When a 24-year-old Bishopville City Council member cruised to victory last month in a special election for a House seat, he got a lot of attention from Democrats nationwide. However, while Keishan Scott is currently the youngest legislator, his age didn’t set any firsts in the General Assembly for either party.
Former GOP Gov. David Beasley was first elected in 1978 to the state House at only 21 (as a Democrat). Even younger, by months, was former state Sen. Sherry Shealy Martschink, a Mount Pleasant Republican in her junior year at the University of South Carolina when she was first elected in 1970.
Legislators can’t be any younger: The state constitution sets 21 as the youngest age for representatives and 25 for senators.
Being a 20-something legislator comes with scrutiny, sometimes a youthful arrogance and often being mistaken for a staffer, former and current lawmakers told the SC Daily Gazette.
But by showing a seriousness to do the job, it doesn’t take long to earn respect, they said in offering advice to the newest legislator.
“You hang out like they hang out,” said former Rep. Bakari Sellers, who was 22 when first elected to the state House in 2006.
‘What the young guy had to say’
That year, Sellers ousted the chamber’s oldest member, then-82-year-old Thomas Rhoad, in the Democratic primary to become the youngest.
The USC law student from rural Denmark wasn’t even born when Rhoad was first elected in 1982.
When Sellers’ first session started in January 2007, he felt like everyone was watching him, he told the Gazette.
“Some people wanted to hear what the young guy had to say,” said Sellers, who was the nation’s youngest Black elected official and son of an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. But within months, he was treated like every other member, he said.
The first two weeks on the job are crucial, Sellers explained.
“I spent mine doing the most important thing: building relationships,” he said.
And by 2009, then-House Speaker Bobby Harrell decided to place Sellers on the chamber’s powerful Judiciary Committee. Sellers thought it was ironic that he was still in law school while sitting on the committee that handles criminal and constitutional proposals, as well as anything relating to the judicial system.
“He just felt like I had the capacity and being in law school … he knew I had a willingness and appreciation” for that role, said Sellers, who became a CNN commentator after losing a bid for lieutenant governor in 2014.
In 2008, Boyd Brown was elected to the House, also at age 22. He and Sellers were desk mates for a time.
Brown, whose great-grandfather and grandfather both served in the Statehouse, decided in 2007 to run for the seat representing Fairfield and Chester counties. At the time, he was finishing his junior year at USC. He crammed classes and was able to graduate that December.
That “gave me the whole spring to campaign and knock on doors,” he said.
When the Winnsboro Democrat was sworn in, he was the youngest legislator. And he acted like it, he said. He developed a reputation for being outspoken and unafraid to make the occasional personal attack.
Toward the end of his two terms in the House, he brought his father to the Statehouse to prove he was not “the spawn of Satan,” The State newspaper reported.
“My personal style back then was to make myself known,” he said. “I was young, brash, and a member of the minority party.”
While the 2024 elections gave the GOP supermajority control of both chambers, back in 2008, the partisan divide wasn’t so lopsided. The parties had to work together more, particularly to get something through the more-evenly split Senate.
In the House, Brown was among 51 Democrats in the 124-member chamber. (With Scott’s special election to replace a Democrat, Republicans maintained their 88-to-36 advantage.)
Brown’s job, as he puts it, “was to throw rocks” at the other party.
He left his seat in 2012 to focus on finishing law school. Now 38, Brown is a lobbyist at the Statehouse and has had to ask some lawmakers not to “hold 22-year-old me against 38-year-old me.”
Mistaken identity
In Brown’s first week at the Statehouse, then-Rep. Nikki Haley, who became governor two years later, asked him to get her a cup of coffee, confusing him for a legislative page, which drew laughs from multiple people.
“I probably should have done it. I kind of made a joke about not being page, saying ‘I’m a member just like you are,” said Brown, adding it wasn’t the only time he was mistaken for a staffer.
He later frequently lobbed criticisms at Haley as governor.
When Brandon Newton was elected to the House in 2016, also at age 22, he too was confused for a page.
A couple of his college friends actually were pages when he walked in as a legislator.
That’s why the Lancaster Republican wasn’t taken aback when former Rep. Joe McEachern asked Newton to get him a cup of Joe. His reaction was to say “yes” and talk with the Richland County Democrat for a few minutes.
In the next election, McEachern was ousted in the Democratic primary by a 26-year-old USC law student. And Newton has risen in GOP ranks to assistant majority leader. Earlier this year, he helped launch the bipartisan South Carolina Future Caucus, a coalition of millennials and Generation Z lawmakers aiming to bridge partisan divides.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said when he was campaigning for the 2007 special election that first sent him to the Statehouse, his youthful appearance at age 32 caused some voters to jokingly question whether he even had a driver’s license.
The Edgefield Republican said that during his first year in the Senate, a security guard stopped him as he was walking over to the House, saying, “Senate pages aren’t allowed on the House floor.”
“I don’t think I’d be confused for a Senate page anymore,” Massey said.
When he joined the Senate, a chamber where seniority rules, Massey said his colleagues questioned him because of his youth.
“You have to prove yourself more,” he said, adding “they question if this person has enough life experience.”
But Massey made sure people knew he was ready and willing to work.
“If you demonstrate you have the ability, the older guys, the more senior members will allow you to participate,” he said. “I certainly wasn’t punished for my age.”
When Republicans elected Massey their majority leader in 2016, at age 40, they wanted someone who represented a younger generation. He replaced Sen. Harvey Peeler, first elected in 1980, who unexpectedly stepped down from the leadership role after 11 years. Massey was Peeler’s caucus whip.
In a social media post after the leadership vote, Peeler — the chamber’s chief budget writer since 2022 — referenced the movie “Karate Kid,” saying Massey had been the “‘Mr. Miyagi’ to his ‘Daniel-san.’ He is prepared.”
Being a 30-something senator isn’t so unusual anymore.
When Deon Tedder, a Charleston Democrat, won a special election to the Senate in November 2023 at age 33, he was the youngest senator — but not for long. Republican JD Chaplin of Darlington took the title with his November 2024 election at age 30, when he ousted a 22-year incumbent Democrat.
Now 31, Chaplin told the Gazette he didn’t reveal his age during his first session unless someone asked.
Advice
Asked what advice they have for the 24-year-old Scott as he enters the Statehouse next year, the former and current youngsters of the Statehouse offered similar suggestions:
Learn the rules and processes of the Legislature, get to know colleagues on a personal — not just political — level, and remember that it’s your duty to represent the people who elected you there.
“It’s going to be pretty awe-inspiring … just do the job and stay in touch with the people back home,” said Massey.
Shaun covered the state legislature for the South Carolina Daily Gazette.
