MOUNT PLEASANT, SC – Conservative Republican Kathy Landing – businesswoman, financial planner, military wife, mother, and public servant – made her official announcement of candidacy for South Carolina’s First District today before a large crowd in Mount Pleasant.

 

Landing stressed her experience as a financial professional as an extremely important need in Congress today.

 

 

Landing introduced her platform by highlighting the failures of our current Congress.

 

 

She also drew stark contrast between herself and the current Congressman, even invoking famous words of former President Ronald Reagan.

 

 

Landing also stated her absolute opposition to offshore drilling off of South Carolina’s coast. 

 

 

Following the announcement in Mount Pleasant, Landing hosted a Meet and Greet in Beaufort.

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"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you so much for being here today. I am humbled and honored to have you here with us for today’s announcement.  

 

Thank you, Councilwoman Jenny Costa Honeycutt, for your most gracious introduction and support.

 

Thank you for our wonderful invocation from the Rev. Dr. Kent, Janis to all those who know and love her. Thank you also to Major General James Livingston, for honoring this ceremony by leading us in the pledge of allegiance. We are all indebted to your service and to all our military veterans. Will all our veterans here today please raise your hand, so we can properly thank you for your service?

 

I am Kathy Landing – a businesswoman, financial professional, and public servant, a military wife and mother, a pro-life woman of faith, and I am running to represent the First District of South Carolina in Congress. 

 

Today, we can truly say America is strong and thriving, but Washington remains broken. Congress seems lost and confused, with vicious partisan politics, endless attacks on our President, sideshows of attention-getting political stunts, and a lack of focus on what we need our representatives to do to solve the problems we still face as a nation. 

 

I can no longer sit by and watch this, and I am running to restore dignity and focus to the seat that belongs to you.  

 

Before going into the specific reasons why I made this decision, I would like to share some of my family history that will help you understand what inspired me to stand before you today. 

 

Nearly 400 years ago, a preacher, husband and father named John Lathrop was imprisoned for his strong Christian beliefs. While he was in prison, his wife passed away, and his congregation made a plea to the King of England for a pardon so his seven children would not be orphaned. King George agreed under one condition – the Reverend John Lathrop and his children must leave England.

 

And so, my tenth-great grandfather and his family set off for the New World, following another ancestor, Edward Fuller, who eight years prior made the journey with his wife and young son on the Mayflower. Edward and his wife passed away in that first winter, but not before he signed the Mayflower Compact which still today is considered a template for our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These people risked their freedom and their very lives for their religious beliefs. When Rev. Lathrop, his children and his congregation arrived in this new land, they thanked God for their freedom and quickly got to work establishing churches along the East Coast.

 

Each generation of my family passed to the next the importance of faith, family and freedom, and I am grateful that Joe and I have been given the opportunity by God to do the same with our children. My family’s commitment to these principles has greatly shaped the woman I am. 

 

My family’s journey to America for religious freedom, my family’s fight during the Revolutionary War for our nation’s freedom, my family’s service in the military to protect our freedom including my grandfather in World War I, my mother in the Women’s Army Corps in World War II, and more recently my husband’s deployment with the Navy to the Middle East and Persian Gulf all demonstrate a commitment to faith, family and freedom which has influenced me and helped me become who I am today.

 

A strong Republican businesswoman who proudly represents our conservative South Carolina values, the wife for 35 years of a former Naval Officer, and the mother of our two greatest blessings from God, Kristie and Joseph. An independent thinker who has accomplished much in business and is committed to helping our neighbors across the Lowcountry have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.

 

Like most of you, I have had my share of trials and tribulations in life to overcome, and I have always done so because of an unwavering faith in God and a positive outlook on the future. Both of my parents passed away by the time I was 13 years old, so I moved to Fort Bragg with my brother and sister-in-law and their baby daughter. My brother John was an Army Captain and Chaplain, and I served as the organist at his church, New Barracks Chapel in the heart of the 82nd Airborne Division. 

 

At 16 years old, I left to attend Duke University. After graduation, my husband and I were married, and his first tour of duty with the Navy was Charleston. He was deployed for 15 of our first 24 months together, and I threw myself into building a business in the investment industry in this community where we had no connections or family at all at the time. I took a risk here in the Lowcountry, and for the last 34 years, have worked as hard as possible to build a successful practice. 

 

I have helped Lowcountry families achieve their financial goals, including some of my earliest clients who were school teachers, enlisted men and women in the Navy, and nurses. 

 

I have also created jobs here in the Lowcountry, working with Joe to establish a successful investment advisory office right here in Mount Pleasant.

 

Now I am ready and eager to use my education and experience as a job creator and financial professional to protect Lowcountry taxpayers and ensure Congress sets a responsible financial plan for our nation’s future. 

 

This likely will come as no surprise that I recently learned there is not a single investment advisor nor financial planner in Congress, and we wonder why we don’t have a balanced budget, or a budget at all for that matter, and why Congress’ habit of spending vastly more than they bring in has caused our debt to spiral out of control. 

 

Well, I am a financial planner, and I will work hard to make Congress fiscally responsible with balanced budgets, lower taxes, and less debt!

 

I am running for Congress to provide solutions to the issues most important to us in the Lowcountry, just as I have done as a Town Council Member working on infrastructure improvements, traffic relief, attracting high quality jobs, and improving our quality of life. 

 

We are all tired of Congress being entirely focused on investigating our successful President, while failing to act on their primary duties and what we need most – a responsible and balanced budget, improved infrastructure, a fix to the broken healthcare system, and most importantly, a commitment to keep American families safe.

 

We were told during the last election cycle that our current Congressman would put “Lowcountry over party.” Now, he has a voting record to examine so we can see how that is going. 

 

According to FiveThirtyEight, he has the least bipartisan voting record possible, voting in favor of President Trump’s positions 0% of the time. Instead, according to ProPublica.org, out of over 235 votes cast so far, he has voted 84% with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 87% with Adam Schiff, and 90% with Maxine Waters. Does this sound like Lowcountry over party to you? Are these the values of the 1st District of South Carolina, or are they the liberal values of California or the Bronx?

 

Some people might say, well, he just got up to Washington 6 months ago and needs more time to work on important matters. To that I would reply that just last week he voted for H.R.6, to provide amnesty for those brought here with illegal parents, while refusing to do anything about border security and the crisis of illegal aliens flooding over our southern border. 

 

While many of the recent bills passed by the House are dead on arrival in the Senate, they passed the House with no or very few Republican votes. This is not bi-partisan and does not represent the majority of the 1st District of South Carolina. His “feel good, virtue signaling” may create a nice photo op, but ill-considered legislation can actually cause disastrous results and numerous unintended consequences.

 

During the last election, our current Congressman stood for one issue above anything else. He was against offshore drilling. 

 

I stand before you now to declare that I am absolutely and unequivocally against offshore drilling and seismic testing for the South Carolina coastline. 

 

Rather than attention-seeking stunts, we need a more thoughtful, and dare I say, mature approach in Congress. But, as President Ronald Reagan famously said, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponents’ youth and inexperience.”

 

Our current Congressman may be a nice guy, but the Lowcountry needs a strong leader in Congress that truly represents the majority of voices in SC1. 

 

Our citizens deserve a Member of Congress with real experience in both the private and public sectors - someone who has built a business, managed budgets, and created jobs. 

 

Our active duty military, our veterans, and their families deserve a Member of Congress with the experience of being in a military family, being a devoted military wife, and raising two children.

 

Our retirees and those quickly approaching retirement deserve a Member of Congress who has the education and experience to help tackle the burdens of taxes and help make Social Security sustainable for generations to come.

 

While my family has been here for decades, many of our neighbors have not. Many have come from places like New Jersey or New York to escape oppressive taxes, anti-gun laws, and extremist social policies. Unfortunately for them and the rest of us, they are now being represented in Congress by someone who supports those same radical positions.

 

We deserve a pro-life Member of Congress who understands, through my volunteer work with crisis pregnancy centers, that we can and must do a better job of supporting women who feel helpless or trapped in unwanted pregnancies, making it substantially easier for them to carry to term, making adoption more readily available if they still cannot or do not want to raise the babies, and helping make the children’s lives legacies of love after birth by providing true support for the family.  

 

We deserve a pro-Second Amendment Member of Congress, who understands the risks to individual liberty and our country’s freedoms when we try to restrict this critically important right. And oh, by the way, I do have a Concealed Weapons Permit and own a 9mm Smith & Wesson Shield.

 

And, we deserve a strong, constructive Member of Congress to help keep America great – building on the incredible economic successes led by President Trump.  

 

I would be honored to be that Congresswoman for you, to make South Carolina’s First Congressional District a beacon of light to bring hope to the rest of the nation.

 

Right now, here in Mount Pleasant, is just the beginning of this campaign. Trust that over the course of the coming weeks and throughout the next year, I will be in every part of this district - Berkeley, Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton and Dorchester Counties - introducing myself further, sharing my conservative solutions, and most importantly, hearing directly from you - the people I want to represent. 

 

Thank you again for joining me today to embark upon this important journey. Working hard together, and through prayer, we will win this seat back for South Carolina conservatives, families, and sensible solutions. We will keep America strong and free, and we will keep America great.

 

God Bless you, God Bless the Lowcountry, and God Bless the United States of America."