Meet the S.C. Speaker of the House, a Sumter representative

If you're not moving up, you're "

- Murrell Smith

BY SHELBIE GOULDING

On Thursday, April 28, 2022, House representatives on the Ways and Means Committee began to file into their Blatt

Building meeting room at 9 a.m. sharp. Several bills were scheduled for approval, but the chairman of the committee was nowhere to be found. Almost every staff and committee member joked around as they waited, knowing

Murrell Smith was one to arrive fashionably late. The 53-year-old's staff even predicted that he'd slip in through the staircase adjacent to his office rather than up the elevators just five minutes past. "I'm never here on time," Smith said with a smirk as he stepped out of his office.

In a matter of seconds, he pulled his jacket over his shoulders and adjusted his ensemble. He made his way onto the committee floor at 9:07 a.m. "Are we ready to roll?" he asked, sitting at the head of the table with committee members split down two rows to his left and right.

They jumped right into the meeting without hesitation. They knew this was a big and busy day for him.

Humor filled the room between agenda items; this was nothing new to the committee. At one point, Smith was even called out for a small mistake. "This is my last committee meeting," Smith said, asking the members to give him a break. "Oh, I'm getting corrected by staff over here as usual. We may meet next week."

What was new to the meeting was a matter that Smith's colleagues dreaded, a message from Smith himself. He delivered his resignation letter from the chairman position in preparation for transition to House speaker. "It's been an honor to serve with you," he echoed down the two rows. "It's been a blessing and an honor to serve on this committee."

On May 12, at 5 p.m., the Sumter Republican retired the chair to Rep. J. Gary Simrill, R-York County. He no longer sits in his office facing the University of South Carolina or sits in on the Ways and Means Committee as he has for more than 10 years, since 2018 as its chairman. He instead made the move to the opposite corner of the building's fifth floor, getting a surreal view of the state's capital from the House speaker's office.

Although the view is great, as well as holding the highest seat in the House, Smith said it wasn't easy leaving the chairman position or a seat on the Ways and Means Committee behind. "Obviously moving on, I love this job. This has been a great job for me. It's been very rewarding. It exposed me to a lot of what state government

"-Sen. Thomas McElveen, D-Sumter is about," Smith said about the Ways and Means Committee title while signing passed bills at his desk. "It's a transition. I feel like here I get to do things that benefit the entire state appropriations and making decisions of economic development and things of that effect, but now I'm kind of in charge of the House."

Smith said he still gets to make policy, but his role has changed to a less involved one within the House. He said the Ways and Means chair position is "the greatest job in state government," but he knows the House speaker position will be just as beneficial.

However, members of the Sumter County Legislative Delegation agreed that seeing him leave Ways and Means wasn't easy. "I told him, selfishly, for Sumter, I liked him in his old position," Sen. Thomas McElveen said. "The Ways and Means chair has a pretty broad influence over the budget, and the last two budget cycles were pretty good for Sumter. He will stay engaged and active. It's just wonderful for our home community in a position like that."

However, McElveen knows Smith was the best fit for the top seat in the House. "He is a master politician," McElveen said. "The position he's got now, you're talking about managing 124 members of the House. That's a lot. That's a lot to hold together. But I think he's got the skill to do it."

Sumter still has one representative who remains on the Ways and Means Committee, which McElveen said is a bonus for Sumter County. David Weeks, D-Sumter, remains on the committee and was also proud to see his friend climb the ranks; both Smith and Weeks were elected to the House of Representatives in 2000 and have served the same tenure. "Murrell has evolved, and when I say evolved, he is good in every leadership quality that he has and has slowly emerged and blossomed," Weeks said. "If there ever was a good time to have this position, this is the perfect time for it. He has slowly worked his way through the position. He has had several positions of leadership, and all of those things were gearing him up and getting him ready for the ultimate. This is the ultimate."

Smith is the first Sumter representative to take the position since the 1980s. The last House speaker from Sumter was Ramon Schwartz Jr., a Democrat who represented Sumter from 1969-1987 and served as speaker from 1980 to his retirement.

Smith always knew the political realm was his calling. He was a government major in college and had a heart for his community. "It's one of the highest levels, highest offices of state government. It's obviously a proud moment for me and for my family and more importantly for my community. I think that speaker runs the House and controls the committees, the committee process and bills, but again, the unique part of this, to me, is giving Sumter a seat at the table," Smith said. "When I first got over here, Sumter was an afterthought.

Nobody really had the ability to bring anything to Sumter, and now we've been at the forefront of major initiatives in the state."

In the past few years, Sumter has seen progress in economic development. A few he noted were the development of a new behavioral health center, a nursing home and a couple veteranfocused facilities.

Smith helped push those benefits in Sumter, which he said would be hard to believe to his 31-year-old self on day one in the legislature. "I came over here, literally had not been to the Statehouse since my fifth-grade class trip. I didn't even know where it was to be honest," he laughed. "I never thought I'd be over here more than six or eight years, and I always said, 'Oh, I'm only going to be over there for a little while. I'll go back and practice law.'”

It took the convincing and wise words from a friend and Sumter businessman to keep him fighting for Sumter's place on the map and supporting the little man in statewide communities. "If you're not moving up, you're moving out," Smith said. "At the end of the day, to make a difference, you need to come over here and you need time to build respect amongst your peers and to build trust with them. That's what moves you forward."

Smith dedicated his political career to his main support system - his wife, Macaulay, and two children, Bee and Murrell - and Team Sumter, the people who got him to where he is today. "I've had one heck of a ride. I wouldn't trade any one minute of it," Smith said. "It's so ingrained in me."

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