SC House speaker says its up to voters on whether Treasurer Loftis keeps job
Treasurer Curtis Loftis’ fate about whether he will keep his job will be up to voters as House Speaker Murrell Smith said the South Carolina House does not have the appetite to take up a resolution to remove the statewide officer.
The speaker’s statement on the removal resolution comes weeks after the Senate voted to oust the treasurer from office over a $1.8 billion accounting error.
That resolution came late to the House in the session, which sent the resolution to a committee to consider. But now that session has ended, the next time the resolution can be considered isn’t until January.
“I think that there’s not the will to remove the treasurer from what we have discussed with the vast majority of the members of our body,” Smith told reporters after the 2025 session ended. “The people will speak on the treasurer come next primary season and or next November, and that’s where it is.”
He said the House will focus on what the state needs to defend itself in the ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the state’s accounting issues.
“I think it’s fair to say that the House believes that removing him is not the appropriate action that we need to take and that we need to let the voters decide whether they want to keep him in office,” Smith said.
Over the last several days of session, state Rep. Heather Bauer, D-Richland, tried multiple times to force a vote on removing the treasurer over the $1.8 billion accounting error.
But the move was repeatedly objected to by House Republicans in the chamber.
“There is no reason why we are going back to our taxpayers and telling them that yes our treasurer told us that we had $1.8 billion, challenged us to come look at it, and then told us it didn’t exist, and he didn’t get fired from his job,” House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford told reporters. “The House needed to take that up and in my opinion, one more Republican who can’t find billions of dollars needed to be fired.”
An outside forensic auditor found that most of the $1.8 billion did not exist and that the comptroller-general’s, state auditor’s and the treasurer’s offices were aware of the accounting issue for years without alerting the General Assembly.
Ignoring calls to resign from senators, Loftis announced last month he would seek reelection next year after saying in 2024 that his current term would be his last.
Former Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom resigned in 2023 after he disclosed he inflated the state’s cash balances by $3.5 billion over the course of a decade. State Auditor George Kennedy resigned earlier this year after outside forensic issued their report this year.
“I am ready to turn my focus back to doing the people’s work – to stabilize our state’s financial system and put this unfortunate chapter of fighting baseless claims by a few politically-motivated senators behind us,” Loftis said in a statement late last month after it was clear the House did not plan to turn its attention to removal resolution late in this year’s session.
The Senate in April voted 33-8 to remove the treasurer for willful neglect of duty, but a two-thirds vote of both chambers is needed to remove a statewide constitutional officer.
Loftis’ office, however, is now under a state inspector general’s office investigation over how it operates.
The removal resolution for now has been sent to the House Ways and Means Committee for its consideration and is available in case there’s damning findings from the SEC probe or inspector general investigation.
“I think the point of removing him, I do not think there’s the will in the House for that,” Smith said.
This story was originally published May 9, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
