Dick Harpootlian

Richard A. Harpootlian (born January 23, 1949) is an American attorney and politician serving as a member of the South Carolina Senate from the 20th district. He served as the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2011 to 2013.

As a member of the South Carolina Senate, Harpootlian has been a frequent critic of the state's budgetary practices. He is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Early life and education

Harpootlian is of Armenian descent; his grandparents immigrated to the United States after fleeing their hometown of Harpoot in the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian genocide. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Clemson University and a Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Career

Legal work

Harpootlian's law firm has represented neighborhoods near Five Points in Columbia, a popular weekend location for college students, in protestations against liquor licenses in the area. Several bars in the area have made agreements with the state to change their procedures as a result of the liquor license protests. As a result of Harpootlian's work, one bar was forced to close down.

Harpootlian represents former attorney Alex Murdaugh, who has been charged with more than 50 counts of breach of trust with fraudulent intent, computer crimes, money laundering and forgery. During Murdaugh's bond hearing in 2021, Harpootlian questioned whether Mandy Matney, a journalist for FITSNews, was the founder of FITSNews's "alter sexual ego." In response, Matney said on Twitter that the comment was "rude" and "sexist". In 2022, Harpootlian said in an open courtroom, "it's not often a black judge sets a bond like that", referring to judge Alison Renee Lee who set the bond for Murdaugh's co-defendant. Lee also set Murdaugh's bond at $7 million, which Harpootlian was not happy about.

Harpootlian prosecuted Pee Wee Gaskins and Jim Holderman. He ran for attorney general of South Carolina in 1994 losing to Charlie Condon in the general election. Harpootlian served as the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party twice. He is credited with the party's decision to move the South Carolina primary earlier in the primary schedule.

South Carolina Senate

On June 4, 2018, John E. Courson resigned his senate seat after pleading guilty to mishandling campaign funds. Courson's resignation was related to the "Quinndom" led by David Pascoe which found multiple instances of wrongdoing in the South Carolina General Assembly. In November 2018, Harpootlian defeated Benjamin Dunn in a special election for Courson's old senate seat. It was the first time in 14 years a Democrat flipped a Republican-held Senate seat.

Since joining the Senate, Harpootlian has been critical of the University of South Carolina's hiring practices and legislation giving the Carolina Panthers tax incentives to move their headquarters to Rock Hill, South Carolina. In May 2019, Harpootlian commissioned his own independent analysis on the economic benefits of moving the Panthers headquarters to Rock Hill. The report found that the added jobs to the area were a third of what the state of South Carolina's review found. Harpootlian stalled the Senate vote on the measure although it later passed.

In November 2019, Harpootlian was criticized for profanely threatening to have an aide of the Richland County Legislation Delegation fired over a press release which failed to include job openings at the Columbia airport. In December 2019 he called the university's search for the president's next chief of staff "cronyism at its finest." Harpootlian came out against a bill in the senate which would legalize curbside pickup for alcohol products in January 2020. And in December of that year Harpootlian raised concerns about $43 million in untracked earmarks which attracted statewide coverage.

In March 2021, Harpootlian proposed that South Carolina permit the use of firing squads as an alternative method of capital punishment in South Carolina. Harpootlian said that while he "abhorred" and "resisted" the death penalty, his work as a prosecutor trying the serial killer Donald Henry Gaskins led to him opposing the electric chair as a "horrible, horrible thing to do to another human being." He worked with Republican State Senator Greg Hembree to propose that a bill allowing the use of electrocution also allow the condemned to choose between that option and firing squads. Harpootlian said that "the death penalty is going to stay the law here for a while. If we’re going to have it, it ought to be humane... This was a desperation move on my part to minimize the pain and suffering of the condemned."

In 2021, redistricting plans for the South Carolina Senate moved Harpootlian's district in Richland County to Charleston County on the coast.

Democratic Party presidential primaries

During the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Harpootlian stated that he was a "Joe Biden guy." He endorsed Bernie Sanders for president on February 3, 2016, comparing Sanders' passion with the kind Obama exuded in 2007 when they had first met." In 2020, Harpootlian endorsed Joe Biden for president, stating "If the Democratic Party believes nominating a socialist is the way to win in November, they need to start drug testing at the national committee" in reference to Sanders.

Controversies

In September 2012, Harpootlian drew controversy when he compared then-governor Nikki Haley to Eva Braun, the mistress of Adolf Hitler. The remarks were condemned by Norm Coleman, the chair of the Jewish coalition of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, who accused him of "trivializing Nazism". Harpootlian drew further controversy in 2013 for remarks he made at the annual Jackson-Jefferson dinner of the state Democratic Party, where he said that they needed to "send Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from"; Haley is Indian-American with Sikh heritage, and her parents immigrated from India. A Haley campaign spokeswoman criticized the remarks as targeting her ethnicity. Harpootlian's remarks were condemned as racist or xenophobic by Indian news outlets ''India Today'', ''Firstpost'', and ''Outlook''. Harpootlian later apologized, claiming that he did not intend to target her ethnicity and that he wanted her to "go back to being an accountant in a dress store rather than being this fraud of a governor that we have".

On February 5, 2020, Harpootlian tweeted that the Black Caucus chairman of the South Carolina House, Jerry Govan Jr., received "almost $50,000" from the Tom Steyer Presidential campaign for campaign services. Harpootlian referred to Steyer as "Mr. Moneybags" and suggested that he had purchased Govan's support. Later that day, members of the South Carolina House Black Caucus held a press conference asking Biden to distance himself from Harpootlian. Later that day, Steyer accused Harpootlian of having "a horrid track record of disrespecting and disparaging African Americans." Steyer also asked Biden to disavow Dick Harpootlian and what he said during a 2020 Democratic Party presidential debate in New Hampshire. Harpootlian denied that his comments were racially motivated, State Sen. Marlon Kimpson, a Black Caucus member, noted that the press conference was not held by the caucus itself, but by Govan and his supporters; some caucus members, including Kimpson, did not participate. Kimpson, a Biden supporter, characterized the controversy as an outgrowth of personal feuds between state lawmakers.

Personal life

His wife, Jamie Lindler Harpootlian is currently the ambassador of the United States to the Republic of Slovenia.

References

External links

South Carolina Legislature - Senator Dick Harpootlian
official SC Senate website
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Harpootlian, Richard
21st-century American politicians
1949 births
Living people
Democratic Party South Carolina state senators
Clemson University alumni
University of South Carolina alumni
American people of Armenian descent