Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) made headlines throughout the year for her blunt statements and actions during a turbulent year for Congress.
Throughout the eventful and historic year for the House of Representatives, Mace had several moments that shocked the chamber and her constituents. Here are five times the South Carolina Republican captured the political limelight.
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Sex joke at prayer breakfast
While speaking at the 13th Annual South Carolina Prayer Breakfast in July, Mace made a joke suggesting she turned down sex with her fiance to arrive at the event on time.
“When I woke up this morning at 7, I was getting picked up at 7:45. Patrick, my fiance, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed, and I was like, ‘No, baby, we don’t got time for that this morning. I got to get to the prayer breakfast, and I got to be on time.’ A little TMI,” Mace said. “He can wait. I’ll see him later tonight.”
After the appropriateness of the joke was debated on social media when the clip went viral, Mace defended herself as a “sinner, not a saint.”
“I go to church because I’m a sinner, not a saint!” Mace said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Glad those in attendance, including Tim Scott and my pastor, took this joke in stride. Pastor Greg and I will have extra to talk about on Sunday.”
Joining in ousting McCarthy for unique reasons
Mace was one of eight Republicans who, along with all House Democrats, voted to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the speakership in October. However, unlike her seven GOP colleagues, Mace had a different explanation for what prompted her decision.
She said McCarthy’s inaction on women’s topics was a large part of why she voted to remove him. The other seven Republicans voted due to complaints over the September stopgap to avoid a government shutdown, among other alleged personal grievances.
“I had been fighting for women’s rights since before I ever came to Congress. And when Roe v. Wade was overturned, I continued that fight, and I’ve made deals with Kevin McCarthy, with the speaker, that he has not kept to help women in this country,” Mace said after the vote to remove McCarthy.
“We have done nothing for them, and I come from South Carolina — when you shake my hand and you make a promise and you don’t keep it, there are consequences to those actions,” she added.
‘Scarlet letter’ outfit
After being criticized for being among the group to oust McCarthy, Mace made a fashion statement while entering a GOP conference meeting about deciding who to nominate next. She wore a large red “A” on her shirt, in a nod to the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne in which the main character is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” for adultery.
“After being demonized for using my voice and my vote last week, I don’t answer to Washington. I answer to the people, and no matter what D.C. insiders throw at me, I will always be for the people,” Mace told the Washington Examiner.
Vocal opposition to Scalise speaker candidacy
After McCarthy’s ouster, the first of four speaker-designees from the GOP was House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA). Scalise would withdraw before a vote on the House floor, mainly due to fierce opposition by several Republicans, including Mace.
“I’ve been very vocal about this in the past few days — I personally cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who attended a white supremist conference and compared himself to David Duke,” Mace said on CNN in October. “I would be doing an enormous disservice to the voters I represent in South Carolina if I were to do that.”
She said she would support Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for speaker instead. Jordan would fail to become speaker after multiple failed votes on the House floor, and the GOP would eventually select and elect Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) as House speaker.
Comments on Hunter Biden
Throughout the year, Mace proved to be one of the most hawkish Republicans on investigations into President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and the family’s business dealings.
As a member of the House Oversight Committee, she has pushed for a deposition of Hunter Biden rather than an open hearing, arguing it would allow them to get more information and show them “where the bodies are buried.”
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“I want to know where all the bodies are buried. I want to know how these companies were created and layered, where the money was from China and how it got to [the] U.S., how it got to different Biden family members. Where was Joe Biden? How was he involved? What kind of bribery? The WhatsApp messages, the emails, the text messages. We’ll be able to verify his accounting of all of that,” Mace said on Fox last month.
“Quite frankly, I think he needs to sit for more than one deposition; there’s so much money that was involved here. It’s incredible, but we’ve got to do [the] first step, which is a deposition,” she added.
