No One To Bury Me

Dear Boo and Bubble,

It’s quite concerning to me just how polarizing and personal politics has become today.  It seems anymore that the margin of space allowed for movement on issues has narrowed almost to the point of a clogged artery.  Most everyone assumes that if you’re against their position, you must be against them…..and, once you’re against them, you can never be with them regardless of the issue. 

In the time that Captain served in the South Carolina legislature, this was not the prevailing atmosphere.  He always described it this way – “One day, you’d be going nose to nose with another representative, yelling and arguing over how to fry chicken……the next day, the two of you were arm in arm promoting the proper amount of mayonnaise in potato salad.  Whoever was your adversary in the first case would be your cohort in the second.  It was never personal.”  Issues didn’t stick like fly paper to either the person or the party – an essential element in getting things done, in forging compromises to create workable legislation.

However, sometimes one did have to work the rules of the House in order to buy time to gain consensus on issues.  Captain became knowledgeable about the rules - and quite adept at maneuvering them to his benefit, especially when the matter at hand would have a specific derogatory effect on some of his constituents. There is no better example of this than the maddening stall he created in 1985 as the law governing funeral homes in the state began its precarious descent into sunset - which means if nothing is passed to replace it, the law ceases to exist. 

Before he arrived, legislation had been passed to oversee the funeral business in the state.  Among its provisions was a requirement that anyone working in certain capacities in a funeral home must have a high school diploma or a GED equivalent.  At the time of its passage, there were many employees of funeral homes across the state who could not meet the requirement.  Rather than grandfather these folks into the law, the crafters of the legislation decided to give them a grace period by which they could take the GED exam in order to comply.

One of the funeral homes in Gaffney, Shuford-Hatcher, had two gentlemen as employees who had worked there for almost 40 years.  They were morticians in every sense of the word - knew the business backwards and forwards - how to usher - how to drive hearses - how to dress the dead – how to sell caskets and, yes - how to embalm.  There was only one hitch – neither one had graduated from high school and, unless they completed their GED equivalents, Shuford-Hatcher would be in violation of the law and subject to all of the fines imposed, including having to fire them.

Mr. Hatcher came to Captain at his law office in Gaffney to discuss the situation.  He explained that the two men were only a couple of years shy of retirement.  As a practical matter, in his mind, it didn’t make much sense for them to have to do what was required to study for, take and pass the GED.  They were two of his key assistants and perfectly proficient at their jobs – had been for years before the law was passed. He asked if there were any way Captain might be able to assist in the situation.  Captain reassured him that when he returned to Columbia, he would check into it.

Well, Captain found out pretty quickly that the funeral home lobby was one of the most powerful in the state.  The tentacles of the association that represented its interest proliferated in every nook and cranny since each community – large or small - had at least one home.   The legislation to re-authorize the law (including its provision requiring the high school diploma or equivalent) had made it out of all committees and was now on the floor of the house for passage. Captain knew that the clock was ticking on the law.  If he could just find a way to delay the vote, he might be able to leverage the untenable possibility of the sunset in order negotiate a compromise on behalf of his constituents.  He seized upon an idea that might work.

The rules of the House allowed for legislation to be placed on one of two calendars – uncontested and contested (which required the objection of at least three legislators).  Bills worked their way up the respective calendars until the top, at which time the Speaker of the House would call for votes.  There was a quirk in the system, however.  If a bill on the uncontested calendar became contested before it reached the top, it would be moved to the bottom of the contested calendar……and vice versa….if the objecting legislators removed their objection before the bill reached the top of the contested calendar, it went to the bottom of the uncontested one.

The re-authorization of the funeral home law arrived out of committee in the House and was placed on the uncontested calendar.  Captain watched very closely as it made its way up the ladder for consideration and a vote.  As it approached the top, he arranged for two other representatives to file an objection – which moved it to the bottom of the contested calendar.  He again monitored its progress and, at the right moment, coordinated for the objections to be removed – putting the bill back at the bottom of the uncontested.

At first, his maneuvers went undetected by the funeral home association.  However, as several weeks passed and the bill had not yet made it to the House floor for a vote and the sunset deadline loomed, their president John Dunbar took note.  He made inquiry of the Speaker as to why things were held up.  The Speaker looked into it and found that Captain was the culprit.

A letter went out from the association alerting every funeral home director in the entire state that “Representative John Tally of House District #30 was single-handedly about to deliver a death knell to the funeral home industry as it was known in the state by his obstructive tactics……that if something weren’t done quickly, all laws governing the business of funerals would cease to exist.  If you, or anyone of your acquaintance, know Mr. Tally, you must contact him immediately and ask him to desist in order to preserve the greater good.”  (Or words to that effect!)

Your great, great Uncle John Oliver Kendrick, was a mortician with Wood Mortuary in Greer, SC, and received this missive.  Of course, he knew Captain since I was his niece and we were married.  (At times, when John Oliver was either delivering or gathering a body in Gaffney, he would swing by and see Captain at his law office.  This always created a ruckus because he would be driving a hearse.  The phone at home would ring off the wall with people wanting to know if Captain had died.)  John Oliver called Granddaddy Schaefer and inquired as to “what in the hell” Captain was up to that he had the funeral home directors of the entire state so upset.  Granddaddy said he didn’t know, but he’d find out. 

When Granddaddy called Captain, the explanation was quite simple – “just doing some constituent service.” When Captain told Granddaddy the story about the two men at Shuford-Hatcher, it made perfect sense to him.  He reported it to John Oliver with the suggestion that the association might consider listening to Representative Tally and working out a compromise. 

In the end, that’s exactly what happened.  By knowing how the House operated, Captain was able to get the attention of the funeral home association and compel them to listen.  The two men at Shuford-Hatcher were grandfathered into the law and allowed to continue to work until their retirement.  There was no sunset and everybody went back to burying the dead……which was a great relief to me.  For a while there, if something had happened to Captain, there was only one funeral home that we could use – Shuford-Hatcher.  Nobody else would have had him.