A Board of Directors is “appointed by the governor, deemed fully qualified by the Senate Public Utilities Review Committee and confirmed by the state Senate.” Among the 12 Santee Cooper board members, seven members are involved in investment, business, or insurance and are not involved in energy-related matters, two are involved in law, and two have experience with energy utility cooperatives. One vacancy is open on the board. As for diversity, there are nine white males, one white female, and one African American male. The board “represent[s] each of the state’s congressional districts; one from each of the three counties (Berkeley, Georgetown, and Horry) where Santee Cooper serves retail customers directly.”
A racially and economically diverse state should see diversity transfer over into representative bodies. Racially diverse representatives “are uniquely driven by coethnic or group-specific concerns” when making decisions. Research finds suggests “it matters that blacks represent blacks and Latinos represent Latinos since black and Latino representatives rely on differing cues for policy advocacy.” It is important to have minorities representing minorities since they pull from “coethnic” interests “rather than broad heuristic[s].”
South Carolina, overall, is a diverse state. According to the United States Census Bureau in 2014, Caucasians make up about 68%, African Americans about 28%, and Hispanics about 5% of the population. Women make up 51.4% of the population in 2014 and 18% of the population lives in poverty. Below are the demographics for the three counties being represented by the Board of Directors.
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