Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler took the podium on Wednesday, and was more than a little fired up. the cause was an anonymous letter that had been sent to residents of his district, accusing the senator of blocking discussion and a vote on S. 695, a bill that supports a statewide charter school district.
After the joint assembly to elect college board members, Peeler stopped by his office to check in before heading back to the floor. He was greeted with the letter, and a stack of emails from his constituents that implored him to back the legislation. In fact, Peeler supported charter schools and had nothing to do with perceived blocking of the bill.
“I don’t know what theyre talking about, I don’t know what bill the senator from Beaufort is talking about, this statewide charter district bill, that I am keeping you from voting on,” he said. “I support the statewide charter schools. I do not know from where they are coming up with this, senator from Lexington. And it says, ‘No. 4, ask every friend of charter schools in his district to contact Sen. Peeler on this. Sen. Peeler will only respond to the volume of calls and emails to his office. If just a few call, the bill will die in committee.’”
For whoever sent out the letter, they seem to have made a mistake as to how it would be taken.
“Let me give you some information, my constituents, my supporters of the charter school district. My daddy told me, ‘Son, you better quit crying, or I’m going to give you something to cry about.’ I don’t know who sent this, but it worked,” Peeler said. “I got these in my office today from my constituents. Let me tell you, my constituents, my supporters of the charter school district, whoever sent this, has brought you the biggest enemy you’ve ever had. You have an enemy now. You didn’t before, but you’ve got one now. I ask you to ferret out who sent you this, and we can sit down and talk about it. But, I want the person to be man enough, or woman enough, person enough, to come to me and tell me they sent this, and try to explain to me why they sent it. But, I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish. Something tells me, it accomplished just the opposite.”
Sen. Tom Davis, the lead sponsor of the bill, said Wednesday was the first day he had seen the letter, and that he did not condone it.
“Senator, did you know I’m horrified at my name being used in something like this,” Davis asked Peeler. “And, do you realize there’s no way I would be involved in something like this? … And, I don’t know who’s responsible for this, but I do know people that support that bill, and I’m going to tell them exactly what you said on the floor today. If they were looking to do something to kill this thing, they couldn’t have done any better than what they did.”
