Editorial: Don't slash SC ethics fines; kick deadbeats off the ballot
Editorial Board ·
The Post and Courier's own editorial board called out Mace by name for mounting $16,700-plus in state ethics fines as a state legislator for late campaign-finance filings, and criticized the legislature's decision to reduce her tab, framing her as an ethics 'deadbeat' whose career should be at risk.
"Ethics Committee members' lackadaisical response to violations sends a clear message to incumbents and challengers alike: It's not important for candidates to tell voters who's bankrolling their campaigns."
, The Post and Courier Editorial Board, December 20, 2023
The Post and Courier's editorial board, the same publication that covers Mace's congressional district, ran a direct rebuke in December 2023 after South Carolina legislators moved to reduce the $16,700-plus in ethics fines Mace had accumulated as a state representative. The fines stemmed from repeated late campaign-finance filings while she served in the statehouse, before her congressional career.
The board made its position explicit:
"We absolutely do want to discourage candidates who repeatedly violate our campaign laws from running again."
The editorial framed the legislature's decision to reduce Mace's fine tab not as leniency but as a signal of institutional indifference, one that would encourage future violations by demonstrating that consequences were negotiable. Using the word "deadbeats" in the headline to describe candidates who run up ethics fines and face little accountability, the board named Mace as the person the legislation was effectively protecting.
The editorial came three years before the House Ethics Committee opened a separate federal investigation into Mace's congressional-era reimbursement practices, which critics have described as part of a pattern of ethics issues that preceded her time in Washington.
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