SC’s GOP ‘sister senators’ say farewell: ‘This is what a Senate seat costs!’

Sen. , R-Lexington, holds up Wednesday, June 26, 2024, with white gloves the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award given last fall to the five bipartisan "sister senators" who helped block a near-total abortion ban.

(Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette) COLUMBIA — The day after South Carolina’s last Republican “sister senator” lost her re-election bid, she proudly displayed the award that symbolized both why she lost and why she doesn’t regret any of her votes. Giving her farewell speech at the Senate podium, Sen. Katrina Shealy paused to put on white gloves.

Then she picked up the given last fall to the five female senators who helped block a near-total ban on abortions in South Carolina and stood together in opposing the six-week ban that ultimately became law last year. “I stood up for the right thing. I stood up for women.

I stood up for children. I stood up for South Carolina,” she said Wednesday as the other four “sister senators” — two Republicans, one Democrat and one Independent — gathered around her in support. “Here it is, and it’s beautiful.

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Take a look!” she said of the sterling silver and crystal lantern engraved with the senators’ names. “This is what a Senate seat costs, and I’m proud of it!” The award’s actual worth is somewhere between $35,000 and $40,000. But its value to the “sisters” is immeasurable.

Its future home is uncertain. The award has been in Shealy’s Senate office. But she’ll be packing that up s.