South Carolina treasurer appears to survive attempt to kick him out of office

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Republican South Carolina Treasurer Curtis Loftis appears likely to stay in office for at least the rest of the year.

The Republican-dominated House has decided not to take up a resolution passed by the Senate to kick Loftis out of office because of his role in a phantom $1.8 billion account that showed up on the state’s books but had barely any real money in it and the failure to report it to lawmakers for years.

The Senate sent the resolution to remove Loftis to the House on April 21. House Speaker Murrell Smith said there just isn’t enough time to take it up before the session ends May 8.

“We’re going to concentrate on passing legislation now and we’ll make a decision after session concludes on the path forward with the treasurer,” Smith told South Carolina Public Radio.

The decision leaves Loftis open to run for a fifth four-year term in 2026. One of his arguments to stay in office was it wasn’t fair to overturn the results of an election.

“I am grateful for the House leadership’s decision today to choose the people’s business over political theatre. I feel sure that South Carolinians are thankful that they are the first priority, and political games are not. I am ready to turn my focus back to doing the people’s work,” Loftis wrote in a statement.

The Senate voted 33-8 to remove Loftis after an extraordinary hearing with 23 Republicans voting yes. It was the culmination of over two years of investigation by senators that began when state accountants unintentionally exaggerated money given to colleges and universities by $3.5 billion.

That led to the discovery of an account error that started a decade ago when the state was changing from one accounting system to another. If accountants couldn’t balance the entries in the two sets of books as they moved thousands of accounts with different definitions, they kept adding it to a special account year after year until it grew to $1.8 billion.

It took forensic accountants, who were paid millions of dollars in fees, to finally unravel that nearly all of the money was not real cash but just an accumulation of errors.

Loftis has called the Senate investigation a witch hunt. He repeatedly said no money went missing and the errors were not made in his office, although others have testified differently. The treasurer said continuing to focus on the mistakes threatens the state’s strong credit rating.

Just because eight Republican senators voted against the resolution doesn’t mean they back Loftis. Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said he simply thought his fellow senators did not make a strong enough case to remove him from office.

“I’d vote for a monkey over Curtis Loftis. I think he has no business being treasurer and my hope is Republicans will put up a good candidate to run against him,” Massey said.

This is the first year of a two year session, so the resolution to dump Loftis, which is currently in a House committee, will stay alive when lawmakers return to Columbia in 2026.

Filing for office starts next March with the Republican primary for treasurer, governor and other statewide offices happening in June.