by WILL FOLKS
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As the fallout from South Carolina senator Matt Leber‘s “mistress-gate” continues cascading across the Palmetto political landscape – reverberating in the most influential of special interest circles – a former member of the chamber is calling out her erstwhile colleagues at the S.C. State House for their culture of infidelity.
And the alleged corruption it has invited…
State senator Katrina Shealy – who represented the people of S.C. Senate District 23 for twelve years from 2012-2024 – published a provocative post earlier this week on her new blog entitled ‘Politics Under The Dome (And Sheets).’
“As a former State Senator who served for 12 years, I can tell you there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that the public never hears about,” Shealy wrote. “The recent headlines about personal misconduct have surely caused a lot of anxiety and ‘squirming’ at home for many.”
That’s for sure… and the recent rash of rearward puckering isn’t limited to lawmakers, either. This time, the puppet masters are starting to feel the pressure.
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Shealy was ousted in the June 2024 primary election by Carlisle Kennedy, who has turned out to be a nothing but a paid pawn of the über-liberal, über-wealthy trial lawyer lobby – an entrenched special interest which has eroded the Palmetto State’s economic competitiveness for decades. Since leaving the State House, she has taken a position at the University of South Carolina.
According to Shealy, serving in the S.C. General Assembly provides “countless opportunities to get into trouble” – opportunities which the Palmetto State’s elected representatives seem incapable of resisting.
“There are temptations for financial gain, but there are also choices that can destroy your family,” she said. “Every legislator has to decide why they came to Columbia in the first place. Did they come to get rich and party, or did they come to make a positive change for the people of South Carolina?”
Sadly, in far too many cases the answer is painfully self-evident…
“These people represent MY state and these behaviors reflect negatively on MY state and the people I so proudly served,” Shealy said. “I don’t appreciate the stain on the Palmetto State’s reputation and nor should any South Carolinian.”
Shealy recalled a 2021 conference in Nashville, Tennessee at which a group of “female attendees” from South Carolina allegedly “dressed out like the fleet was in and they were behind on their rent.”
“These were some of the same ‘ladies’ that professed moral righteousness during the abortion debate in the House,” Shealy wrote. “When I suggested their appearance didn’t reflect well on South Carolina, I was vilified, mocked and labeled as judgmental.”
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This author received numerous dispatches from the infamous Nashville trip, recalling it as yet another example of the prevailing hedonism that exists in and around the S.C. State House.
“Every night in the state capital – whether during the legislative session or when lawmakers come to town for committee hearings – those with influence are inundated with invitations to special interest receptions and other events,” I noted at the time. “There, they are plied with alcohol, campaign contributions and servile flattery in the hopes of of being swayed to certain ways of thinking. Or voting.”
“Other inducements are routinely provided for elected and appointed leaders … a process I have often referred to as ‘horizontal lobbying,'” I continued. “The end result? Let’s just say it is not all that dissimilar to the sort of drunken debauchery that takes place in the dive bars located in Five Points – a hub of collegiate nightlife located a few blocks away from the state capital complex.”
Few of these drunken sexcapades ever make the pages of FITSNews, however, because we generally eschew exposing elected officials for private indiscretions. Unless there is an abuse of office, waste of taxpayer funds, criminal nexus or galling hypocrisy, our editorial philosophy is generally to refrain from publishing details of such trysts.
Unburdened by electoral pressure – or editorial philosophy – Shealy is holding forth on her former colleagues.
“The sad reality is that many of these individuals are still in office, and many have been for years,” she wrote. “They continue to carry on adulterous affairs and backroom deals, and to them, it’s all just a game—a very expensive moral game that impacts them, their families, and the entire state.”
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RELATED | ‘MISTRESS-GATE’: PULLING THE THREADS
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Shealy said she “saw legislators sending inappropriate messages to people other than their spouses; sexist and racist comments; filthy jokes and remarks belying their politically crafted image of a person of great and unwavering religious faith.”
“Some of this behavior was on the Senate floor!” she added.
Referring to a “reported scandal involving a married member of the General Assembly,” Shealy noted “both the legislator and alleged paramour are on the record as being dedicated to God and ‘the sanctity of the family.'”
“What a shame, what a lying, hypocritical, self-serving, spit-in-the-voter’s-eye, hedonistic, carnal shame if it came to be true these strong family folk are not who they’ve claimed to be,” Shealy wrote.
The problem is bigger than personal or political hypocrisy, though. According to Shealy, her colleagues have been blackmailed – leveraged into changing their votes due to the threat of being exposed in their personal lives.
“It’s necessary to understand these improprieties aren’t limited to personal gratification, but can – and DO – result in the legislator being blackmailed into engaging in more and greater acts of misconduct,” she wrote. “A ‘NAY’ vote will quickly become ‘AYE’ when a member is threatened with the revelation that he or she did something (or someONE) he or she shouldn’t have.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is criminal.
Will Shealy name names? Provide specifics? We shall see… but her column, like our coverage of the latest Palmetto sex scandal, has raised some troubling questions about the extent to which lawmakers’ bad behavior is being used against them.
And, potentially, against us as citizens and taxpayers…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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14 comments
The human flesh is alive and well. Hearing it ain’t just men either. Allegedly, some men even experienced sexual harassment witnessed by others. Here we go!
“Say it ain’t so …….”
The female species can be just as moralless as males.
Some women kill, some horrifically cut unborn babies from the wombs of the mother, some often lie, some are even attorneys.
“There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that the public never hears about,” Shealy wrote. There are a lot of unethical, dirty, and flat out illegal things that go on in the SC Judicial system that even includes others And it is not hearsay, either. A very brave attorney by the name of Dusty Rhoades has touched on it before in the Segars-Andrews case. A matter where one of many things she did eventually got her thrown off the bench. There were even behind the scenes allegations that she was involved in serious civil and constitutional rights violations, other Judicial Canons misconduct, inter alia. But just one of her Judicial acts was all that was needed to remove her.
SC will always be a mess made up of pretentious self serving elected (and un-elected) narcissistic psychopaths in sheep’s clothing. There are very few decent ones. As to Senator Leber, mountains are often made out of mole hills. His wife seems to be emotionally unstable. She obviously got access to government communications between lawmakers, other government officials, et al.
If not more so! Never underestimate their capacity fir evil.
Katrina still bitter and crying what many of us already knew and suspected. Why did she wait until she was out of office? Lawmakers are on the take and refuse to work for the citizens. When we blast them and call them out we are told we don’t know how they system works or we are trouble makers. SC desperately needs another Lost Trust operation to target all who refuse to work for us.
Katrina: thanks for your great moral bravery in waiting until you were booted out of office to speak about 12 years’ worth of unethical dirty deeds that you apparently stood by and watched without nary speaking a word of it, or evens so much as tipping off an investigative journalist to track it down and report on it.
There were plenty of tips – no one names, names and when you do what happens to me happens. This is why I’m no longer there – Catfish and Anonymous because I did the right thing and could not be bought!
Hard to be bought when you only serve yourself and your own interests. There’s a word, narcissist.
I believe everything about a politician’s professional and private life should be open when you choose to run for public office. The fact that it is not may partially explain why we have a President who has multiple felonies, who jokes about molesting women, who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault, who pays porn stars for sex, who has repeatedly cheated on all three of his wives, and who is actively covering up his relationship with a pedophile and sex trafficker of children.
That said, to believe that immorality is relevant in the self-styled “party of family values” these days is a joke. Trump has ended all that. Like their leader, the modern Republican is self-centered, unethical, immoral, corrupt, power hungry, and not shy about it. And they will lie without blinking an eye or feeling the least bit guilty. It never ceases to amaze me that the profoundly immoral feel they should have the power to legislate morality.
I am always gobsmacked when a person that supports a party promoting the neutering and surgical mutilation of minors, criticizes Donald Trump.
I worked as a Senate Page long ago. Saw inappropriate behavior between staff members, and “hangers on” at the state house.
There was a reason many young, 20 something year old women in short skirts were hanging around the state house all the time. It wasn’t to land a modeling job. The “out of town” conferences and political gatherings were even worse.
In the South Carolina state house, it pays to appear to be “conservative” and run your mouth about your morales in public. But it was only running off at the mouth. The private behavior was totally different.
I had a friend that attended the Republican political convention in 2016. He said even before the 1st night of the convention, people were pairing up regarding who would spend the night with who in the hotel rooms. It wasn’t a secret between elected reps and even media members. They knew who was fooling around. Wives and husbands back home had no idea. I’m sure some didn’t want to know. I’m sure the same thing goes on at the Democrat convention, but my friend was a Republican and that’s where he was at.
In response to Katrina Shealy, whom I admire.
I don’t mind people who do not register to vote. I do not need any such disinterested person making decisions for me. But with all due respect to Katrina Shealy, whose service I have appreciated, there are many good, courageous, people in the Republican party, who are true to their spouses and true to the principles they ran on. We just need more of those. Every time we replace one of lower character with one of higher character, we help support the good ones already there, fighting the good fight for all of us.
The best way to replace an unethical incumbent is in the Primary. Last June, South Carolina, had a record low turnout in the primaries, with just over 13% of registered voters casting ballots. And that does not even include the almost 40% of eligible adults who are not even registered in SC. Of the 13% who do turn out, a large portion of those do not even take the time to research the candidates deeply. In working the polls in last June’s crowded primaries, I kept hearing the same refrain from voters: “I don’t know who any of these people are!”
Not good. If you are guilty, admit it and do better!
In fairness, there are many elected officials who love this state and country, are faithful to their spouses, and do their best to fulfill the promises they have made. They often stand up against powerful and well-funded forces. We get so busy agreeing with the cliché portrayal of the “dirty politician,” that we fail to see the good ones. They do not deserve to be painted with that same broad brush. They need help!
Even if half the attendees at a convention sneak around, that means half do not. If half accept bribes or succumb to special interests, half do not! I would also suspect that the honorable ones are a far larger percentage than half.
Just as, or more, important than private behavior are the policies supported. I would rather have a lying, cheating scoundrel who votes against sex change procedures on a minor child, than a sanctimonious liberal who supports a party that would castrate a twelve-year old boy and cut the healthy breasts off a fourteen year old girl. Or clear the way for a sexual deviant male to be in my granddaughter’s restroom.
And spare me the opinion of anyone criticizing Donald Trump. The alternative is a Democrat. The leadership of the Democratic Party has gone far beyond being Socialist. Look at New York’s Democratic-Socialist, Ugandan born, Mamdami- not to mention recent statements of Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren. The leadership of today’s Democrat party is beyond corrupt, they have ventured into the land of evil. Sick evil. And every last person who votes for any of them is as culpable as they.
A very brief TikTok video I saw last night is fresh on my mind. A young woman – late teens or early twenties said:
“This is a friendly reminder that no child believes they are born in the wrong body until a creepy liberal adult deliberately puts the idea in their head. Thank you, that is all.”
And, truly, that is all. I could list and debate scores of harmful liberal policies. But that one says everything. It exemplifies the threat to our culture and our ability to restore and maintain any semblance of wholesomeness and common sense in American society.
And make no mistake, those who are waiting to be saved by a third party are living in La-La Land.
I have never before held a legacy attachment to the Republican Party, but, for now, I do. BIG TIME!
I believe our country hangs in the balance, and at this particular point in time, the Republican Party is our only hope. This is not about Katrina Shealy, or any one SC or DC politician. It is about our responsibility to quit discouraging people from engaging in politics by painting them all as corrupt. We must encourage each potential voter to understand the nobility of getting involved, whether as a candidate, party activist, Facebooker, or just a regular voter.
It is a noble thing when a good person joins the fight, takes time to become truly informed, and does their best to elect Republicans of good character, correct principles, and steadfast courage.
Republicans who do not step up in some way to support the good people on the political front lines should feel ashamed.
For those who are dissatisfied with any official they have elected, the time to replace them will be the June 2026 Primary.
Amy Potts
can I ask you a question please?
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