LR5 school board members, attorney enter GOP race for open Lexington SC House seat
At least three candidates will be running this year to replace an outgoing member of Lexington County’s S.C. House delegation, including two members of the local school board.
The Republican primary in House District 85 will feature at least three candidates who filed in the past week for the seat of S.C. Rep. Chip Huggins, R-Lexington, who is stepping down this year.
The candidates announced so far include Rebecca Blackburn Hines and Catherine Huddle, two members of the Lexington-Richland 5 school board, as well as Columbia attorney Christian Stegmaier.
Hines said in a Facebook post Friday that she wants to focus on government transparency, low taxes and pushing the S.C. Department of Transportation to repair local roads and bridges in the Chapin-Irmo area. She also wants to see parents “given more of a voice, more power and more choices over their children’s educational future.”
Hines also said, “the Biden White House and Democrat-led Congress have gone too far encroaching on the constitutional power of the states. If elected, I will stand up whenever I can to ensure our rights are protected.”
Huddle stressed her background in financial management in a Monday interview with The State, citing 20 years working for Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Colonial Life.
“The biggest reason (I’m running) is because the budget set by the House is often filled with mandates that are not funded and other pork,” Huddle said.
Huddle cites the recent increase in teacher pay approved by the House, but without a companion increase in state spending, which she fears will lead local school districts to either consolidate class sizes or raise taxes locally.
“I bet the majority of the House members didn’t know that’s not in the budget,” she said.
Hines and Huddle have occasionally been at odds with each other on the Lexington-Richland 5 school board.
Last month, Huddle supported a censure resolution that would have precluded Hines from serving as a board officer or chairing a committee, after Hines wrote a letter to S.C. Education Superintendent Molly Spearman on board member letterhead without the board’s approval. The motion ultimately failed.
Stegmaier, the third candidate in the race, is an attorney with the Collins and Lacy firm who specializes in hotel and restaurant law and lives in the Chapin area. He also wants to focus his campaign on the growing area’s infrastructure needs.
“The state’s kind of been asleep while all these businesses and neighborhoods grew up around us, and now our roads are flooded with traffic,” Stegmaier said.
He said the General Assembly needs to confirm more circuit judges to more quickly move cases through “overrun” courts, and wants to be an advocate for young people saddled with student debt.
“I’m worried the rising cost of higher education is a direct threat to the middle class,” he said. “As the cost has gone up, support from the General Assembly has gone down.”
Stegmaier previously ran for the State House in 2018. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in a special election for Senate District 20, which stretches from the Chapin area to downtown Columbia, when former Sen. John Courson stepped down.
Filing for state House seats remains open until March 30. Statewide primaries are June 14.
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