5 Solutions To Protect You!

Debt collectors chasing you for bills you don't owe. Surprise medical charges no one can explain to you. 

As you know — not all bad guys carry guns.

And when you call the one office that's supposed to fight for you? It tells you — on its own website — that it "does not investigate debt collectors."

I'LL GO AFTER ALL THE BAD GUYS — IF THEY VIOLATE THE RULE OF LAW.

Every day there's another one reaching into your pocket — betting you can't afford to fight back. These are the "Financial Bad Guys" I've spent 30 years fighting and beating. This is my turf. So here are more bad guys I'll look into, go after, and hold accountable the same as many other states' attorneys general do:

• Egg prices — rigged?
• Ticket prices — gouged?
• Dangerous chemicals in your food and supplements?
• Unsafe chemicals in your kids' drinks?
• Apps and AI built to hook your kids — and harvest what they do? 
• Your data, and your kids': Stolen? Watched? Sold to strangers?
• Medicine priced beyond what you can pay — unfair?
• Abusive schemes that prey on your parents?

Every one of them is another bad guy reaching into your pocket or putting your family at risk — and every one is exactly the kind of fight I've spent 30 years winning. Other states' attorneys general go after these bad guys and win. I'll fight them for you, and win for you, everywhere the law lets me.

SOLUTIONS FOR YOU:

• Answer your calls and fix the website. When you call about debt collectors, unfair billing, or any consumer issue, I'll make sure your complaint gets heard and tracked — not brushed off. And when those complaints reveal a pattern, this office steps in with its full legal muscle.
• Use the full power of the office to investigate and stop these Financial Bad Guys from cheating you and harming you.
• Stay on top of the investigations and legal actions filed by the AGs in every other state and bring those fights here to protect you. 
• Join multistate court fights where other states have already filed suit to protect their families — and pursue every recovery still owed to the people of South Carolina. 

I WILL FIGHT ALL THE BAD GUYS — AND WIN FOR YOU!

Source: SC Attorney General FAQ (scag.gov/faqs). Multistate consumer-protection actions, including the 2024 Johnson & Johnson talc settlement joined by 42 states and D.C. — South Carolina did not participate. (Consent judgment and state-by-state roster on file.)

Plastic in the marsh and on the beaches. Chemicals in the water. 

And the one office with the power to do something about it hasn't. I'll fix that! 

I WILL PROTECT OUR RESOURCES FOR YOU AND OUR CHILDREN!

South Carolina's God-given beaches, rivers, and marshes belong to all of us. They heal us, inspire us, and restore us. They drive our tourism economy and our quality of life.

Plastic polluters are dumping their waste into our waters. Tiny plastic pellets called "nurdles" are washing into the Congaree River, and onto the beaches and marshes — and even into Charleston Harbor. Story HERE.

Toxic chemicals are being discharged into the rivers your family fishes and swims in. And now giant data centers want to drain the very water our families, farms, and towns depend on.

And who's fighting for YOU? Sadly, only volunteers and nonprofits. They alone have filed a federal lawsuit to protect you. That's not enough! Story HERE:

The Attorney General is supposed to be the People's Attorney — the first and last line of defense for what belongs to you. When polluters foul your water, I will take them to court and make them stop! This year, even the Attorney General of Texas sued two chemical giants for dumping these same plastic pellets into Texas waters. Story HERE:

So why not the AG of SC?

As one of the advocates who's actually been in the fight here put it:

"There has been zero action at the state or federal level to stop pollution from the plastics industry. It's left to the citizens to pick up the slack. When the state and federal government won't act or haven't acted, we can step in and hold these polluters accountable." Story & Quote HERE:

Let me be clear: no one will ever say that about me. I will go after the plastic polluters and those who poison our rivers, drain our water, or treat our coast like a dumping ground. Fighting powerful interests is just what I do — and I will never leave that fight to citizens alone. Because defending what God gave South Carolina is my job as YOUR Attorney General.

SOLUTIONS FOR YOU:

• Use the full power of the office — civil lawsuits and the State Grand Jury's authority over environmental crimes — to take polluters to court and hold them accountable for cleaning up their messes.
• Make defending South Carolina's water, coast, and wildlife a top priority of the office — and stand with all the communities and groups fighting for them.
• Keep a close eye on the state's environmental regulators, and step in with the state's full legal muscle the moment they fall short or waver.
• Fight for stronger protections against anyone who would drain or poison our water for their profit.

I WILL BE THE ATTORNEY FOR OUR BEACHES, RIVERS, AND WATER.

Sources: South Carolina Environmental Law Center / Congaree Riverkeeper, "Pursuing Plastic Polluters"; WLTX, federal lawsuit re: Congaree River plastic pollution; Houston Chronicle, Texas AG suit against chemical companies over plastic waste; InsideClimateNews, "Lawsuits Targeting Plastic Pollution Pile Up," June 5, 2024; Post and Courier editorial on data centers and South Carolina water use (June 2026); SC Attorney General, State Grand Jury environmental-crime jurisdiction (scag.gov).

South Carolina has long led the nation in drunk-driving deaths. For years, weak enforcement and courtroom loopholes let too many drunk drivers walk. The laws on the books were never the whole problem — the will to enforce them was.

THIS MUST STOP.

 South Carolina has the worst drunk-driving fatality rate in the United States — roughly 6.9 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to NHTSA federal crash data. Our alcohol-impaired fatality rate is nearly double the national average, and alcohol is a factor in 43% of our traffic deaths — among the highest shares in the country. Hundreds of South Carolinians die in alcohol-related crashes every year.

For years, the system failed YOU and your safety. DUI charges were too often plea-bargained down to "reckless driving" — because it's easier than taking them to trial. Cases were tossed over videotaping technicalities. Too few drunk drivers ever saw a jail cell. Repeat offenders kept their keys. And people kept dying.

Right now, lawmakers are finally moving to fix this (S.52) — and I hope it becomes law.

But here's the truth: even the best law on paper is only as strong as the will to enforce it. The new bill still leaves the charging decisions, the plea deals, and the dismissals in the hands of prosecutors. A law doesn't convict a drunk driver — a prosecutor does. Making sure that happens — consistently, in every county — is where the Attorney General comes in.

It hits your wallet, too. When drunk drivers stay on the road, everyone's auto insurance climbs — and South Carolina's liquor-liability insurance market is in crisis, with bars and restaurants struggling to get coverage. Strict enforcement — of the laws we have and the new ones coming — will make us all safer, and better off financially.

SOLUTIONS FOR YOU:

• Use the office's convening power to bring solicitors together around tougher, consistent DUI standards — and publicly track and report all plea and conviction rates, along with sentences, so you can see which circuits are letting drunk drivers walk.
• Work with the legislature, the courts, and judges on recommended sentencing guidelines, so there's consistent punishment and real change.
• Provide model policies, training, and resources to help solicitors and law enforcement win their DUI cases under the law, instead of being forced to plea. Teaching law is what I do.

I WILL GET DRUNK DRIVERS OFF OUR ROADS.

For your safety, I will use every tool of this office to see that our DUI laws are strictly enforced.

Sources: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS); NHTSA, "State Alcohol-Impaired-Driving Estimates: 2022 Data"; FITSNews, "South Carolina Leads the Nation in Drunk Driving Fatalities" (Feb. 12, 2026).

South Carolina has ranked among the ten worst states for women murdered by men in 23 of 25 years studied — and was ranked number one in the nation four times.

 National Domestic Violence Hotline 

1-800-799-7233

THIS MUST END.

In 2023, 51 South Carolina women were killed by men. In more than 95 percent of those cases, the woman knew her killer. South Carolina's rate of women killed by men — 1.8 per 100,000 — remained well above the national average. And over the quarter-century the data was tracked (1996–2020), South Carolina ranked among the ten deadliest states for women 23 times, holding the worst spot in the nation four times.

These are not random acts of violence. In case after case there was a prior history — prior 911 calls, prior incidents, prior charges that were plea-bargained away or dropped. The system saw these women before they died. Too often, it failed them.

Domestic violence is still treated as a lesser offense in too many places across this state — a "family matter," a "he-said-she-said," a case treated as easier to dismiss than to prosecute. The result is a death toll that has kept South Carolina near the top of the nation's worst rankings for a generation.

The failure is not the law. South Carolina strengthened its domestic-violence laws in 2015. The failure is the will to use them.

SOLUTIONS FOR YOU:  

• Expand the Attorney General's Violence Against Women prosecution unit — and use the office's authority to take on domestic-violence cases, including tough cases and those referred by or beyond the capacity of local solicitors.
• Provide training, resources, and model practices to prosecutors statewide so domestic-violence cases are built and won, not pleaded away — and promote lethality-assessment protocols that flag the most dangerous offenders before they kill.
• Use the office's voice and data to hold the system accountable — publicly tracking how domestic-violence cases are charged and resolved across the state.
• Partner with SCCADVASA and stakeholders to build an early-intervention system that catches these cases before they become homicides, and champion stronger enforcement in the legislature.

I WILL FIGHT FOR THESE WOMEN.

Sources: Violence Policy Center, "When Men Murder Women" (2023 data, published 2025; and 25-year review, 1996–2020); SC Attorney General, Violence Against Women section (scag.gov); SCCADVASA

I owe no one and I'm no career politician. That means when I sit down to negotiate deals, I have only one client - YOU. 

I OWE NO ONE. EXCEPT YOU!

 When South Carolina sits across the table from powerful corporations, the federal government, or even outside law firms it hires, someone is going to get the better end of that deal. 

Too often, it isn't you.

The Savannah River Site. By law, deadly plutonium was supposed to be removed from our state by a deadline. Instead, the deal that got struck pushed that deadline back by up to twenty years — and resulted in some $75 million in legal fees that even the Attorney General said were "excessive." The Governor even objected to the whole deal. Details HERE: 

 But a deal that keeps a deadly danger around you for decades and that pays "excessive fees" smells bad and looks worse. It should tell you that this whole system needs an overhaul and fresh eyes — my eyes looking out only for you! 

Then there was the $700 million national settlement with Johnson & Johnson over its talc products. Forty-two states and the District of Columbia collected for their people. South Carolina sat out — and got NOTHING.

Story HERE:

Consent Judgment & State By State Payout HERE:

These are both bad deals.  And they won't be the last — there's a new deal coming around every corner.

Here's what it comes down to: it takes real financial and legal expertise to know a good deal from a bad one — to read the books, value a case, and catch what others miss. That is not a criminal prosecutor's skill set. It's mine.

Before I was ever a lawyer, I was an accountant at a Big Eight firm. For 30 years I've litigated complex financial cases, and the South Carolina Supreme Court appointed me to resolve disputes over attorney fees. I know a bad deal when I see one — and I know how to get a better one.

And because I take no money from anyone — no donations, no PACs, not even my own — no insider gets a free pass. I owe no one but you.

SOLUTIONS FOR YOU:

• When outside legal counsel is truly needed, bid it competitively (no insiders) — and negotiate fee agreements that return more to you, the taxpayer.
• Build the office's own legal capacity, so South Carolina doesn't need to use insider firms in the first place.
• Review every multistate action South Carolina has sat out — and pursue every recovery still available to the people of this state.

I WILL DEMAND THE BEST DEAL FOR SOUTH CAROLINA — FOR YOU, NOT THEM.

Starting Day One.

Sources: South Carolina Attorney General, Litigation Retention Agreements (scag.gov/litigation-retention-agreements); The State, "SC Gov. McMaster objects to plutonium settlement and the $75 million in attorneys fees." Sept. 2, 2020; Post and Courier, "Law firms can keep $75 million share of Savannah River Site settlement," Nov. 2025; S.C. Public Interest Foundation v. Wilson (S.C. Supreme Court).