everyone’s sworn into the new government in January and in at the day after the election in November, if they are not the majority party, then it would be very hard to do this, because they would be what’s called a lame duck. They could do it, they would have the vote and the power. But it would be ethically a little bit… and it would be harder. So I think some of this real heat about replacing the Justice right now is because the majority party in the Senate now is concerned about its status after the election.
MH: Certainly, and what do you think about if the Republican party does and Mitch McConnell has indicated that he does plan on having a floor vote on whoever Donald Trump decides to nominate for the seat? Do you think this would help or hurt the Republicans’ chances on the national ticket in 2020, by pursuing this kind of thing?
LW: Yeah, I’m not sure. I am not sure… I just don’t know. I think that it will depend on what the Democrats do in in countermeasure, like they can do things like filibuster, of course. They can delay things. Of course, there has not been a vetting of whoever the candidate is for the vacant seat. We don’t know who it is yet, although there are speculations. So, it depends on a lot of, a lot of those things. It depends on what kind of things Mitch McConnell is able to put together in terms of justifying a vote on the floor before the election. Remember that a lot of those Senators right now, this is a huge distraction for them, because they are campaigning themselves for reelection. So it is, you know, a really long floor fight. With a lot of issues brought up that resonate with the voters. It might affect that election in November.
MH: Right, um, another issue that’s come up recently is Donald Trump failing to clearly indicate that he would peacefully transition power if he were to lose in 2020. Is there any kind of precedent for this? And what would happen if he does not want to transition power even if he does lose?
LW: Well, I must say that this is the first time I think, in the history of this country that that has been said, by a sitting president. And it is really… it’s really a broken covenant about democracy. For him to say that, and this is the politics also of ahead of time making things seem illegitimate, even before they happen. So, if they happen, then, then the person says, “See, I told you, it was all rigged,” even if it wasn’t rigged. And this kind of negative politics has been around a long time, and it hasn’t been addressed very well by the social media, watchdog people, and by, you know, people who know better. So, you know, what was said, against previous candidates? You know, some people believed it, and it’s just really a reason why the League of Women Voters wants voters to be informed.
MH: There’s been a lot of discussion about how people can be more involved in the community, then they have been previously. So I want to focus again, on your work with the League of Women Voters and ask, what is it that people can do, whether it’s here in Columbia or elsewhere in the state or country to get involved with these issues and the election on the front lines?
LW: Well, people can do the old-fashioned things like write to their representatives. Now, the caveat there is that a lot of people’s representatives, that people might feel that they… It’s futile to tell these people, these representatives, how they feel because they don’t have to listen to them, because they are in a safe district, they’ll be reelected no matter what. But it’s important to… to let politicians know that you’re paying attention, that whatever is happening might not be something that you agree with, or you wish it was being done a different way. So that’s one way, but it’s really hard these days to see that making an impact, because of what I just said. The other thing is to make sure that you support people who challenge things when they are not right, when they are unjust, or when they are not true. And to be… to stand up for, for what you… you care about and believe in. And I think people are doing that, you know, in the Black Lives Matter movement, and in protests about police brutality, there is that.
They also, people also, need to demand that there be more openness in government. So, one of the things that the League does care about, also, is what’s called dark money. So, in South Carolina, the ethics laws are not very strong. And sometimes people can’t tell where ads are being financed from or where candidates are getting some of his support because of what is called dark money. And that can be cleaned up. But the people who benefit from dark money make sure that that’s not exposed or cleaned up. So, you have there just a pattern of abuse and not knowing. If there was higher voter turnout in South Carolina, that would be very interesting because we have some of the lowest voter turnout in the, in the, nation. And in part, that’s because a lot of people have given up, don’t see the point, have been told lies. You know, like if they try to vote, they’ll be arrested because they still owe some child support, or they have outstanding parking tickets. That’s not true. None of that’s true. But there’s, you know, things that people don’t want to test, you know, to see if it’s true or not find out the hard way. You have to hold people accountable; some of these candidates have forums, that people should show up at, and ask a question, like, “Well, what have you done about X, Y, and Z, and where did you get your money from?” Those are two things that are hard, and in our political system, the powers that be often describe people who ask questions like that as… they describe them as troublemakers and agitators and, you know, all kinds of things like that, but people have to know better and know that you’re not a troublemaker. You’re a concerned citizen.
MH: Right, um, that’s an interesting perspective on civic engagement. You mentioned people that sometimes don’t feel like they need to vote, and I know people, at least friends of mine, that don’t think they should be voting, or they don’t think their vote counts. So, what would you say to those people who are considering not voting in 2020?
LW: I would tell them that it’s understandable, you know, how they feel, but not voting is not going to help the situation. And there’s a lot of elections where very small numbers of voters made a difference, and that if they vote, and even if they vote for a third party person, you know, who probably isn’t going to get elected, it would show the major parties that there’s this many people who voted for an insurgent third party instead of… or, um, your party. So, I would say that that’s really a dereliction of duty.
MH: Definitely. Well, that’s quite interesting, and I would have to agree about the point of dereliction of duty. Is there anything else from your experience either as a professor or with the League of Women Voters, any stories that have stood out to you in particular?
LW: I think that people do respond to leaders, and it can be good, or it can be destructive. So people can be inspired to do things that they didn’t think they would be able to do: really heroic things, those can be inspired by a leader who gets them to think about a higher cause, a longer game, doing something for the team, that in the long term, will make things better. But there can also be leaders who, um, who divide people, and play the old divide and conquer game, and it’s a very powerful game, and people have to know when they’re being played. People have to know when they are being manipulated, to… to look at their fellow citizens as a threat instead of as a fellow citizen, who, um, has the same kind of concerns that you do, about your family, about your country, and things like that.
MH: Wonderful. Well, um, as we start to kind of wrap up, are there any final thoughts on the 2020 Election or politics today that you’d like to mention?
LW: I think I’ve covered it.
MH: Alright! Well, I want to thank you so much for participating in this interview. I think we’ve really well documented a lot of the issues at stake here in this election, so thank you so much for participating!
LW: You’re welcome, and good luck with your work!
MH: Thank you.
LW: Bye-bye.
MH: Bye.