For each of the past two winters, state Rep. Tracy Edge has voted to keep cities from bringing down billboards across South Carolina.

The company that Edge works for has a billboard business with almost 1,000 signs.

This March, Edge led the fight for a bill to make it hard for local governments to control development through zoning.

The company Edge works for — Burroughs and Chapin — is one of the state’s most visible developers.

Edge’s votes in the Legislature have prompted a stream of criticism during the past year, putting the spotlight on his role as legislator-developer.

Legislators and lobbyists says Edge’s actions would help the company he works for. Letters published in the pages of S.C. newspapers take him to task for his votes.

In late March 2005, some Horry County residents filed an ethics complaint against Edge for supporting the billboard legislation. The House Ethics Committee dismissed the complaint, saying it was unfounded.

But Edge’s critics persist.

“You’d have to have blinders on not to recognize that some of his power and authority benefits the company he works for,” said Bob Logan, whose group, We the People, filed the complaint.

Edge, vice president of real estate at Burroughs and Chapin in Myrtle Beach, said the criticism is an attempt by political enemies, such as Logan, to discredit him.

Edge said he is no different than most citizen-legislators. South Carolina is a small state with a part-time legislature, meaning most representatives and senators have full-time jobs away from the State House.

The key is knowing when to abstain from voting and how support of or opposition to legislation can appear even when it’s legal, political scientists say.

Edge, R-Horry, said he followed the state’s ethics law when voting on bills. Public officials cannot take action that would help only the company they work for. The law does not prohibit legislators such as Edge from voting for bills that affect an industry or class of companies, including the ones they work for.

Edge said he would quit Burroughs and Chapin if the company ordered him to support a bill.

“If I would have been up here doing the company’s business, this would have been outed a long time ago,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been re-elected.”

At the State House, Edge is considered a tenacious legislator with increasing influence.

He is a member and subcommittee chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the panel that writes the state budget. And he is a senior member of the Horry County legislative delegation.

INTERN TO EXECUTIVE

Edge, 39, said Burroughs and Chapin is a high-profile development company — and an easy target for critics.

His employment by Burroughs and Chapin has been brought up in past political races. Once, an opponent’s advertisement depicted him as a puppet of the company. In 2000, Democratic opponent Harold Bessent said Edge had helped the company with tax legislation friendly to its interests, a charge that Edge denied.

This year, Edge has no Republican primary opponent, but does face Democrat Charles J. Randall in the general election.

Edge has run successfully for his northern Grand Strand House seat five times since 1996. Edge said he’s won each time because voters know he is from a good family and is a person of integrity.

“It’s an issue in every race I’ve got,” Edge said of his Burroughs and Chapin connection. “But those things, people say, don’t stick.”

Edge, the son of North Myrtle Beach’s first mayor, has worked for Burroughs and Chapin since 1993, rising from an unpaid intern to his current position.

Edge has coordinated construction for Broadway at the Beach, perhaps the company’s most successful development project on the Grand Strand. More recently, he helped close a deal for a NASCAR speed park in Gatlinburg, Tenn.

Today, Edge acquires mostly out-of-state land for the company. Affable and easy to talk with, Edge said the company considers him a good negotiator.

Burroughs and Chapin executive Doug Wendel, a former county administrator and aide to former U.S. Rep. John Jenrette, said he rarely talks with Edge during the legislative session and doesn’t require him to support company positions on bills.

In fact, Wendel said Edge’s election to the Legislature has impeded his career. The company cut Edge’s pay by 40 percent when he was first elected, Edge said, because serving in the Legislature keeps him from work three days a week.

“It’s hurt him by going there, as it relates to his career,’’ Wendel said. “He could have been much further ahead in the company with a much better job and paid a whole lot more money.”

Nonetheless, Edge’s job brings attention to him and places emphasis on how he handles legislation, said Blease Graham, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina.

“It makes a legislator vulnerable to criticism and it may generate opposition,” Graham said. “It’s a question the legislator has to answer ultimately.”

Van Kornegay, one of the billboard industry’s most vocal opponents, said Edge should have disclosed that he works for Burroughs and Chapin when advocating looser billboard restrictions this year.

Kornegay wrote a letter to The State newspaper in March in response to a letter Edge wrote. Edge’s letter said the billboard law would protect property rights.

“A public servant who had a special interest who writes an opinion piece should reveal that he has a financial gain behind it,” Kornegay said. “He said he was protecting property owners. But property owners like me are upset because billboards are showing up in our neighborhood.”

The bill requires local governments to pay more to billboard companies to get rid of billboards that cities or counties deem unsightly.

Coastal Outdoor Advertising, a division of Burroughs and Chapin, has 850 signs.

Last year, Edge voted for the bill when it came up in the House. In February, Edge was among the majority of legislators who voted to override Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto of the bill.

CAMPAIGN MONEY, SUPPORT

When it comes to his voting on legislation that would benefit Burroughs and Chapin, records show Edge:

• Co-sponsored a bill in 1999 that limits fees developers can be charged to cover the cost of new development on government services. County governments have said the new law makes it difficult to impose such fees.

Edge said it only tells governments when the fees can be used.

• Spoke against giving more authority to the state coastal division on permitting decisions. Burroughs and Chapin lobbied against a 2000 bill that increased public input on state environmental permits. The bill failed.

Edge said he thought the bill would “politicize” decisions on coastal environmental permits.

• Co-sponsored and served as a floor leader this year in the fight for “takings” legislation, which makes it harder for local governments to regulate development. It requires compensation when zoning laws devalue property.

Critics say the proposal would cripple governments’ ability to control dense commercial development and protect private homeowners. It has not passed the Senate.

Edge said it protects property rights for the average person.

Burroughs and Chapin officials also say much of their property is covered by development agreements with local governments, so the change in law would not directly affect their land. However, Wendel said it could affect land the company has acquired more recently. Burroughs and Chapin owns about 30,000 acres in and around Myrtle Beach.

Wallace Scarborough, a Charleston Republican, said there’s little doubt Edge helped Burroughs and Chapin with the takings legislation this year.

Scarborough opposed the takings lesislation.

“What he was doing was in the best interests of the company he represents,” Scarborough said. “Absolutely, it will help developers.”

Records show Burroughs and Chapin backs Edge in re-election campaigns.

Since 1996, Edge has received more than $20,000 in campaign contributions from Burroughs and Chapin, its employees and company consultants, according to campaign finance reports.

The maximum contribution per election cycle is $1,000. Edge has raised more than $400,000 since his first campaign.

Among that is $5,000 directly from Burroughs and Chapin and another $1,000 from Columbia Venture, a Burroughs backed firm. Columbia Venture has had plans to develop a flood plain along the Congaree River in Columbia.

Wendel has given more than $1,200. He said he’s glad to help Edge, whom he said is like a son.

Reach Fretwell at (803) 771-8537.