SC's Nancy Mace owes $1,200 in ethics fees after legislators reduce her tab
Jessica Holdman ·
Jessica Holdman reported that the S.C. House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to reduce Mace's $16,700 in state campaign-finance fines to $1,200. The fines had first surfaced in P&C reporting in 2021, resurfaced as a 2022 campaign issue, and sat unaddressed for years despite repeated staff outreach. Mace closed her campaign account in late November by donating $3,800 to a domestic abuse shelter and writing off $11,200 as accounting errors.
"The House Ethics Committee, which is split evenly among Republicans and Democrats, voted unanimously to approve the reduction. She must still pay the bill."
Jessica Holdman, SC Daily Gazette, December 14, 2023
Holdman's reporting gave the full timeline: the unpaid fines first appeared in Post and Courier coverage in 2021, when Mace owed $5,100 and a spokeswoman told the paper she would address them. They surfaced again during her 2022 re-election campaign when her opponent, Democrat Annie Andrews, pointed out the hypocrisy after Mace's campaign criticized Andrews for her own late filings. Mace's campaign again said she was "in the process" of resolving them.
She was not. House Ethics staff noted they spent substantial time over the following years trying to reach Mace and received no response.
To finally close the account, Mace donated about $3,800 to My Sister's House (a North Charleston domestic abuse shelter) on November 27, accounted for $588 in monthly software fees, and wrote off $11,200 as "technical accounting errors." Two days later the committee voted unanimously to cut her $16,700 tab to $1,200.
Committee chairman Jay Jordan, R-Florence, cited precedent: "Had the problem been dealt with quicker, it probably would have had a slightly different outcome. It mattered that there was a lack of communication for an extended period, but it also mattered that there was ultimately cooperation and closure on the part of the candidate."
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