Day 6: The State House and Rep Johnson (02/22/2024)

Today was our visit to the State House! Our tour guide, Heyward Stuckey was absolutely fantastic and very knowledgeable about the history of the State House and the South Carolina Legislature, as well as SC history in general. We got to sit in the gallery for a bit while the state senate was in session! We also spent a good amount of time hearing from two SC state representatives -- Micah Caskey and Mike Neese. They were very welcoming and gave us an inside look at what their jobs are like as state reps. We had the opportunity to ask a lot of questions and I really appreciated how open they were. You can often run into politicians that will talk in circles but they gave us some well rounded and real answers.

We then spent the afternoon back at the SCDP where we met with Rep. Jermaine Johnson. His story was incredible. He is currently one of the youngest representatives in SC and has worked incredibly hard to get there. Coming from a rough upbringing and turning his story into the motivation behind the work he does now was inspiring. Plus he was just overall a super cool guy! Also fun fact -- he won in every precinct in his county taking 77% of the vote! That goes to show just how incredible he truly is. Following Rep. Johnson's visit we completed some more work for the SCDP, doing some data entry, then headed back for an early turn in to prepare for our day in Charleston the next morning!