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Health & Fitness

Did Lawmaker Quietly Promote NASCAR Interests?

To borrow a line from "Talladega Nights," Sen. Shane Martin is kind of like "Mr. Magic Man" – at least when it comes to revealing to the public what he does for a living and its connection to the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing.

An investigation by The Nerve found at least one instance where Martin's lack of transparency as a lawmaker might have allowed him to engage in an apparent conflict of interest related to his work in the racing world.

The Nerve last week left three phone messages and an email message for Martin seeking comment for this story. He did not respond.

On his website, senatormartin.com, the 41-year-old Spartanburg Republican, who was elected to the Senate in 2008, isn’t bashful about his involvement with NASCAR.

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There are three pictures of him on the site celebrating at Nationwide Series victory lanes, including a 2009 shot in Iowa with winning driver Brad Keselowski, who went on to take the Nationwide Series championship in 2010 and the top-level Sprint Cup championship last year.

“My career as an Engineer gives me the opportunity to work with NASCAR’S finest,” boasts Martin.

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In recent years, Martin has worked as the Chevrolet program manager for the Nationwide Series, according to racing articles from 2009 through last October and a July 2012 Chevrolet news release. The Nationwide Series is promoted as NASCAR’s “minor league” circuit.

But Martin, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Clemson University in 1994 and 1999, respectively, hasn’t been entirely transparent about his involvement with stock car racing.

On the Legislature’s website, for example, Martin lists his occupation only as “Engineer/Business Owner.” Secretary of State records show that he registered one business – Martin Automotive Consulting Inc.  – in 2004 and another – Storys Creek Farm LLC – on Jan. 10 of this year.

And when asked recently by the South Carolina Policy Council, The Nerve’s parent organization, to voluntarily disclose his private sources of income – as has been requested of every other legislator as part of the Policy Council's “Project Conflict Watch” – Martin made it clear he wouldn’t participate.

South Carolina is the only state that requires lawmakers to disclose just their government income sources, according to a January report issued by the South Carolina Commission on Ethics Reform. Martin hasn’t listed his private sources of income on his annual statements of economic interests filed with the State Ethics Commission – nor is he required to under state law.

“I have no interest in having the companies for which I perform work as a contractor being dragged through the mud or accused of wrongdoing simply because someone decides that something doesn’t look right or they want to trumpet a “revelation” for some reason,” Martin responded to the Policy Council's income-disclosure request in a July 8 email to Talbert Black of Lexington County, the state coordinator of the grassroots organization Campaign for Liberty.

“My customers did not sign up for political drama, and they will not stick around for it,” Martin continued in his response, which he copied to a Nerve reporter. “I have to work for a living, and I will not put the income that feeds, clothes and shelters my family in jeopardy for the sake of an experiment.”

Martin in the email also blasted The Nerve's June 24 story on state Rep. Eric Bedingfield, which revealed that the Greenville County Republican last year earned more than $74,000 as the part-time deputy chief of staff for Republican U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a former state lawmaker from Lancaster County.

Martin described the story as a "hatchet job," noting: "Eric fully complied with the (Policy Council's) disclosure request as a gesture of good will and in the spirit that he has nothing to hide, which he does not. The fact that he works for Congressman Mulvaney became, nonetheless, a platform for insinuations of graft and even a violation of the SC Constitution, and he was held out as a sort of face of corruption."

In a subsequent review of Martin's voting record as a senator, The Nerve found that at least one of his votes posed an apparent conflict of interest with his NASCAR-related job – though the general public likely wasn’t aware of it at the time.

In 2011, Martin and Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, co-sponsored a state budget proviso (Proviso 90.23) that allowed up to $114,000 in state admissions taxes to be rebated to the Darlington “Too Tough To Tame” Raceway, which hosts an annual NASCAR Sprint Cup race over Mother’s Day weekend. The budget proviso was renewed by the Legislature for last fiscal year (Proviso 90.16) and this year (Proviso 118.10).

At the time of the original budget proviso, Martin told The Nerve that he and Malloy wanted to help the Darlington Raceway – NASCAR’s oldest super-speedway – maintain its NASCAR position while the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce promoted the Charlotte Motor Speedway – an out-of-state competitor.

Martin did not reveal his ties to NASCAR when interviewed then by The Nerve.

Read the full story, including information about campaign contributions by well-known NASCAR-affiliated figures, at TheNerve.org.

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