Hundreds attend Statehouse rally to protest Trump, Musk and more --- The rally was one of many held across the country as part of the 50501 movement
COLUMBIA — Hundreds of people who oppose the Trump administration gathered on the Statehouse lawn as part of a national Presidents’ Day protest in all 50 states.
At exactly 1 p.m. Monday, they started chanting in unison: “This is what Democracy looks like.”
Their complaints were many. An estimated 400 people chanted, booed, marched and flashed signs of numerous gripes with President Donald Trump, who was sworn into office four weeks ago.
They included the influence of tech billionaire Elon Musk, the government-shrinking efforts of the temporary Department of Government Efficiency that Musk leads, Trump’s rollback of protections for transgender students and military personnel, and his numerous other executive orders.
They also faulted South Carolina’s Republicans on Capitol Hill for supporting Trump’s initiatives. South Carolina has just one Democrat in Congress.
While officers were on hand, they had no interactions with the peaceful protesters. And there were no counter-protesters.
“I just want to hold our elected officials accountable for what they pledge to do for our citizens,” Amy Dupuis, a 40-year-old teacher, told the SC Daily Gazette.
Dupuis held a sign that read “so bad, even the introverts are here.”
Her top concern was the access that Trump gave Musk. Her second was the future of education.
Education funding
The Ladson native is a math teacher in Dorchester 2 School District. She worries about her job and K-12 education generally if Trump dismantles the U.S. Department of Education and transfers its duties “back to the states” as he’s repeatedly said he wants to do.
Like other public schools statewide, the school where Dupuis works receives federal money to help educate students who live in poverty through Title I and to support students with disabilities via the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. (At her confirmation hearing last week, education secretary nominee Linda McMahon told senators neither Title I nor IDEA funding would be reduced by potential changes.)
Federal aid in SC schools
This school year, traditional school districts are slated to collectively receive $905 million in federal aid. Charter school districts will receive $26 million total. (While charter schools are public, they’re funded differently.) Here’s how districts’ tax revenue breaks down by source per pupil on a statewide average. (It does not include bond sales for buildings.):
For traditional districts:
For charter school districts:
Source: S.C. Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office
Statewide, federal aid makes up about 7% of school districts’ revenue. Summerville-based Dorchester 2 specifically is slated to receive about $23 million this school year from the federal government, which amounts to 6% of its total revenue, according to the state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office.
Dupuis said she is specifically worried about protecting Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which makes it illegal for recipients of federal funding to discriminate against people with disabilities.
South Carolina is among 17 GOP-led states that sued last September seeking to declare unconstitutional the civil rights law as amended by the Biden administration to include “gender identity disorders.”
“It would be devastating to see that” thrown out, Dupuis said about the law.
In a statement last week, Attorney General Alan Wilson said he fully supports Section 504 accommodations and wants only the part pertaining to gender dysphoria removed. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that removed “gender identity disorders” as a disability.
The case was put on pause following Trump’s order.
Local organizing
Awareness of the Statehouse event went out over social media and can be credited to two people who formed Peace and Progress in South Carolina. The protest was part of a larger initiative dubbed “No Kings,” organized by a group that calls itself the 50501 campaign, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one movement.
A flyer that circulated on social media also advertised protests in Greenville and Myrtle Beach.
The protest marked the second at the Statehouse this month organized by Peace and Progress.
The first, on Feb. 5 — also as part of 50501 — was more specifically against Project 2025, a 900-plus-page book created by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation as a blueprint for overhauling the federal government. Trump distanced himself from it during the campaign. But one of its many architects, Russ Vought, has been confirmed as the director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.
Monday’s attendance dwarfed the gathering 12 days earlier. It helped that the latest was held on a state and federal holiday and happened to be a sunny day.
“It’s definitely a big gathering, many more than we expected,” its co-organizer, Blake Justice, a restaurant manager in Columbia, told the SC Daily Gazette.
Speakers included members of local political groups, religious leaders and one Richland County lawmaker.
Rep. Heather Bauer, D-Columbia, condemned the inner workings of the Statehouse, where Republicans control both chambers with a supermajority advantage. But that didn’t stop her from criticizing members of her own party.
“Not everyone with a ‘D’ beside their name is great,” said Bauer, who ousted a Republican in 2022 and managed to hold on to her seat in a rematch last November.
Former Republicans
The crowd included people who said they used to be Republicans.
Barbara Bates, a 78-year-old housewife from Goose Creek, was there with her husband Bill, also 78 and a former master chief in the Navy Submarines, as well as her daughter Stacie Arcomona, 54, and a pair of friends.
Barbara Bates held a sign Monday that called out South Carolina’s two GOP senators and 1st District representative: “Graham! Scott! Mace! You work for US!!” Bill Bates’ sign said “IMPEACH TRUMP!” And Arcomona’s read “DITCH D.O.G.E.”
The trio said they used to be involved with the Berkeley County GOP.
Barbara Bates voted for Trump in 2016, but did not vote for president in 2020. Bill Bates voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I was stupid,” he said. Arcomona didn’t vote for President in 2016 before voting for Biden in 2020.
This year, the entire family voted for Kamala Harris. Bill Bates and Arcomona no longer identify as Republicans, they told the SC Daily Gazette. Meanwhile, Barbara Bates said she still is a Republican, just not one who supports the current president.
“The party left me,” she said.
SC Daily Gazette Editor Seanna Adcox contributed to this report.
Shaun covers the state legislature for the South Carolina Daily Gazette.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Republicans worry GOP-led states will suffer from Trump’s firings of federal workers
WASHINGTON — Some Republicans are raising concerns about how reducing the federal workforce by potentially hundreds of thousands of people and canceling spending approved by Congress will affect the country — especially the regions filled with loyal GOP voters.
Members of Congress are urging the Trump administration not to fire federal workers they view as essential to their regions, pressing back on plans from the U.S. DOGE Service to slash jobs and funding.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski posted on social media that the more than 100 workers in her home state could be swept up in the dismissals.
“Many of these abrupt terminations will do more harm than good, stunting opportunities in Alaska and leaving holes in our communities,” Murkowski wrote. “We can’t realize our potential for responsible energy and mineral development if we can’t permit projects. We will be less prepared to manage summer wildfires if we can’t support those on the front lines. Our tourism economy will be damaged if we don’t maintain our world-class national parks and forests.”
Federal employees in SC
FROM SC DAILY GAZETTE
There were 24,525 federal civilian employees working in South Carolina as of the end of March 2024, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
That number doesn't include U.S. Postal Service employees, military personnel or federal contractors.
Murkowski wrote that she supported President Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce the federal government, but added the current “approach is bringing confusion, anxiety, and now trauma to our civil servants—some of whom moved their families and packed up their whole lives to come here.”
“Indiscriminate workforce cuts aren’t efficient and won’t fix the federal budget, but they will hurt good people who have answered the call to public service to do important work for our nation,” Murkowski added.
Kevin R. Kosar, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, wrote in a social media post “the DOGE push to downsize government employees will hit the coalition that elected Trump.”
He linked to an article from the Wall Street Journal that used maps to show how many federal workers are housed in each congressional district, many of which are represented by Republicans. The GOP controls the House by a slim 218-215 majority, with two vacancies.
Kosar wrote in a separate post that efficiency means “achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.”
“Done right, cost-cutting can increase efficiency,” he wrote. “But cost-cutting done sloppily can decrease productivity and effectiveness.”
More workers than Walmart
Most of the federal government’s 2.3 million employees aren’t based in and around Washington, D.C. They are spread throughout the country and often make up core parts of the economy in rural areas and sections of the nation that regularly swing between voting for Democrats and Republicans.
For example, Georgia hosts about 80,000, Michigan holds 30,000 and Pennsylvania has 66,000, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. All three swing states backed Trump in 2024, but have also elected Democrats in statewide races, like governor or U.S. senator.
The Pew Research Center writes in an explainer on the federal workforce that less “than a fifth of the workers in OPM’s database – about 449,500 – work in the District of Columbia or the adjoining states of Maryland and Virginia.”
OPM’s total number of federal workers, Pew writes, doesn’t include 600,000 U.S. Postal Service workers or 1.3 million active duty military personnel.
Even with those two workforces set aside, the 2.3 million federal employees covered by OPM’s data make the federal government “the nation’s single largest employer, with even more workers than Walmart, Amazon or McDonald’s.”
“In fact, the Postal Service by itself would, if it were a private business, rank among the 10 largest private-sector employers, ahead of industry rivals UPS and FedEx,” Pew writes.
Shipyard defended in Maine
Firing a large percentage of federal workers, especially those at the Department of Defense, has lawmakers concerned for local economies and national security.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and co-chair of the Senate Navy Caucus, sent a letter to the acting Navy Secretary asking for an exemption for Maine’s Portsmouth Naval Shipyard employees to the deferred resignation program.
“In our states, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) has nearly eight thousand civilian employees, creating more than $1.5 billion in annual economic impact in surrounding communities,” Collins and Shaheen wrote.
They added the submarines built at the shipyard are a central part of the country’s national security strategy, especially when it comes to China.
“As our military’s ‘pacing threat,’ the People’s Republic of China, is rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons programs, the role that our own submarines play in the survivability of our nuclear triad cannot be overstated,” Collins and Shaheen wrote.
FBI and Louisiana
Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy raised concerns about the impact firing employees at the Federal Bureau of Investigation would have on the state.
“I am all for efficiency and ultimately downsizing the federal government, but firing large numbers of new FBI agents is not the way to achieve this,” Cassidy wrote in a social media post. “Louisiana specifically benefits from newly hired FBI agents. We need to add to our law enforcement, not take away.”
Lawmakers from throughout the country are also learning how funding cuts, like a proposal from the National Institutes of Health to cap Facilities and Administrative costs at 15%, would affect employment, medical research and universities in their states.
While that specific proposal is currently halted by a federal court order, university leaders throughout the country, including those in deeply red states like Oklahoma, are talking with their members of Congress about the negative repercussions.
OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. told Oklahoma Voice the university is talking with federal lawmakers about how the cap would affect the school and “proactively considering next steps.”
“As we know, this change would severely impact institutions’ abilities to fund medical breakthroughs and novel therapies, as well as fulfill our educational mission of training and preparing the next generation of graduate students and student researchers,” Harroz said in a statement. “… The OU enterprise across our campuses is assessing budget implications and continues to be engaged and thoughtful about best ways forward. We are also working in collaboration with OU Health, as its patients’ access to our life-altering clinical trials may also be affected.”
Kansans rally to protect Food for Peace program
Members of Congress are also introducing legislation to curb impacts of spending cuts on programs they view as essential to Americans.
U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann and U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, both Republicans from Kansas, plan to introduce a bill that would move management of the Food for Peace program from the U.S. Agency for International Development to the Agriculture Department.
Moran said during a floor speech last week that the Food for Peace program purchased $713 million of U.S.-grown commodities during fiscal year 2023, “putting money back into the hands of farmers.”
“In rural America, food assistance programs like Food for Peace put American-grown products in the hands of the hungry, and this food is a tangible extension of the hard work and dedication of farmers and ranchers,” Moran said.
Federal workers in toss-up districts
There are also thousands of federal employees spread throughout the 18 House districts identified as toss-up races by The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
The eight GOP-held House seats that could swing to Democrats following the 2026 midterms include Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, currently represented by Rep. Juan Ciscomani and home to about 15,000 federal workers.
Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, elected by voters in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, has about 11,000 federal employees.
Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, home to roughly 13,000 federal employees, is represented by Rep. Scott Perry.
Last updated 6:21 p.m., Feb. 17, 2025
Jennifer covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Her coverage areas include congressional policy, politics and legal challenges with a focus on health care, unemployment, housing and aid to families.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
