SC House focused on other bills rather than treasurer. Why Loftis may be safe for now
Even though Treasurer Curtis Loftis may be one vote by the state House of Representatives away from being removed from office, his biggest ally to prevent that, at least in 2025, may be the legislative calendar.
With a handful of legislative days remaining in this year’s session and an agreement on what lawmakers can take up after May 8 is limited to the state’s annual spending plan.
And House Speaker Murrell Smith said the focus will on passing legislation currently on the chamber’s calendar.
Not even conference committees trying to work out compromises on other bills will be able to have the legislature come back after the second Thursday in May, unless two-thirds of the General Assembly vote to change the agreement.
The Senate on April 21 voted 33-8 to remove Loftis for willful neglect of duty. The move comes after a $1.8 billion accounting error where most of that money did not exist. For Loftis to lose his job, two-thirds of the House would have to vote to remove as well.
An independent forensic audit found that the offices of the treasurer, comptroller-general and state auditor all knew about the accounting issue for years but didn’t alert the General Assembly.
Previous Comptroller-General Richard Eckstrom resigned in 2023 because of a $3.5 billion accounting error, and State Auditor George Kennedy resigned after an independent forensic audit found that most of the $1.8 billion did not exist.
Disclosure of the accounting issues has led to an ongoing investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into the state’s financial records. The state spent $3 million on the outside forensic audit to determine if the $1.8 billion was real. The General Assembly also approved hiring a financial compliance officer to oversee the treasurer, comptroller general and state auditor’s offices. Gov. Henry McMaster has signed the legislation.
The House, which now has the Loftis removal resolution, has other issues such as K-12 educational scholarship accounts, liquor liability, energy and the budget that most likely will take priority for the last days of session.
“We got a lot of things on our agenda that we’ve got to get done, and this wasn’t one of the things that we had prioritized two weeks ago,” House Majority Leader Davey Hiott said in an interview with The State.
Hiott said the sine die agreement prevents them from bringing up.
Loftis, who is running for reelection in 2026, remained confident he would stay in office saying he had assurances from House leadership they wouldn’t take up the issue. He would not disclose who he spoke to.
“I have a lot of respect for the House. It’s very different from the Senate. They run every two years. They know from whence they come, and I don’t think that they have an appetite for this. I know that leadership doesn’t, and I hope that stays the same,” Loftis said in an interview with The State after the Senate’s vote to oust him.
Hiott and Smith, however, said they have had no conversations with Loftis.
“Well, I don’t think we’ve said we’re not going to do anything,” Smith said. “The Loftis resolution is assigned to the Ways and Means Committee, and they’re going to develop a process and see where the body is.”
Smith added he intends to review what the Senate has reported.
“There’s some issues that have come up, and we will deal with those as we move forward,” Smith said. “But at this point, I think it’s unfair for anybody to start making preconceived ideas until they see things and I intend to read what happened in the Senate.”
The removal resolution was formally sent to the House Ways and Means Committee for consideration because it has overseen discussions into the state’s accounting issues.
“There’s obviously a public interest in this Loftis issue. I’m confident that the guardrails we put in place as a result of the information we’ve learned through this whole process and the recommendations (from) the AlixPartners puts the state in a safe place and we can deal with the political questions later,” said state Rep. Micah Caskey, R-Lexington, who serves on Ways and Means and was present for the Senate’s Loftis removal hearing.
Still, the House is researching how to best carryout a removal vote if they ultimately have the appetite, including how many days to spend on the issue and whether a hearing is necessary.
State Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley, has pushed the House to vote on the resolution, arguing that his subcommittee, which carried out the Senate’s investigation into the state’s accounting issues, has already done all the necessary legwork, pointing to three reports his panel has published.
“Far be it a senator to tell a House member what to do, but the hard work has already been done, “ Grooms said after voting to remove Loftis. “Those three documents are well written. They are well footnoted, with plenty of documentation. All the information they need is right there.”
Caskey would not discount that work.
“They have done a ton of work on this, and it’s been very useful and we’ll use that as a part of whatever it is that we come up with,” Caskey said. “We’re certainly not going to ignore their hard work, but I’m sure the senator understands this is a bicameral system, and this is a body that’s going to do its business in its way, and as the Senate does its business in its way.”
Loftis continues to criticize the Senate’s investigation and what it produced.
“I just can’t imagine that any adult would accept those reports,” Loftis said in his interview with The State.
This story was originally published April 28, 2025 at 9:52 AM.
