I distinctly remember the moment I first realized the power of electric cooperatives and the members they serve.
It was 1989, and I was working as a staffer for the South Carolina Senate. As I arrived at work one day, I found it difficult to get around the Statehouse complex. Waves of people of every age and race appeared out of nowhere. They flooded the lobby and clogged the hallways.
It was common for citizens to show up at the Statehouse to make their voices heard. But not at this scale. Even after a dozen years in politics, I found it surprising and—to be honest—a bit overwhelming.
“Who are these people?” I asked my then-boss, Sen. Marshall Williams of Orangeburg.
“They’re co-op members,” he replied matter-of-factly. “They’re here because they are upset. They don’t want their co-op sold. They want to own it.”
Having grown up on York Electric Cooperative lines, I was familiar with electric co-ops. But I was about to get an education in what happens when their members mobilize.
At the time, rumors had been swirling that South Carolina Electric and Gas was planning a corporate takeover of several electric co-ops. In response, legislation had been introduced to protect the co-ops. The proposed law would require two-thirds of a co-op’s members to approve any sale—a much higher hurdle than the mere 3% required under the existing law. Co-op members desperately wanted the legislation passed.
For them, the prospect of SCE&G swallowing up their utilities was infuriatingly ironic. Cooperatives might never have formed a half-century prior if investor-owned utilities like SCE&G had accepted the responsibility of bringing power to rural folks. But now that electric co-ops had brought power, growth and economic investment to rural communities, SCE&G was suddenly willing to take over and take advantage.
McCormick County resident C. Richard Blackwell illustrated the hypocrisy with an open letter to co-op members in the February 1989 issue of Living in South Carolina.
Blackwell wrote that he contacted SCE&G for service not long after World War II. The utility got as far as putting up a line near the home he was building. But then SCE&G returned to tear it back down before ever connecting him to electricity. When Blackwell tried to sort out the confusion, they told him the material was needed more elsewhere.
The Blackwell home would eventually get power, thanks to Little River Electric Cooperative. And Blackwell would become an outspoken advocate of the co-op model.
“Don’t you ever, as a co-op member, let somebody like SCE&G talk you into selling us out,” he warned. “This is our line—we own it.”
Still, as the 1989 legislative session drew to an end, the threat of corporate predators loomed over cooperatives.
Co-op members from across the state had already flooded Statehouse mailboxes with letters. They had bent the ears of their elected representatives at home. Now, equipped with homemade sandwiches and a fierce will to protect their co-ops, they parked themselves in the lobbies and galleries of the Statehouse, watching their legislators like hawks.
While the cooperatives had friends at the Statehouse, some legislators weren’t supportive. Even as the bill to protect co-ops passed in the House, one adversarial representative quipped that the fight wasn’t over—“The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”
But a week later, the bill was finally signed into law. As the clock struck 5 p.m. and the legislative session ended, I walked into a crowded Statehouse lobby and heard a beautiful voice singing an aria, apparently playing the role of a soprano whose final scene signals the end of the opera. I won’t comment on her physical attributes, but I can tell you that I felt the weight of her song.
Big corporations frequently think they can just roll over anyone in their way. But if they want to play the role of Goliath, the response from co-op members must be like that of David—sharp and well-aimed.
As long as there are electric cooperatives, there will be co-op members who speak truth to power. They won’t give up their right to self-governance. They won’t be taken advantage of. They are not going to go gentle into that good night.
Mike Couick is the president and CEO of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Inc., the statewide association of not-for-profit electric cooperatives.