BRUCE SMITH
Associated Press
Reprinted from The State

It’s a typical election year in South Carolina with more than 70 percent of the candidates for the state House getting a free ride back to Columbia for the start of the legislative session in January.

Of the 124 seats in the House, there are only 35 contested races to be decided next month. But in those races everything from the changing face of South Carolina to school vouchers and from personal problems to poetry fit into the mix.

In District 79 in suburban northeast Columbia, six-term incumbent Republican Bill Cotty survived a June primary challenge from Sheri Few who was supported by the conservative South Carolina Club for Growth as backing “free market educational choice.”

Now Cotty faces Democrat Anton Gunn - who like Cotty opposes the idea of giving parents tax credits or vouchers for private schools - as well as independent Michael Letts, a pro-voucher candidate who says he will represent conservative Republican views better.

Cotty has been an outspoken opponent of education tax credits in the House.

But support of vouchers brought opposition for another lawmaker, Jim Harrison, a 17-year Republican veteran and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Harrison, who represents House District 75 in Richland County, has been a prime advocate of the “Put Parents in Charge” bill. That prompted political newcomer Boyd Summers, a Democrat, to challenge him.

One of the most competitive races in the Lowcountry is between Charleston County Council Chairman Leon Stavrinakis, a Democrat, and Suzanne Piper, Republican and real estate appraiser, for the open District 119 seat.

Outspoken state Rep. John Graham Altman, whose comments sometimes attracted national attention, gave up that seat to run for the Charleston County School Board where the Republican previously served for 20 years.

In another Lowcountry race, Republican Wallace Scarborough of Charleston is seeking a fourth term in House District 115. Last summer he was charged with two counts of assault with intent to kill after brandishing a gun at utility workers - charges that were later dropped.

Interest in the race was heightened when media outlets published details from the papers filed in Scarborough’s contested divorce. Scarborough faces Eugene Platt, a poet who once ran unsuccessfully for the 1st District congressional seat once held by Gov. Mark Sanford.

In nearby Dorchester County, longtime state Rep. George Bailey, a Republican who has served in the House for a total of two decades, is challenged by county treasurer Patsy Knight, who has been in office for 25 years.

In House District 45, Alston DeVenny, a Democrat who is chairman of the Lancaster County Council, faces Republican Mick Mulvaney, an attorney and real estate developer for the seat vacated by Rep. Eldridge Emory.

Emory is a Democrat who served a total of 27 years on county council and in Columbia. But decided to retire as more people move, most of them Republican, moved into the Charlotte, N.C., suburbs in the northern part of the district.