In 1999, she became the first woman to graduate from the Corps of Cadets program at The Citadel military college in South Carolina. From 2018 to 2020, she represented the 99th district in the South Carolina House of Representatives, covering Hanahan, northeast Mount Pleasant, and Daniel Island. In 2020, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first Republican woman elected to Congress from South Carolina.[1]
In 2008, she started a public relations and consulting firm called The Mace Group.[10][11]
She became co-owner of the website FITSNews, which she began working for in 2007, but sold her stake in 2013. The site covers South Carolina politics and current events.[12][13]
Early political career
Mace during her campaign for the U.S. Senate for South Carolina in 2013
In 2012, Mace volunteered for the campaign of presidential candidate Ron Paul.[14][15][16]
In August 2013, she announced her candidacy in the 2014 election for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in South Carolina.[17][18][19] She received 19,560 votes (6.2% of the vote) in the primary election on June 10, 2014, behind Lindsey Graham (56.4%), Lee Bright (15.4%), Richard Cash (8.3%), and Det Bowers (7.3%).[20][21]
She supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 as a coalitions director and field director for the campaign.[22]
South Carolina House of Representatives
Elections
2017 special
On September 18, 2017, Mace filed as a Republican to run in a special election for the South Carolina State House District 99 seat being vacated by Jimmy Merrill, who resigned earlier that month after an indictment and plea deal for several ethics violations.[23] She received 49.5% of the vote in the November 14 Republican primary, 13 votes short of winning the nomination outright. She defeated the second-place finisher, Mount Pleasant town councilman Mark Smith, in the November 28 runoff, 63–37%.
Mace defeated Democrat Cindy Boatwright in the January 16, 2018, general election, 2,066 votes to 1,587 (57–43%).[24] She took office on January 23, 2018.
2018
Mace defeated the Democratic nominee, Mount Pleasant resident Jen Gibson, in the November 6, 2018, general election.[25]
Tenure
In 2019, Mace successfully advocated for the inclusion of exceptions for rape and incest in a bill for a six-week abortion ban that passed the South Carolina state house. In a speech on the state house floor, Mace revealed that she had been raped at age 16. She has said she opposes abortion but does not believe the government has the right to deny the procedure to a victim of rape or incest.[26]
Mace co-sponsored a bill to oppose offshore drilling off South Carolina's coast.[27] She opposed President Donald Trump's plan to offer oil drilling leases off South Carolina beaches.[28]
The Conservation Voters of South Carolina gave Mace a 100% Lifetime rating for her voting record against offshore drilling and seismic testing.[29][30] The South Carolina Club for Growth gave Mace its 2019 Tax Payer Hero Award.[31][32]
In May 2020, Governor Henry McMaster signed Mace's prison reform bill, which ends the shackling of pregnant women in prison, into law.[33][34]
In June 2019, Mace announced that she would seek the Republican nomination for South Carolina's 1st congressional district, centered in Charleston, and at the time represented by Democrat Joe Cunningham. Cunningham won the seat in 2018 in a surprise victory, winning a district Trump had carried by 13 percentage points two years earlier. Mace faced Mount Pleasant city councilwoman Kathy Landing and Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox in the June 9 Republican primary. During her primary campaign, she ran an advertisement stating she would "help President Trump take care of our veterans", and in which Vice President Mike Pence called her "an extraordinary American with an extraordinary lifetime of accomplishments—past, present and future."[35] She won the primary with 57.5% of the vote.[36]
Mace focused her campaign on banning offshore drilling off South Carolina's coast and restoring South Carolina's low country's economy.[1]
Mace did not vote to impeach President Trump, but she criticized him for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. As a consequence, Trump endorsed former South Carolina representative Katie Arrington in the 2022 Republican primary for Mace's congressional seat. Mace defeated Arrington.[40]
In the November general election, Mace defeated Democratic nominee Annie Andrews by 14 percentage points.[41]
Tenure
Mace was one of seven Republicans who publicly refused to support their colleagues' efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021. These seven signed a letter that, while giving credence to Trump's allegations of electoral fraud, said Congress did not have the authority to influence the election's outcome.[42] Mace was so concerned by the hostile atmosphere Trump was generating in the District of Columbia that she sent her children home to South Carolina before the congressional vote to accept the Electoral College votes.[43]
On May 18, 2021, Mace joined 61 other House Republicans to vote against the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which condemned acts of hate against Asian-Americans and streamlined data collection and reporting about such occurrences. The bill previously passed the U.S. Senate on a 94–1 vote.[47][48][49] Mace said she opposed the bill because it did not address discrimination against Asian-Americans in higher education.[50]
On October 2, 2023, the House of Representatives passed a cybersecurity bill titled the MACE Act, intended to modernize federal cybersecurity job requirements. The bill was introduced by Mace and would be the last bill passed under Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Mace's legislative staff named the bill after her as a joke about Mace's ego.[54][55]
On October 3, 2023, Mace voted in favor of removing McCarthy, a fellow Republican, from his position as speaker of the House.[56][57][58] According to Mace, "McCarthy did not follow through on pushing her legislation to address the country's rape-kit backlog, expand access to birth control, adopt a balanced budget amendment and create an alert system that would notify people when there is a mass shooting". McCarthy, who had been a strong ally of Mace's, denied her claims.[59]
In April 2024, Mace introduced the Preventing Animal Abuse and Waste Act (i.e. the PAAW Act). The bill "prevents the National Institute of Health (NIH) from conducting or supporting any research that causes significant pain and distress to dogs and cats." It also "requires reports to Congress by the NIH and Government Accountability Office detailing NIH-funded dog and cat experiments, their cost and assessments of NIH efforts to phase them out."[61]
Many former congressional staffers for Mace have described her approach to her office as focused on gaining media attention. Her staffers have attributed many of her political actions, such as her vote against McCarthy, to a desire to make headlines and appear on TV programs. Staffers recalled her attempting to attract attention to herself during the January 6 Capitol attack by risking her own safety and seeking to be assaulted by rioters. Legislative staffers for Mace described her efforts to attract media attention as hampering her legislative agenda and working relationships with other members of Congress.[54][63]
An internal staff handbook written by Mace showcased an unusual focus on public image and media attention, with strenuous expectations for communications staff. Mace's handbook required communications staffers to book her on national TV outlets at least 1-3 times a day, and on local TV channels at least 6 times per week. The handbook was conspicuously more detailed in its descriptions of communications staff compared to legislative and constituent-focused staff positions. Mace's office experienced high levels of turnover, including a complete turnover of all staff between November 2023 and February 2024.[54][64]
Redistricting
South Carolina redrew its congressional map after the 2020 census showed significant population changes between districts. A three-judge federal panel ruled in 2023 that Mace's congressional District 1 was redrawn in a "stark racial gerrymander" intended to suppress the power of Black voters.[65] The redistricting moved 62% of Black Charleston County voters (a total of 30,000) from Mace's District 1 to District 6, represented by Jim Clyburn, a Black Democrat who has held the seat for 30 years, and moved inland white voters into Mace's District 1.[66]
The NAACP challenged the map, but after hearing oral arguments in October 2023,[66] the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's ruling in a 6–3 decision in May 2024, finding that the legislature's redistricting decisions were driven by partisan goals, specifically to increase District 1's Republican vote share, rather than by race.[67] The Court emphasized that while race and partisan preference are highly correlated in South Carolina, the use of political data for partisan aims is not constitutionally prohibited even if it results in racial disparities. The Court also noted that the plaintiff's decision not to provide an alternative map was an "implicit concession" that it could not draw one that would prove racial discrimination while achieving the same partisan outcome. The dissenting justices argued that the majority's approach would make it significantly harder to challenge racial gerrymandering in the future.[68] In response to the ruling, Mace stated, "It reaffirms everything everyone in South Carolina already knows, which is that the line wasn't based on race."[68]
Congressional oversight
Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)
As Chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, Mace has led congressional hearings on UAPs (also known as UFOs) and government transparency.[69] In a July 2023 hearing, Mace questioned David Grusch, a former senior intelligence official and lead UAP analyst for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, about recovered nonhuman craft and biological remains.[70][71]
In a November 2024 hearing, Mace criticized the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) for being "unable, or perhaps unwilling, to bring forward the truth about the government's activities concerning UAPs" and questioned why the government maintains such secrecy if there is "no big deal and there's nothing there."[72]
Mace has supported efforts to ban abortion. In 2021, she cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, which would recognize a fertilized egg as a person with equal protections under the 14th Amendment and establish a nationwide abortion ban.[78][79] Describing herself as "staunchly pro-life", she has also criticized abortion bans enacted in some states and called for Republicans to be more moderate on the issue,[80] and said she would only support legislation that "has exceptions of rape or incest and the life of the mother".[81] Expounding on her views, she stated: "The vast majority of people want some sort of gestational limits, ... not at nine months, but somewhere in the middle. They want exceptions for rape and incest. They want women to have access to birth control. These are all very common-sense positions that we can take and still be pro-life."[82] Mace has voiced support for gestational limits of 15 to 20 weeks.[83]
In 2021, Mace was among a handful of Republican representatives who did not sign onto an amicus brief to overturn Roe v. Wade.[84] She criticized states enacting abortion bans without exceptions in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. In an interview on Face the Nation, she said she disagreed with the recently passed abortion ban in Florida, which was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis: "Signing a six-week ban that puts women who are victims of rape and girls who are victims of incest and in a hard spot isn't the way to change hearts and minds. It's not compassionate. The requirements [DeSantis] has for rape victims are too much, not something that I support. It's a non-starter. I am a victim of rape. I was raped by a classmate at the age of 16. I am very wary, and the devil is always in the details, but we've got to show more care and concern and compassion for women who've been raped. I don't like that this bill was signed in the dead of night".[85]
In June 2021, Mace was one of 26 Republicans to vote for the Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act.[86] In January 2023, Mace introduced the Standing with Moms Act, which would create a website, life.gov, that would link women to crisis pregnancy centers (non-profits established by anti-abortion groups primarily to persuade pregnant women not to have an abortion).[87]
Washington, D.C. statehood
In April 2021, Mace voiced her opposition to a Democratic proposal to grant the District of Columbiastatehood. She argued that Washington, D.C. was too small to qualify as a state, saying, "D.C. wouldn't even qualify as a singular congressional district."[88][89][90] However, D.C. has a larger population than the states Wyoming and Vermont, both of which have a singular congressional district.[91][92][93]
Debt ceiling
On May 31, 2023, Mace was among 71 House Republicans who voted against the final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 to raise the debt ceiling.[94] Mace was one of three Republican members of the Problem Solvers Caucus who voted against raising the debt ceiling that day. Two days later she appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast to claim, "the American people were spoon-fed a bed of lies" regarding the measure.[95]
Mace voted for H.R. 7691, the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022, which would provide $40 billion in emergency aid to the Ukrainian government.[99][better source needed] However, she voted against Ukraine aid the following year.[100]
In 2023, Mace was among 47 Republicans to vote in favor of H.Con.Res. 21, which directed President Joe Biden to remove U.S. troops from Syria within 180 days.[101][102]
In 2023, Mace was among 52 Republicans who voted in favor of H.Con.Res. 30, which would remove American troops from Somalia.[103][104]
In 2023, Mace voted for a ban on a Center of Excellence in Ukraine that enhances NATO activities.[105][better source needed]
Healthcare
During her 2014 U.S. Senate campaign, Mace said "We must use any means possible to repeal, defund, and ultimately stop Obamacare" because it will "suffocate individual liberty and further stifle economic growth".[10]
Kamala Harris
On August 15, 2024, Nancy Mace received nationally circulated criticism for repeatedly mispronouncing Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris' name after initially pronouncing her name correctly.[106][107][108] After saying "Kamala" correctly, Mace began to mispronounce the name and, when corrected by other CNN panelists, Mace claimed "I will say Kamala's name any way that I want to."[109][110]
Kevin McCarthy
Mace was one of eight Republicans who voted for the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House and the only one of those eight not considered a far-right politician by a 538 analysis of the 118th Congress. She fell in the "Compromise Conservatives" cluster instead, which the analysis noted tended to vote against hard-right messaging amendments but oppose bipartisan spending bills.[111] Mace said she voted to vacate McCarthy out of distrust.[112]
LGBTQ rights
In 2021, the Washington Examiner wrote that Mace "is a supporter of both religious liberty and gay marriage."[113] Later that year, she told the Examiner, "I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality. No one should be discriminated against." She opposed the Equality Act, instead co-sponsoring a Republican alternative called the Fairness for All Act.[114]
Mace was one of 31 Republicans to vote for the LGBTQ Business Equal Credit Enforcement and Investment Act.[115] Mace was the lone Republican to sponsor H.R.5776 - Serving Our LGBTQ Veterans Act, legislation establishing a Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Veterans within the Department of Veterans Affairs. Among other functions, the center must serve as the department's principal adviser on the adoption and implementation of policies and programs affecting veterans who are LGBTQ.[116]
In July 2022, Mace was among 47 Republican representatives who voted in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects existing same-sex and interracial marriages under federal law.[117] She later said, "If gay couples want to be as happily or miserably married as straight couples, more power to them. Trust me, I've tried it more than once."[118]
On November 18, 2024, Mace introduced a resolution to ban transgender people from using bathrooms other than those of their sex assigned at birth at the U.S. Capitol, in anticipation of the swearing in of Sarah McBride, who is the first trans person elected to Congress.[119][120] Mace described McBride as a "biological man trying to force himself into women's spaces" and as a "guy in a skirt", later following this up by saying "It's offensive that a man in a skirt thinks that he's my equal".[119][121] Mace's 2024 House resolution prevents McBride from using single-sex facilities.[122][123] Two days later, she announced a new national resolution to ban "biological men from women's spaces on all federal property."[124] As some trans activists were protesting her bill, Mace referred to them as "trannies", resulting in her posts on some social media being flagged for hateful content.[125][126][127][128]
Liz Cheney
Mace opposed the first attempt to remove Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference, saying, "We should not be silencing voices of dissent. That is one of the reasons we are in this today, is that we have allowed QAnon conspiracy theorists to lead us."[129] In early May, Mace appeared at fundraiser events with Cheney. During the second attempt to remove Cheney as chair, however, Mace voted to remove her.[130]
Marijuana legalization
Mace speaking in support of the States Reform Act to legalize cannabis at the federal level in 2021
In 2021, Mace introduced the States Reform Act to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and regulate it similarly to alcohol.[131] She said: "This bill supports veterans, law enforcement, farmers, businesses, those with serious illnesses, and it is good for criminal justice reform. ... The States Reform Act takes special care to keep Americans and their children safe while ending federal interference with state cannabis laws."[132]
Steve Bannon
On October 21, 2021, Mace was one of nine House Republicans who voted to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to appear before the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Explaining her vote, Mace said she was being "consistent" and wanted to retain the exercise of "the power to subpoena" in the event that Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in 2022.[133]
Personal life
Mace's first marriage was to Chris Niemiec, a lawyer and JAG Corps officer in the United States Air Force Reserve.[134] After they divorced, Mace married Curtis Jackson, with whom she had two children. They divorced in 2019.[135] Mace became engaged to Patrick Bryant in 2022, but the couple broke up in 2023.[136][137] She reportedly broke off the engagement after finding Bryant on a dating app.[138][139]
Mace resides on Daniel Island in Charleston, South Carolina.[140] On June 1, 2021, the Charleston Police Department opened an investigation after Mace's home was vandalized with profanity, three anarchy symbols, and graffiti in support of the PRO Act.[141]
^Fry, Erika (November 20, 2023). "A Day in the Life of South Carolina's 'Sic Willie'". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on October 16, 2017. He also has a business partner, Nancy Mace—Folks notes that she is the first woman to graduate from The Citadel—who built the site and works as his promoter and occasional editor.
^"Roll Call 145: Bill Number: S. 937". United States House of Representatives: Roll Call Votes. U.S. House of Representatives. May 18, 2021. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
^THOMAS E. DOBBS, M.D., M.P.H., IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS STATE HEALTH OFFICER OF THE MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL., v. JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, ON BEHALF OF ITSELF AND ITS PATIENTS, ET AL., U.S. 19-1392 (U.S. Supreme Court July 29, 2021)
^"On Agreeing to the Amendment: Amendment 12 to H R ... -- House Vote #305 -- Jul 13, 2023." GovTrack.Us, www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/118-2023/h305. Accessed July 13, 2023.
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