Lexington GOP candidates readying for primary showdown

State Rep. Rick Quinn spent a recent Friday campaigning for his June 14 Lexington County GOP primary race in the Carriage Hill Lakes neighborhood.

The voters that Quinn talked to all echoed the same message: Fix the state’s crumbling roads.

Quinn is one of six incumbent Republican legislators in Lexington who has drawn a June GOP primary challenge.

In one of those contests, state Sen. Katrina Shealy of Lexington – one of only two women in the state Senate – has drawn two primary opponents.

Meanwhile, another four Republicans are seeking the S.C. House seat being vacated by state Rep. Kenny Bingham, R-Lexington, who is retiring after this session.

This year’s flood of Lexington GOP candidates has emerged because the conservative county’s voters — like voters nationwide — want to change politics, the candidates say.

Quinn: Constituents not focused on controversy

Quinn says his constituents want to talk about roads, not the recent revelation that he is named in a once-secret State Law Enforcement Division report into allegations of State House corruption.

Part of that report says another state representative told SLED that, more than a decade ago, Quinn used his position as House majority leader to steer business to his private business.

Aside from family and friends, only one constituent has brought up the SLED report, Quinn says.

The incumbent said he is happy the public now can see what he did 14 years ago, adding the S.C. attorney general and House Ethics Committee advised his actions were legal.

Quinn’s GOP primary challenger, Ryan Holt, said he would not comment on the SLED report. “Anything that would come from my mouth would politicize the issue.”

Holt said he does not see himself as running against Quinn. Instead, Holt said he is running for the District 69 House seat – which represents parts of Lexington, West Columbia and St. Andrews – because he has something to offer its residents.

After announcing he was running for the seat in July, Holt spent the first couple of months meeting with community leaders. Since September, Holt has been going door to door, knocking on more than 4,000 doors in the district.

If elected, the Lexington County Medical Center board member said he plans to push to restructure state government, adding the Legislature should have less control over state agencies and boards.

Holt said Lexington’s closeness to Columbia makes the county’s residents more engaged with S.C. politics.

“Lexingtonians are a great group of people because they tell it like it is,” Holt said. “They’re very in tune to government and how it affects them, and they’re a very conservative group of people.”

Fight for an open seat

Four candidates are seeking the Republican nomination to claim Bingham’s District 89 seat, which stretches across Cayce and West Columbia.

Prosecutor Micah Caskey, who has military experience as a captain in the Marine Corps, said South Carolina has no shortage of issues affecting people’s lives, citing the $16.75 billion funding gap in the pension fund for state workers, calling it a tax by another name.

Caskey said the state needs better solutions and to be more efficient. “People are frustrated that they’re working hard, and their government isn’t delivering what they deserve.”

Former Lexington County councilman Bill Banning, also vying for the District 89 seat, notes Lexington County is growing, adding growth requires additional services.

Banning said people always are concerned about their tax level and services, but, he added, someone has to pay the bill. For example, Banning said increasing state’s gas tax could be a part of solution to fixing the state’s battered roads.

In Lexington County, Banning pushed for a penny-on-the-dollar sales-tax increase to pay for road repairs and capital projects, defeated nearly two to one in 2014.

Tem Miles, an attorney and West Columbia City councilman, says Lexington County is at a crossroads, citing the fight over whether to increase the county’s sales taxes.

“If we don’t soon stand up and make some hard changes in our state, it’s going to be too late to set the ship on the right path,” Miles said.

West Columbia attorney Billy Oswald, a former County Council member, wants term limits for elected officials and opposes increasing taxes.

Outgoing Rep. Bingham said he does not plan to endorse any of the candidates.

Senator draws two challengers

Shealy — one of only two women in the state Senate — has drawn two challengers for the District 23 seat, which stretches across the southern part of the county.

Michael Sturkie opposed Shealy and then-Sen. Jake Knotts in the 2008 GOP primary.

Sturkie, a general contractor who runs S&T Grading, said he was asked to run again because some residents of the district do not think they have a voice.

Sturkie also said his experience in highway construction could be used to improve the state Transportation Department and repair roads.

Patricia Wheat, the other challenger, said she did legislative work on domestic-violence laws when she lived in Colorado in the 1980s.

In Colorado, Wheat said she pushed to remove the presumption of visitation for a parent who had been convicted of a violent crime. She said a similar law since has been passed in at least 43 other states.

Wheat said she wants to be an advocate for S.C. children in the family court system and for changes in the state’s judicial system.

Wheat says greater accountability for judges would improve family and criminal courts.

Wheat said a judge should be appointed by lawmakers or the governor. But, after a two-year term, the people living in the judge’s district should vote whether retain or remove the judge, she said. A vote should happen again every four years after that.

As she seeks a second term, Shealy said she plans to continue door-knocking and fund raising. “You’ve got to get out and meet the people.”

Shealy says the Lexington residents who say now that they want change got what they were looking for when she was elected, ousting Knotts in 2012.

“If they were looking for something different, they actually got it in 2012, when they elected me.”

This story was originally published May 8, 2016 at 7:20 PM.