Republican incumbent in House District 4 faces Libertarian challenger

District 4 state Rep. Davey Hiott faces no Democratic opposition in the Nov. 8 election, but he is being challenged by Libertarian candidate Joey Lum, who argues that state spending is out of control.

Hiott, who has represented the Pickens area in Columbia since 2004, says the state must spend more to fix its roads, and faces added costs this year of recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Matthew along the coast.

“These are going to take large amounts of money and the Legislature must make them a priority,” he said.

Lum, a lead manufacturing engineer at General Electric in Greenville and a former Marine, believes cutting what he calls wasteful state programs would provide the money to address the road problems.

“South Carolina has time and again looked to increase taxes for roads and other projects while we continually see waste and abuse from some of our elected officials,” he said.

He criticized this year’s action by the Legislature to borrow money for roads repairs, saying it “will be paid for on the backs of our, my, children’s children.”

Hiott voted for a gas tax increase during the 2016 session and says he would support it again, if the money is spent only on roads and bridges.

“We must look at every possible solution to find the revenue,” he said. “We must prioritize our needs and fixing our infrastructure has to be a top priority.”

Hiott, owner of Hiott Printing Co. and co-owner of the Pickens County Courier, said he played a role in providing aid to the state’s farmers who were affected by flooding last year, “to help make sure that they were able to survive.”

Hiott, a graduate of Pickens High School and Central Wesleyan College, now Southern Wesleyan University, serves as chairman of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

Lum graduated from Landmark Christian School in Easley and Greenville Technical College before joining the Marines.

While in the Marine Corps, he worked in the National Security Agency and was deployed to Iraq in 2008-09.

“We see terrorism encroaching at every corner and I have yet to see a very strong South Carolina stance against mass immigration policies pursued on the federal level,” he said.

Lum says he decided to run for the office “after years of seeing Republicans and Democrats alike continue to devalue the moral status of our state and nation as well as voting what was best for them and tax increases instead of what was best for the people.”