Former S.C. House Rep. Tom Ervin has recently announced his candidacy for governor, now making November’s election a three-person race.
Ervin said he was influenced to run after reading about the tragic cases coming out of the S.C. Department of Social Services. The department has come under fire recently for its overloaded case workers and the allegedly slow way it has dealt with law enforcement in investigating child deaths.
Ervin said children are dying under the department’s watch and that a major concern for him is the case load per worker.
“The caseloads are way too high, and workers who are supervising children at risk should have 20 kids or less. Some of these workers have 40 or 50 kids, and one even has 100 children. So, there’s no way they can supervise that many kids,” said Ervin.
Ervin said another one of his goals is to reemphasize the Charleston Harbor that he said accounts for one in five jobs in the state.
The state’s decision in 2011 to allow to Georgia to deepen the Savannah River left some thinking the move would take business away from the Charleston port. Ervin said he has ideas to reemphasize Charleston.
“We have got to stay competitive, which means finding the funding to dredge that port,” he said. “All of our industries like BMW and Michelin rely on that port to bring raw materials in and ship the final products out.”
Ervin also made the point that South Carolina’s roads, bridges and general infrastructure need improvements; it is also something he plans to address.
“We’re going to have to find a revenue source. It may be increasing fees or the gas tax,” he said. “We need to look at all available sources to fix this problem.”
A native of Honea Path, Ervin was elected to the House in 1979 and after two terms, decided not to seek reelection.
At age 32, he became the youngest circuit court judge to ever be elected in South Carolina.
Ervin is also a small-business man and owns three radio stations in the Upstate. He is currently running as an Independent Republican against S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and Democratic candidate S.C. Rep. Vincent Sheheen, D-Kershaw.