John M. "Jake" Knotts, Jr. (born December 12, 1944) is a former Republican member of the

South Carolina Senate The South Carolina State Senate is the upper house of the South Carolina General Assembly, the lower house being the South Carolina House of Representatives. It consists of 46 senators elected from single member districts for four-year terms at ...

, representing the 23rd District from 2002 to 2012. Previously he was a member of the

South Carolina House of Representatives The South Carolina House of Representatives is the lower house of the South Carolina General Assembly. It consists of 124 representatives elected to two-year terms at the same time as U.S. congressional elections. Unlike many legislatures, seatin ...

from 1994 through 2002.

Early life

Knotts was born in December 1944 in

West Columbia, South Carolina West Columbia, formerly Brookland, is a city and commuter town in the suburban eastern sections of Lexington County, South Carolina, United States. According to the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the population was 14,988, and the 2019 ...

, the son of John Milton, Sr. and Dovereen Jessie (Williams) Knotts. He was the child of a poverty-stricken family and raised as Jakie Webster until he was told his real name at age 12. Knotts served in the Navy.Definition of a hard-nose
''

The Item ''The Item'', formerly known as ''The Sumter Daily Item'' and ''The Daily Item'', is an independent morning newspaper published in Sumter, South Carolina, five days a week (Tuesday to Friday), with a "Weekend Edition" delivered on Saturday morn ...

'' via Google News Archive. 6 July 1996. Following his service, Knotts worked as a police officer for the Columbia Police Department, a detective, and an assistant coroner before entering politics. Knotts married Betty Lee in 1965, with whom he has two children, Michelle Nicole and Tara Marie.

Political career

Knotts was a prominent critic of governor and fellow Republican

Mark Sanford Marshall Clement "Mark" Sanford Jr. (born May 28, 1960) is an American politician and author who served as the U.S. representative for South Carolina's 1st congressional district from 1995 to 2001 and from 2013 to 2019, and as the 115th govern ...

and was a leading critic of the governor following his disappearance and admission of an extramarital affair. Knotts was defeated for re-election in the 2012 general election by

Katrina Shealy Katrina Frye Shealy (born December 25, 1954, in Columbia, South Carolina) is an American politician, and a member of the South Carolina State Senate. She is a Republican but was elected as a petition candidate from District 23 in Lexington County ...

, a Republican petition candidate who he had defeated in the 2008 Republican primary.

Committee assignments

Knotts served on the following

committees A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

in the state senate: * Agriculture and Natural Resources * Fish, Game and Forestry * General * Invitations (Chairman) * Judiciary * Rules

Controversies

"Raghead" comment

On June 3, 2010, Knotts used the word " raghead" to describe President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

and Republican gubernatorial candidate (and fellow

Lexington County Lexington County is a county located in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 293,991. Its county seat and largest community is Lexington. The county was chartered in 1785 and was named in commemoration o ...

resident)

Nikki Haley Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley (''née'' Randhawa; born January 20, 1972) is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 116th governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 and as the 29th U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from Ja ...

while appearing on a live broadcast of Pub Politics. Several people present at the political talk show's broadcast confirmed Knotts said "We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor's mansion."O'Connor, John., Smith, Gina
Knotts' slur stirs the Haley storm.
''The State.'' June 3, 2010. Haley was raised as a

Sikh Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Si ...

and later converted to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

. Haley has stated she attends services of both faiths. Other South Carolina Republicans were quick to distance themselves from Knotts and called for an apology. Knotts later issued a statement, saying, "Since my intended humorous context was lost in translation, I apologize. I still believe Ms Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur."US lawmaker under fire over racist slur of Indian-American
''Associated Press''. Yahoo! News. June 4, 2010. Haley campaign manager Tim Pearson called Knotts "an embarrassment to our state and to the Republican Party." After Knotts' controversial remarks, former Lexington County Republican Party chairwoman

announced a primary candidacy to challenge Jake Knotts in 2012. On June 10, the Lexington County Republican Party voted to

censure A censure is an expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism. In parliamentary procedure, it is a debatable main motion that could be adopted by a majority vote. Among the forms that it can take are a stern rebuke by a legislature, a sp ...

Knotts and asked him to resign from office, by a vote of 26 to 7. Knotts reiterated that he would not resign, saying "I'm truly, deeply sorry I used those words and there was no intention for them to be interpreted to be prejudice." In a 2021 interview, Knotts said again that Haley "wasn't a real Christian" and had "converted for political purposes".

References

External links

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campaign contributions {{DEFAULTSORT:Knotts, Jake Republican Party South Carolina state senators Republican Party members of the South Carolina House of Representatives 1944 births Living people People from West Columbia, South Carolina 20th-century South Carolina politicians 21st-century members of the South Carolina General Assembly