Rep. Nancy Mace Wins Farm Group Endorsement in South Carolina Governor’s Race
CHARLESTON, S.C. – Today, Competitive Markets Action, Inc. (CMA), a 501(c)(4) non-profit based in Washington, D.C., with the mission of promoting more regenerative and sustainable agriculture, and competitive markets in the U.S., and defending against attacks on states’ rights by the federal government, endorsed U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., for Governor of South Carolina in the Republican primary and general election. The group has previously endorsed Mace in her prior campaigns for Congress.
“We are proud to endorse Nancy Mace and applaud her tireless work for American family farmers, and the great people of South Carolina,” said Marty Irby, president and CEO at Competitive Markets Action. “Mace has been a fierce and brave warrior who has displayed tremendous leadership and intestinal fortitude in championing the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act that would rein in the corruption within USDA’s scandal-ridden Commodity Checkoff Programs, and she’s worked relentlessly against the terrible Save Our Bacon/EATS Act, an assault on states’ rights that would hand American pork production over to China."
In 2023 Competitive Markets Action and the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) presented their Competitive Markets Leadership Award to Mace during their Farm Bill Summit and fly-in on Capitol Hill. The groups also named Mace their Legislator of the Year for 2024, above every other Member of the U.S. House and Senate.
“We are proud to endorse Nancy Mace and applaud her tireless work for American family farmers, and the great people of South Carolina.”
— Marty Irby, president and CEO at Competitive Markets Action.
Mace is the lead sponsor of the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act, H.R. 3516 /S. 1848, in the House where she’s worked in bipartisan fashion alongside Rep. Dina Titus, D-NV, and Sens. Mike Lee, R-UT, Rand Paul, R-KY, Cory Booker, D-NJ, and Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, to reform the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s embattled checkoff programs that have been plagued by unethical and illegal activities for decades. This measure is backed by more than 200,000 farmers and ranchers across the country and groups like the FreedomWorks, the American Grassfed Association, Alabama Contract Poultry Growers Association, Contract Poultry Growers Association of the Virginias, National Taxpayers Union, and the Heritage Foundation to name a few.
OFF would reform the checkoff programs by bringing transparency and requiring the programs be audited for compliance; by prohibiting disparagement of one product over another and picking winners and losers in the marketplace; and by prohibiting checkoffs from contracting with lobbying entities like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) who lobbied against Country-of-Origin-Labeling (COOL) and the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) who has been outspoken against state ballot measures like California’s Prop 12 that benefit American producers who practice more regenerative and sustainable agriculture.
Mace’s campaign to reform the checkoff programs has also brought more light to controversy surrounding President Joe Biden's USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, D-IA, who directly benefited from millions of checkoff dollars funneled into his own personal coffers, and a salary of nearly $1 million per year from Dairy Management, Inc., following his eight years as President Barack Obama's USDA Secretary, before being reappointed to the same post by Biden.
Rep. Mace also co-lead multiple House Republican sign-on letters here in 2023, here in 2024, and here in 2025, alongside Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, R-FL, Andrew Garbarino, R-NY, David Valadao, R-CA, and former Rep. Michael Waltz, R-FL, against the so-called Save Our Bacon (SOB)/EATS Act, H.R. 4673, led by Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-IA, that is designed to nullify state ballot measures across the country enacted by a direct vote of the people. Industrial agribusiness interests failed to secure the enactment of similar legislation led by former Rep. Steve King, R-IA, in the 2018 Farm Bill thanks to the work of competitive markets leaders and former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-TX.
In the 117th Congress, Mace also co-led the Pigs in Gestation Stalls (PIGS) Act, H.R. 7004, that would have provided more space for breeding sows in pork production facilities across the U.S., a policy similar to many of the corporate pledges made by top retailers in the last several years who are working to eliminate the use of gestation crates in U.S. pork production.
Competitive Markets Action (CMA) is a 501(c)(4) non-profit based in Washington, D.C., that was formed with the mission of shaping policy to promote more regenerative and sustainable agriculture, and competitive markets in the U.S., and to defend against attacks on states’ rights by the federal government. CMA works to raise awareness of the harm caused by multinational conglomerates to the American family farmer, the consumer and our U.S. economy as a whole in an effort to bring about legislative and regulatory reforms.
WILLIAM T IRBY JR
Capitol South, LLC
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