As a 1990 Wofford graduate, Wofford taught South Carolina Speaker of the House Murrell Smith skills integral to the legislative and legal world. He has served in the South Carolina House for two and a half decades.
Smith’s most significant influence at Wofford was Dr. Seitz, who heavily pushed Socratic-style discussions in his government classes. In these discussions, Smith learned how to espouse his political beliefs in a non-confrontational and respectful manner. Dr. Seitz had a well-rounded worldview, as he served in the Peace Corps, worked in the State Department and was stationed in Iran.
Smith truly felt the benefits of a smaller liberal arts institution, claiming that at Wofford, “there’s more individualized attention on the education and the growth and the maturation of you as a student and more importantly as a person.”
After two and a half decades serving the South Carolina House, Smith is most proud to represent his hometown, Sumter, S.C.. He prides himself on constituent service, allowing the people in Sumter to know to call him if they have a legitimate issue with the state government.
“One of the most important attributes of someone in public service is that you remember that you’re not there for yourself, you are there for your community and for your state. Your job is not to try to bring attention to yourself, your job is to make your community and your state a better place,” Smith said.
Smith had three major priorities when preparing for the future: income tax, energy and educational security.
South Carolina has the highest income tax rate in the southeast despite reductions of a billion dollars over the last few years.
“The southeast of this country is really the new industrial hub of the United States, everybody’s moving here. South Carolina is the per capita fastest-growing state for the last two years in a row,” Smith said.
The focus has shifted from solely being on tax rates to competing with neighboring states. In the past three years, South Carolina has created 20,000 jobs and has been successful in focusing on economic development. However, compared to Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Arkansas, South Carolina still has the highest marginal tax rate.
Major corporations don’t want to move to a state with higher tax rates than neighboring states, so corporate headquarters aren’t moving to South Carolina. Smith emphasized there are a significant number of people who can pay taxes and aren’t, so he wants to reform the tax rate to make it more flat.
“It’s the fact that we’ve got to lower that rate for us to be able to prosper and bring more headquarters here so that’s number one and I think that’s what we need to do,” Smith said.
As a growing state, more people, industry and data centers are moving to South Carolina, which has led to an energy crisis in the state. Due to the massive amount of energy-consuming agents and prolonged cloudy days that inhibit solar power, South Carolina has to rely on other states’ power. The states South Carolina buys power from are nearing the same rate, so the state needs a new way to generate energy.
Additionally, there are a hundred thousand jobs in South Carolina and more jobs are being added, but they need to continue to build their workforce. There is a college graduate migration out of the state of South Carolina that is hindering the growth of the workforce.
“We need to have students either on a career-ready or college-ready path,” Smith said.
Before becoming Speaker, Smith worked as a chairman for the Ways and Means Committee, where he took part in developing tuition mitigation.
“We’ll pay the increase that you need to keep to hold tuition and not raise tuition and we are now on our I think sixth year where we have not raised tuition for our public universities,” Smith said.
He also has been focused on raising teacher salaries because it is a demanding job in which they get virtually no breaks and often an unfair wage. In the past six years, Smith has worked towards increasing salaries from $30,000 to $47,000.
Another alumnus, Wofford 2005 graduate, Josh Whitley represents Daniel Island on the Berkley County Council.
“I’ve never forgotten that the graciousness and generosity of a stranger gave me this chance so I have tried to give back to Wofford similarly,” Whitley said.
Whitley feels that the academics at Wofford fully prepared him for his time at law school at William and Mary. He is grateful for both the academic education and friendships he gained at Wofford.
Despite a love for the job, Whitley chose not to seek reelection after nearly ten years representing District 2. Whitley recognized that his seat could benefit from some new energy. The time away from being a representative will allow him more time to practice law and spend time with his kids.
“I just realized my constituents who I love needed new energy. I was very energetic in the very beginning but now I’m a little more cynical and so I just want to step back, recharge, focus on business, focus on kiddos,” Whitley said.
For students interested in following a path similar to Whitley’s or Smith’s, he recommends prioritizing academics and involving oneself in diverse activities to teach them how to prioritize.
Wofford, being a small school, encourages civility. Due to the close-knit community of the college, if you are disrespectful or rude continuously people are not going to want your company. This way of thinking plays into Smith’s approach to civility while serving in the general assembly.
“We may have different political positions but we still all believe in the same values and so Republicans don’t have a majority on morality nor do the Democrats. You have your issues and when the debate is over it’s over,” Smith said.
Smith and Whitley discussed the difficult nature of politics. The challenges and scrutiny of being in public service have only increased with the use of mass media in such a divisive time in the United States.
Whitley spoke on the polarization of the nation, saying, “I’m hopeful and optimistic because you learn in life there’s always a pendulum effect so if the pendulum effect is true we’ve gotten to a world of such bitter divisiveness and hopefully that means we swing back.”
