The State endorsement: Our choice in the at-large Columbia City Council race
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The State Endorsements
Early voting for Columbia’s Nov. 4 elections has begun, and the special election in Lexington County in State House District 88 is Oct. 21 with a potential runoff election Nov. 4. Here are The McClatchy South Carolina Editorial Board’s endorsements.
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The State endorsement: Our choice in the SC House District 88 Republican primary
The State endorsement: Our choice in the Columbia mayor’s race
The State endorsement: Our choice in the at-large Columbia City Council race
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The State endorsement: Our choice in the Columbia City Council District One race
The race for an at-large Columbia City Council seat in the Nov. 4 election is highly competitive with three of four candidates clearly capable of strategic, collaborative, strong public service.
Councilwoman Aditi Bussells, All Good Books co-owner Jared Lee Johnson and consultant Sam Johnson, the former chief of staff for Mayor Steve Benjamin, would serve the city well over the next four years. They offer histories of community involvement, novel ideas about how to keep Columbia moving forward, and smart thoughts about a wide range of city issues.
Early voting begins Monday, Oct. 20, and voters who read our candidate Q&As will likely feel good about the trio. Their replies to our 10 questions were terrific. A fourth candidate, Tony Bowen, 82, was too hard to reach. He did not reply to a dozen messages over several weeks.
The McClatchy South Carolina Editorial Board is making endorsements in races for mayor and three City Council seats in Columbia after interviewing the candidates and independently researching them and their backgrounds.
Bussells, 35, has made a name for herself in office, and it feels like she’s just getting started. Her constant presence on social media shows a commitment and an energy even if some people see it as overly self-promotional. A year ago, she wrote on Instagram, “My colleagues love to tease me about how active I am on social media. But don’t worry, I’m never gonna stop sharing our work. Determined to help change the narrative on what it means to be an elected official!”
In her Q&A, Bussells displayed holistic thinking and great familiarity with a number of issues, from public safety to housing affordability to economic development. She shared with us not only what she would do given four more years at City Hall but also what she has done in office.
She touts roles in helping to launch Rapid Shelter Columbia to aid a homeless population that can be hard to reach and Lock It Up Columbia, which has distributed hundreds of free gun locks citywide. With the city’s renovation of Finlay Park finished, she wants to “better connect surrounding areas to the park, knitting it into daily city life.” And asked what one issue needs more attention, she said child care and added she wants to make it easier to open licensed centers and help parents.
She thinks Columbia is headed in the right direction, but is also not satisfied with the status quo. She supports building density downtown and helping entrepreneurs create new businesses.
Sam Johnson, 37, has the experience to serve on the Council. After serving as then-Mayor Benjamin’s chief of staff from 2010 to 2016, he worked at the law firm Maynard Nexsen and later became CEO of Civint, a consulting business Benjamin founded a few years ago. He finished third in the 2021 mayor’s race to replace Benjamin and was eliminated during the primary.
Now, he wants to create a chief health officer to help City Hall coordinate with health-care systems and lead efforts to shrink stark life expectancy disparities across city neighborhoods. He views the city’s riverfront as its “largest untapped economic opportunity.” And he was the only candidate to mention short-term rentals. He wants to “rein in” their “unchecked” nature.
He noted that next year Columbia will mark its 240th anniversary — a time to reflect on its history and recommit itself “to the hard work of building a stronger future” and infrastructure improvements.
Jared Lee Johnson, 38, says he’ll bring a renter’s perspective to the City Council.
“Enough with those who use the platform to become influencers,” he told us in his candidate Q&A. “Enough with those who seek power or ask for elected power because it helps their business or they feel entitled to it due to past jobs and connections. There is no one on the council who is working class, and the working class deserves to be heard.”
He presented us with several intriguing ideas — a municipal housing endowment to address affordability issues, a 1% allocation of development dollars for public art, a night watch position to monitor Finlay Park and other city parks at night, a city kitchen to provide free meals. But he was short on specifics about how to pay for things or what would be cut to accommodate them.
For us to recommend a vote against Bussells, her opponents had to first make the case that she should be unseated and then that one of them should replace her. While Sam Johnson is the stronger of the two challengers, we ultimately didn’t see any reason to oust Bussells from office.
The incumbent has a record of showing up and standing up. In June, she was one of three council members to fight unsuccessfully for “home rule” and not cave to state lawmakers who threatened to take millions from Columbia if the council didn’t repeal a conversion therapy ban.
It was a difficult vote because of political and financial pressures and because the outcome didn’t go Bussells’ way. While both Sam Johnson and Jared Lee Johnson told us they, like Bussells, favor local autonomy and legal action if necessary, she cast a hard vote in real time.
“If the state threatens to withhold funds again, my responsibility will always be to the people of Columbia,” she said. “Columbia deserves more financial support from the state to get to the level nearby cities receive, and I’m committed to giving Columbia a seat at the table to get our fair share.”
That’s the kind of representation Columbia needs in halls of power and across the city.
The McClatchy South Carolina Editorial Board recommends the re-election of Aditi Bussells to the Columbia City Council.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREHow we do endorsements
Members of The McClatchy South Carolina Editorial Board interviewed and researched candidates running for mayor and City Council in Columbia and Myrtle Beach and in a special election in SC House District 88 in Lexington County in 2025. We based endorsements on our reporting and fact-checking — and on each candidate’s achievements, background, character, demeanor and experience.
The endorsements were made by South Carolina Opinion Editor Matthew T. Hall, a Columbia resident; Sherry Beasley, a longtime educator and Columbia resident; Toni Etheridge, a strategic advisor and writer who lives in Forest Acres; Paul Osmundson, a retired senior editor at The State and a Forest Acres resident; and Pat Robertson, a retired editor and outdoors columnist who lives in Blythewood.
If you have questions or comments about our endorsements, please email Hall at mhall@thestate.com.
