SC Senate panel rejects governor's pick to lead public health department over COVID-19 concerns
COLUMBIA — A Senate committee on Thursday rejected the governor's pick to lead the state's public health agency over criticisms of the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After running the Department of Health and Environmental Control for three years, Dr. Edward Simmer was Gov. Henry McMaster's nominee to run the newly created Department of Public Health.
The second day of Simmer's confirmation hearing brought a bigger, louder crowd that several times prompted Chairman Danny Verdin to call for decorum, as he both reminded a freshman senator of Senate rules and warned the audience he would clear the room.
The opposition centered around the state's rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccinations were in beginning stages when Simmer took over the department in February 2021.
The 17-member Senate Medical Affairs Committee voted 5-12 against recommending that the Senate confirm Simmer. But that doesn't automatically reject Simmer's nomination. It's essentially on pause indefinitely. The full Senate could decide to take up his confirmation and vote, despite the committee's disapproval, which is what McMaster is encouraging.
Simmer will remain interim director of the department for the time being.
'I remain resolute in my support of Dr. Ed Simmer and am hopeful that the full Senate will see through the falsehoods and mistruths being spread about his service to our state and nation,' McMaster said in a statement posted to X soon after the vote.
Odds appear to be against Simmer if the full Senate, which has a Republican supermajority, decides to take a vote on his confirmation. Only one of the committee's 13 Republicans voted in favor of his confirmation Thursday.
'Outrageously false': Nominated SC health director defends COVID response over opponents' claims
'There's just no way I can sugar coat it,' said Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, before voting against advancing Simmer's nomination. 'I'm not telling you something you don't already know. Your confirmation is facing an uphill battle.'
Unless a nominee has a glaring issue in their background, senators traditionally give the governor deference in confirming Cabinet nominees, said Sen. Tom Davis, the only Republican to join the panel's four Democrats in a favorable vote.
'At the end of the day, do you truly think that the governor is in clear error?' the Beaufort Republican said to his fellow senators. 'Do you think that he truly has put forward somebody who is unfit? Who is not qualified? Who doesn't have the competency?'
This is not the first time the Senate has rejected one of McMaster's nominees to a Cabinet position. In 2020, the full Senate voted 41-2 to reject McMaster's nominee to run the Department on Aging over accusations that he made derogatory comments to women and minorities, which he denied.
The year before, another Senate committee gave an unfavorable report for McMaster's pick to lead the board of state-run utility Santee Cooper, citing a lack of experience working for utilities.
Other Cabinet nominees over the years have withdrawn from consideration, knowing they either wouldn't legally be able to take the role or didn't have the votes. Among them were McMaster's 2020 nominees to lead state departments overseeing veterans' affairs and public safety, as well as former Gov. Nikki Haley's choice to run DHEC in 2015.
Simmer sailed through the confirmation process in 2021, when senators voted 40-1 to confirm him. When he took the agency's helm, it had been without a permanent director for eight months.
In his opening statement two weeks ago, and again in answers Thursday, he said his detractors were spreading lies about him and pointed to his accomplishments aside from the COVID-19 pandemic.
'There have been a lot of falsehoods said about me,' Simmer said Thursday. 'I think, in the end, the results speak clearly.'
Senators didn't ask about his background, and they asked little about other problems the state health department addresses, except to compliment the agency's work. Instead, senators Thursday took aim primarily at the state's COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
'To be clear, what's being scrutinized is not your ability to lead the Department of Public Health during ordinary times but during extraordinary times, should another pandemic arise,' said Sen. Richard Cash, R-Piedmont.
Trying to encourage more people to get vaccinated, DHEC deployed mobile vaccination units, set up vaccine booths at events across the state and offered perks such as free beer to people willing to get the jab.
In each case, people getting vaccinated were advised of the possible rare side effects of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, Simmer said. He never required people to get vaccinated, nor did he support businesses mandating employees and visitors be vaccinated, he said.
What Simmer did was encourage people to get the vaccine if they chose, based on the information he had about it at the time, he said.
'No one forced anyone to get a vaccine,' he said. 'I've never mandated anyone to get a vaccine.'
What Simmer described as encouragement, Verdin said he and other senators saw as a different sort of mandate, which they opposed.
Some senators repeated debunked claims that the COVID-19 vaccine contains harmful strands of DNA and questioned whether it was wise to offer the shot to children, despite its federal approval for that purpose.
Those concerns demonstrate a larger issue, Verdin said.
Following the pandemic, public trust in the state's health care system — and, by extension, Simmer — frayed. Senators are looking for a nominee who can rebuild that confidence among the state's residents, Verdin said.
'We need to enjoy a greater level of trust than we enjoy now, and that's where I'm going to be putting all my energy and efforts,' the Laurens Republican said.
At issue was not whether Simmer was qualified, Verdin said.
Simmer spent three decades in the Navy, including overseeing Tricare Health Plan, the military's massive health system for care outside military hospitals. As the head of DHEC, outside of pandemic response, he was very capable and accessible to legislators, Verdin said.
As a naval doctor, Simmer worked in psychiatry, which prompted Peeler to ask whether he might be interested in working instead at the Department of Mental Health, though Peeler didn't clarify what role he had in mind.
Simmer said he'd leave that decision up to the governor and his wife.
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