Former SC Rep. RJ May excluded from SC lawmaker retroactive pay proposal
After a state Supreme Court decision yanked the General Assembly’s $1,000 monthly stipend, South Carolina lawmakers want to get it back this year — though former state Rep. RJ May will likely be left out.
South Carolina lawmakers typically receive $1,000 a month for in-district expenses. However, when the state Supreme Court ruled lawmakers weren’t allowed to raise that amount to $2,500, it also meant lawmakers didn’t get the $1,000.
Now, a bipartisan coalition of Senators want to retroactively pay legislators $1,000 a month from last July. But May, who was sentenced in federal court on distributing child pornography charges Wednesday, likely won’t receive in-district expenses for the short time he was in office.
The resolution says lawmakers who were “convicted of, plead guilty or plead nolo contendere to a felony during the fiscal year and prior to the effective date of this act” will not receive the monthly allowance.
May pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges in September. He resigned from the state House in August, just more than a month after the state fiscal year begins. May was suspended from the House of Representatives in June, after he was initially indicted.
The proposal to pay legislators $1,000 monthly this year was introduced Tuesday and passed by a preliminary panel of Senators on Wednesday.
Under the resolution, members only receive compensation for the months they served in the legislature. Several lawmakers resigned from the state House this year, and five new lawmakers were sworn in this week, about halfway through the fiscal year.
The proposal expires at the end of June, and the General Assembly could pass a separate in-district compensation plan this year.
“This is merely the restoration of what everyone anticipated that we would get coming in,” Massey said when introducing the bill Tuesday. “This does not deal with any kind of a pay increase at all.”
Lawmakers tried to bump up their pay by $1,500 a month in the budget last year, but state Sen. Wes Climer, R-York, and another York County resident challenged the increase in court. The South Carolina Supreme Court tossed the increase in November, which halted all in-district compensation.