02-06-2025
A Lexington councilman was fined for endorsing a SC lawmaker. Why?
A Lexington town council member was fined for violating South Carolina ethics laws when he endorsed a South Carolina lawmaker who was up for re-election.
The complaint against Gavin Smith, who's served as a town councilman for Lexington since winning a special election in May 2023, came after he endorsed then state Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, who was up for re-election. Debbie Heim, the vice chair of the Lexington County Republican Party which had endorsed Shealy's opponent Carlisle Kennedy, brought the matter to the attention of the state's ethics commission in June of last year.
During a June town council meeting, Smith voiced support for Shealy, which violated an ethics law that prohibits elected officials from using public funds, property or time to influence an election. Smith told the ethics commission that he'd asked the town's attorney, who at the time was Brad Cunningham, over text if he was allowed to endorse Shealy during a meeting and was given the OK.
'Mr. Cunningham responded that he didn't think it violated any laws and that it had been done a few times before. I had no reason to doubt the advice of the town's attorney,' Smith told The State.
In the fall of 2023, when then-councilwoman Kathy Maness chose not to run for re-election, she encouraged people to go vote on two occasions during council meetings and to 'study the candidates.'
'We have some candidates who will continue to make Lexington a great place to live, work, worship and go to school. But in my opinion we have others running who will set Lexington back and that can't happen,' Maness said during a November 2023 meeting. She stopped short of officially endorsing a candidate or mentioning names, but described in detail the candidates who concerned her.
When reached by a reporter, Cunningham, who retired as the town's attorney in December of last year, declined to comment on the matter.
In March, the commission found Smith in violation of that law and he was made to pay $600 – a civil penalty of $200 and an administrative fee of $400. The commission reduced Smith's civil penalty because he received 'improper legal advice' regarding his actions, according to the order.
'Smith's use of public property and time to influence an election were thoughtful, deliberate and a violation of [the law]', Heim wrote in her complaint to the ethics commission.
Shealy, a 12-year incumbent, lost the June 2024 runoff election to Kennedy. She was one of three Republican women who blocked a near total abortion ban from passing the S.C. Senate in 2023 – Shealy along with the other two women, Penry Gustafson and Sandy Senn, lost their primary elections.
Heim serves as the vice chair of the Lexington County Republican Party, which endorsed Zoe Warren in the primary, and then supported Kennedy over Shealy when the race went to a runoff. But Heim said her filing of the complaint had nothing to do with who Smith was endorsing. She added that she was not a voting member on the board that chose to endorse Kennedy.
'It's not about protecting a party, it's not about playing sides. He's an elected official, he had a clear violation of the ethics code … I have a duty to report that,' Heim said.
'He could've encouraged people to vote for Carlisle Kennedy and I still would've had a responsibility to report that.'
The complaint isn't the first time Republicans in Lexington have butted heads with each other, nor the first time some Republicans have pushed against Smith despite him running on a conservative platform. When Smith ran for office in 2023, he faced backlash for being gay. On election day, protesters against his campaign showed up outside polling places, one holding a sign saying that Smith didn't reflect Lexington values because he had a husband.
'Obviously Gavin Smith is a hard no for me. Of course most conservative Christians will recoil from having a councilman who has a husband, but it goes beyond that,' wrote Mandy Allen in a 2023 Facebook post. Allen and her family, who own Momma Rabbit's Nibbles and Sips, are outspoken Republicans in the area. A member of the family, Will Allen, has a seat on Lexington Town Council.
Smith is up for re-election in the fall. He said he'd learned from the mistake and had used it as an opportunity to establish a better working relationship with the state's ethics commission.
'Too often, elected officials deflect or shift blame when something goes wrong, but, to me, that's not leadership … the honest thing here to do is acknowledge that yes, I went to seek out legal advice, but at the end of the day, I have to own the mistake,' Smith told The State.
'My parents raised me to understand that none of us are perfect and that we're going to make mistakes, but they also taught me that what defines us is not the mistakes that we make, but the honesty and the humility and the integrity we show in owning those mistakes and the following steps we take to make sure those mistakes don't happen again.'
