With a phone in each ear, Lexington state Sen. Jake Knotts prods, cajoles and pleads with state employees about a problem in his district.

Residents have complained about junk in the yard of a Lake Murray home, and Knotts has called every agency from the Department of Transportation to Health and Environmental Control to find someone who might be able to fix the problem.

He refuses to take no for an answer when receptionists tell him someone is out of the office.

“We don’t know if we’re going to get anything done,” Knotts tells homeowners Ronald Sims and Sid Upton, “but I can guarantee you one thing: They’ll know they’ve been in a fight.”

Elected leaders who are unafraid to rattle the system have been around for years in Lexington County, and Knotts is one of the most prominent.

But observers say the tradition might be dwindling as the county keeps growing and Republicans tighten their grip on what is now unabashedly a one-party county. The death this month of Butch Spires, long a rabble-rouser with a cause, made the trend all too apparent.

“There certainly does not seem to be the firebrands that we once had,” political consultant Rod Shealy said.

These days, there are few theatrics, such as those of Shealy’s father, the late state Sen. Ryan Shealy, who in the 1950s water-skied the Congaree from Columbia to Charleston in one day to prove the river was navigable. He also once filibustered for more than 24 hours about the price of milk.

Former state Sen. Norma Russell had a reputation as being a go-to person for whistle-blowers concerned about corruption.

Spires, a longtime County Council member who died March 14, also had a reputation for ruffling feathers if he felt strongly about something.

While the county leaders are much more subdued, at a grass-roots level, the county’s once-roiling anti-tax groups also are not as active as they once were.

Residents in the town of Lexington successfully killed a 2-cent hospitality tax March 1. There has, however, been dissension among the ranks of We The People about whether to support a 1-cent sales tax to pay for school construction. A splinter group that opposed the school tax broke off last fall.

We The People was once so successful that, in the 1992 and 1994 elections, the group helped oust six of nine County Council members.

The diminishing number of so-called rabble-rousers could be because of the county maturing as a political entity, Lexington County Museum curator Horace Harmon said.

Before “home rule” became the law in the 1970s, Harmon said, much of what happened in the county was controlled by state legislators who represented the area. With the creation of a County Council, he said, more people began to acquire political power, bringing more voices into the decision-making process.

“Things were a lot different before ... they got the county form of government,” Harmon said. “When I was growing up in the 1950s, everything was kind of quiet.”

Spires, one of the county’s first councilmen, built a reputation as knowing local government inside and out. Though nearly all county officials admitted that they opposed him at some point, many said his outspoken manner was just a sign of his passion about the issues.

The county is located between two state historical political power centers in Edgefield and Columbia and has produced only one governor, George Bell Timmerman. Its cities and towns are not among the state’s largest, limiting their mayors’ power base.

When Lexington became one of the state’s fastest-growing counties in the 1970s, its leaders wanted to increase the county’s influence. The county’s struggles with Greenville, Charleston or Florence interests, Knotts said, have made its legislators appear obstinate.

“We have to fight harder to get what we get,” he said.

The growth in the county has also changed its demographics. The county’s prominent families no longer have as much influence, Harmon said. Many of the new residents were not raised in South Carolina or with its traditions.

Shealy said the change in personalities was a byproduct of Lexington’s becoming a one-party county dominated by Republicans.

In the 1950s and ’60s, he said, Republicans had to search the county to fill their slate with candidates. With county politics dominated by Democrats, Shealy said, Republicans tended to be outspoken.

“If you weren’t a little bit of a rabble-rouser, you didn’t run as a Republican,” he said.

These days, the county has few elected Democrats, some of whom might be as conservative as Republicans.

Lexington County Councilman Todd Cullum said that council still has deep philosophical differences but that members work together.

“I don’t know that you’ll see that kind of heat,” he said.

Now that Lexington County has matured, it can be more selective about policies and people, Cullum said.

Cullum and Knotts said the county will always have its share of outspoken personalities, but Shealy said those in power don’t have much room to complain.

“It is very difficult for a conservative Republican in Lexington County to rail against the system right now because we are the system.”

Reach O’Connor at (803) 771-8435 or johnoconnor@thestate.com.