The Charleston City Paper
It’s a good thing Dr. Edward Simmer is a psychiatrist.
Any other kind of physician might have been baffled last week when the S.C. Senate Medical Affairs Committee voted 12-5 to reject his gubernatorial nomination to lead the state Department of Public Health.
After all, his credentials are nothing short of spectacular: 30 years as an active duty Navy doctor. Chief medical officer of TRICARE, where he oversaw care for millions of service members, veterans and families. And since 2021, the director of the former state Department of Health and Environmental Control and then interim director of public health right here in South Carolina, garnering valuable state experience and winning the trust of Gov. Henry McMaster, who nominated him last November.
So, yes, most doctors are probably mystified by the committee’s rejection. But not Simmer, who sat patiently as one senator after another condemned his record of recommending — not mandating, just recommending — masks and vaccines during the Covid pandemic that killed 19,000 people in the Palmetto State.
As a trained mental health professional, he must have known exactly what was going on: The inmates were running the asylum.
“What you’re asking us to do is have confidence in your judgment to do this job,” said hard right Sen. Matt Leber (R-Charleston), after attacking Simmer for supporting voluntary masking and vaccination. “And the history of it, uh, I’m not confident.”
Simmer, ever the gentleman throughout the hearing, respectfully reminded the senator that under his leadership, the state consistently followed the best available science — even when it was at odds with the advice coming from federal officials.
That’s why Palmetto State schools were allowed to reopen in August 2020, well before most. And it’s why our public health authorities did everything in their power to help S.C. businesses keep their doors open throughout the crisis.
But Republicans on the committee made it clear that they weren’t going to be dragged into a tedious conversation about facts and science. Humbug! Not when the only medical research S.C. public health officials should ever concern themselves with was published and peer reviewed by the states in 1787.
“We didn’t have all the information,” Sen. Tom Fernandez (R-Dorchester) told Simmer. “We had the United States Constitution, we had personal liberty, we had personal freedom. That’s the best information at any time of any emergency.”
Of course, Fernandez offered no evidence that Simmer had ever violated the Constitution. But no matter. Vibes, not substance, were the order of the day when Simmer faced these lemmings and accusers.
To his credit, McMaster stood by his man after the vote, urging the full Senate to override the committee.
“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 social media post.
Still, the prognosis for Simmer’s nomination is grim, with one senator suggesting he’d be better off looking for work in the Department of Mental Health.
Which, inevitably, put us in mind of the most famous words ever uttered about the Palmetto State, offered by Charleston attorney James L. Petigru on the eve of secession in 1860.
“South Carolina,” he noted, “too small for a republic, but too large for an insane asylum.”
This editorial was originally published by the Charleston City Paper. Charleston City Paper is an award-winning weekly newspaper in Charleston, S.C.
