Three women seeking open South Carolina House seat

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Voters in the North Charleston area will head to the polls this month for a special election primary that will effectively decide who replaces former Rep. Marvin Pendarvis in the South Carolina House.

A special election will be held in March to replace Pendarvis, who resigned from the District 113 seat — which covers a large swath of North Charleston and a small portion of Summerville — in September amid an ongoing investigation into his law practice.

But, the North Charleston Democrat never officially removed his name from the Nov. 5 ballot, and he won re-election with over 97% of the vote.

Shortly after the election, Pendarvis informed the Charleston County Board of Elections and House Speaker Murrell Smith that he would not accept the seat, and a special election was ordered.

The special election is scheduled for March 25, leaving the seat open for much of the 2025 legislative session.

Three women are on the ballot for the Jan. 21 Democratic primary, and whoever wins is slated to run unopposed in March. No Republicans filed for the seat.

Here’s who is in the race:

Courtney Waters

Courtney Waters entered the race in early November promising to build on lessons she learned as a Charleston County School Board member.

“I’ve been serving for the last four years as a trustee on the Charleston County School Board, and I really see this as a necessary next step, because of just all that I saw and came to understand about how systems in South Carolina function,” she said.

Waters opted not to run for another term on the school board, instead setting her sights on affecting education policy on a larger scale.

“I got to spend a lot of time doing something that’s very close to my heart,” she said. “I started out as a classroom teacher, and I currently run an education nonprofit as my day job, but I really started to realize that economic mobility is the number one determinant of success, and education plays a great role in that.”

“I think that if there’s an opportunity to work with others to start to push more funding, more opportunities to access funding to people in District 113, then I want to play a role in that because that translates to them being even greater advocates for their children as they’re in our schools,” she continued.

Along with education, Waters pointed to access to affordable childcare and home ownership as primary challenges district residents face. According to RedFin, the median sales price of a home in the North Charleston area was $386,000 in November, a nearly 12% increase from the previous year.

“We’re getting to a point where homes, even in North Charleston, are approaching above $400,000 a year, and that’s not really attainable for someone making $90,000 a year or less,” Water said.

More workforce housing — housing reserved for middle-income workers who don’t qualify for traditional subsidies — could be a viable solution, Waters argues, but providers face too many barriers.

“There’s so many programs and so many great organizations that work, but they come against challenges,” she said. “So I think the person serving in this seat is there to help remove those structural barriers…and figure out exactly how to sort of untangle the web that stands in people’s way.”

She further suggested that the district has historically not received enough state funding to meet the community’s needs, a trend she aims to reverse.

“District 113 is a seat where so many folks get up and go to work every day to grind the gears of commerce for this state and very little gets distributed toward this district,” she said.

Waters also vowed to fight against the push for book bans in schools and champion women’s reproductive rights.

Democrats will face an uphill battle in Columbia this session as Republicans now hold veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers, but Waters says she is prepared for the fight.

“I have no qualms about the fact that there is a Republican supermajority in the House, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not space for new ideas to enter there,” she said. “That does not mean that there is not space to work with folks and help them understand things a different way, and where they don’t want to come to the middle again, I always rely on data and experience that informs what I do.”

Michelle Brandt

Michelle Brandt is no stranger to South Carolina politics.

The former House candidate mounted an unsuccessful bid for neighboring District 114 in 2022 and currently serves as the state Democratic Party’s Third Vice Chair, overseeing efforts to mobilize young voters across the state.

Brandt and her husband moved to North Charleston in January after being priced out of their West Ashley home — a decision that put affordable housing at the top of her priority list, especially with more than half of the district’s residents being renters.

“There’s so many people that I know that live in this district that are struggling, and when you combine that with student loans and childcare…it can be really tough for working families to just get by,” she said.

She specifically mentioned pursuing a renter’s tax credit and creating incentive programs for developers to build more affordable housing. She contended that building more housing would raise the median income and in turn, help alleviate another problem — Park Circle (the south end of the district) being a food desert.

Brandt, a former stay-at-home mother, highlighted the need for childcare reform, including expanding the state’s scholarship program to help middle-income earning parents.

To push these initiatives through the Statehouse, Brandt said she would lean on connections developed through her work with Planned Parenthood, the Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission, and the Chamber of Commerce.

“I understand there is a supermajority of Republicans in the state House, so that’s why I plan on coming at them from an economical approach because these two issues impact workers and businesses,” she said. “I already have connections with a lot of the representatives on both sides of the aisle, and I think that’s my breakthrough, to get through to them talking about our economy, boosting our economy, and just making sure that they see it from the business side.”

Brandt is also pushing for reforms to address the epidemic of gun violence in North Charleston neighborhoods, specifically tighter storage laws.

“I do think that there is some commonality that [Democrats and Republicans] have when it comes to at least securing firearms,” she said. “A lot of crime happens in the district because firearms are left in vehicles and unfortunately, that’s how people can get ahold of weapons. And then also really making sure that we invest in our after-school programs for our kids and teens.”

Brandt conceded that getting people to turn out for a March election will be difficult as local elections already see much lower turnout compared to national elections. But, she has a plan to activate voters.

“I’ve already been out in the community, meeting people, listening to people,” she said. “It’s just going to be more of that, just continuing to meet people where they are and to really just keep pounding on the message.”

Kim Clark

Kim Clark, a North Charleston realtor, is also running for the open seat.

She attended Academic Magnet High School and graduated from Charleston Southern University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She currently works for the Community Development Institute, a national training program that “offers professional organizations and their staff an opportunity to build skills, learn from peers and connect to existing state, regional and national resources,” according to the South Carolina Association for Community Economic Development.

Clark did not return News 2’s requests for an interview.