Christian Congressman Jeff "Horndog" Duncan Does Dallas. And Washington. And South Carolina. And God Only Knows Where Else.

PARENTAL WARNING: This deep probe into Congressman Horndog - whose political career abruptly ended when his wife discovered his "multiple affairs" - contains morally repugnant language and images.

A poster advertising a musical version of “Debbie Does Dallas,” which some have hailed as “the most important theatrical event of the 21st century.” The original “Debbie Does Dallas,” a 1978 film starring Bambi Woods, tells the tale of a lusty high school cheerleader named Debbie Benton. The film inspired my headline. Could it also have inspired Congressman Jeff Duncan’s extracurricular activities? Who’s to say?

I ran a story here last month on the House Freedom of Adultery Caucus, which covered the frolicsome foibles of a group of seven good-time, bible-thumping Republicans who brand themselves as devout Christians, but in the end it seems their spirits were willing but their flesh was weak, and all are now divorcees or will be soon. Among the most heart-wrenching tales were those of Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee, who reportedly abandoned his wife for a 32-year-old woman that was three years younger than his marriage, and Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who displayed her pro-family values zealotry by jerking off her date at a children’s musical in Denver. 

However, pathos and bathos climaxed most sensationally in the case of South Carolina Congressman Jeff Duncan – a member of the 118th Congress’s Values Action Team, which is dedicated to promoting “timeless values” and “supporting the institution of marriage” – who describes himself as “a life-long social conservative” that believes the “most basic component of our society is the family” on his House website. Unfortunately, the seven-term congressman was compelled to cancel his plans to run for reelection after Melody Duncan, his busybody wife of 35 years and the mother of the couple’s three children, got bent out of shape after she somehow discovered he’d had “numerous” affairs and filed for divorce.

One of the women Duncan hooked up with was Liz Williams, a Washington lobbyist who has represented the National Rifle Association, the tobacco industry and defense contractors. So strong was Williams’s tug on Duncan’s heartstrings that he sought succor from her directly after praising Melody for being a “supportive and loving wife” at the August 2023 “Faith & Freedom BBQ,” an annual event he hosts that attracts right-wing leaders and activists from across the country.

By last June, Duncan and Williams had made wedding plans and put up an online gift registry at HoneyFund.com. “To say…[it] did not yield the traditional best wishes for the bride-to-be and congratulations for the groom would be an understatement,” FITSNews, which covers South Carolina politics, reported on June 25. “What a damn joke!” one commenter wrote at the online guest book, the publication disclosed. “May you choke on the wine and each get an STD.”

Before: Soon-to-be-former Congressman Duncan with his soon-to-be-ex-wife Melody. Photo from the congressman’s Facebook page.

It turns out Duncan has demonstrated no greater fidelity to his economic vows than he has to his marital ones, which I discovered when reviewing his public disclosure filings to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). They show Duncan – who states on his website that based on his convictions as a “[former] man with a wife and three children,” he will always “advocate for free market principles” and demand the government “cut up the credit cards” because wasteful federal spending is “out of control” – has been extraordinarily promiscuous, or perhaps barely legal would be a better way of putting it, in dispensing money donated to his campaign treasury and his Jobs, Energy & Our Founding Fathers Leadership PAC on frivolous items that nakedly enhance his lifestyle. 

From January of last year through the end of September of this one, Duncan spent approximately $115,000 on air and ground transportation, lodging, wining and dining, golf course charges, membership dues at private clubs and associations, event tickets, and flowers. That’s a pretty penny, especially as it amounts to tax-free income and comes on top of the combined $348,000 he’ll net in 2023 and 2024 from his salary as a public servant.

The grand total of his pay as a congressman and the generous allowance Duncan has drawn from his political accounts to satisfy his base personal needs works out to an average of $231,500 annually – four times more than the median household income of $58,176 of his humble constituents in South Carolina’s third district. As Duncan was conducting an affair with Williams during the period in question, and may well have been violating the Seventh Commandment with other women as well to judge from the account his wife provided when seeking a divorce, it seems highly likely the congressman used some of the cash to underwrite his extrapolitical activities.

After: Duncan with fun-loving lobbyist Liz Williams, his soon-to-be-second wife. Photo from Williams’s Instagram page.

Of the $110,000 or so Duncan spent on lifestyle enhancement during the past 18 months, the largest single category listed with the FEC was for travel – mostly airfare, but including smaller amounts for related services, such as in-flight internet and phone service purchased from a company called GoGo Business Aviation, rental cars, and Ubers –  with his combined expenditures coming to more than $30,000. To his credit, the congressman generously utilized $132 of that amount to pay for an non-itemized expense to pay for his wife Melody’s travel in April of 2023, though in retrospect that was about four months before the notorious Faith & Freedom BBQ mentioned above so the money may have gone to cover a Greyhound bus ticket from South Carolina to outer Alaska so Duncan would have more time to relax with the glamorous Ms. Williams and make sure his dreary, nagging ball-and-chain would be none the wiser. 

Do I know Jeff and Liz were repeatedly copulating in South Carolina and Washington, DC in April of 2023 while his wife was eating a hotdog aboard a Greyhound bus during a hellish six-day trek to Alaska? I have no way of knowing that nor am I alleging anything of the sort, yet I have no evidence at hand that would conclusively rule it out either, so let’s just say it’s an open question.

The congressman’s preferred vacation destination is Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the elite enclave for billionaires and celebrities, where he and whoever he was traveling with stayed at the romantic Four Seasons Resort and Residences, which is “nestled in a verdant mountain valley...surrounded by some of America’s most rugged peaks, celebrated ski runs and wildlife in nearby Grand Teton National Park,” its website boasts. Duncan spent a combined $2,700 of donor play money to stay at the property three times last year and once in 2024 so far. 

That was part of a total of more than $8,000 Duncan spent from his political accounts to pay for at least 12 stays at hotels and resorts. He and his traveling companions also shacked up at the Grand Hotel at Mackinac Island, Michigan ($1,779.08); the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho ($581.73); and the Omni Dallas Hotel ($306.24).

Technically, I didn’t really need to include the last property as an example, but otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to include Dallas in the headline and conjure up the image of the iconic 1978 porn romcom “Debbie Does Dallas” starring Bambi Woods. For those who haven’t seen it, the film’s plot revolves around Debbie Benton, the lusty captain of her high school cheerleading team who – and here I’m stitching together sections I’ve plagiarized from the movie’s Wikipedia entry – has been accepted to try out with the Texas Cowgirls squad but her disapproving parents refuse to pay her way to the Lone Star state to Texas. Hence, the young entrepreneur and her squadmates Lisa, Roberta, Tammy, Pat and Annie, who decide to tryout as well, swear off sexual activity with their boyfriends so they can make the money to pay their own ways to Dallas. 

Furthermore, my probe of Duncan revealed the Omni Dallas boasts the sexy Mokara Spa, where – if Duncan and Liz Williams or another of the congressman’s female companions stayed with him at the hotel, as I’m speculating without a shred of evidence at this very moment –  they could’ve been “pampered with the ultimate luxury experience” by getting a “soothing facial, body treatment, massage, manicure or pedicure,” according to the hotel’s website. In addition, the lovebirds would have gone on to “complete [their] spa experience with a dip in our rooftop pool.”

If Duncan and Williams — or one of the other women the self-described “life-long social conservative” is alleged to have had “multiple” extramarital affairs with — were pampered at the Dallas Omni, my reporting confirms this photo from the hotel website is exactly how they booked an experience that purportedly “relieved [their] tension and “left [their] stress behind.”

Duncan’s favorite spot for food and drink is the pricey Capitol Hill Club, a private establishment for Republican lawmakers, donors, operatives and lobbyists that’s just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the major congressional office buildings – the Democrats have their own club just a few blocks away – which serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and cocktails, and is the site of constant political fundraising events when congress is in session. I infiltrated the club when writing a story for Harper’s back in 2008 and at the time, menu favorites in the Presidential Dining Room were the filet mignon with gorgonzola sauce and tuna steak with balsamic thyme glaze. 

Since January of 2023, Duncan has spent more than $18,000 at the Capitol Hill Club to cover 32 separate charges uniformly labeled as “Meals and Meetings” in his FEC filings. He used donor money to cover the cost of dining in Washington at Fogo de Chão, the high-end, all-you-can-eat Brazilian Steakhouse chain ($1,659.31), and at the Saskatoon Lodge in Greenville, South Carolina, which serves filet of kangaroo, elk, buffalo, antelope, alligator and ostrich ($1,103.47).

Duncan spent another $8,000, give or take a buck or two, on event tickets, of which he unbuckled over half for an evening sponsored by the South Carolina Republican Party. He dispensed another $1,600 on tickets to attend events at the Congressional Club, “the official club of congressional spouses,” $775.98 at the Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, $428.48 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and $129.50 for a Washington Nationals baseball game. 

The Pinehurst Resort is best known for its golf course and Duncan clearly enjoys spending time on the putting green. He’s spent some $6,000 at elite venues since 2013, including $465 at the Cascata Golf Club in the foothills of the River Mountain Range “just 30 minutes from the Las Vegas strip,” which “provides stunning vistas at every turn” and offers “tour caliber caddies, world-class practice facilities, delicious food and beverage offerings, and personalized service.”

Congressman Duncan also used his donor money at Proflowers in San Diego, where starstruck lovers can send “your loved ones a radiant and fresh bouquet of flowers delivered right to their doorstep!” He only spent $300 at the shop to send flowers to a special lady on three occasions, but it’s hard not to wonder why a South Carolina congressman who works in Washington would order from a firm headquartered in California and what precise political purpose he was purportedly fulfilling by sending flowers in the first place?

The pace of Duncan’s spending for what appear to be political purposes has picked up as the clock winds down on his congressional career. His single largest expenditure came on September 19, when he dished out $25,000 to pay for dues at the United States Association of Former Members of Congress, which accounted for virtually all of his spending in the category as reported to the FEC, with the remaining $3,250 covering dues at the Congressional Club. The Association is a rancid network of ex-lawmakers, almost all who went to to become lobbyists or influence peddlers of one type or another after departing Capitol Hill, and is a tip off that one day not far in the future there’ll be a new boutique Washington advocacy firm opening up named “Horndog and Liz,” or something quite similar.