Constitutional – Appropriations Act – In-District Compensation

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Petitioners met their burden to show the proviso is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt.

We permanently enjoined payment of the funds covered by the proviso.

In separating the government’s powers between the three branches of government, the federal and state constitutions confer to the legislative branch the exclusive authority to control and apportion the government’s money. Concomitantly, since our nation’s founding, there have been concerns with federal and state legislators wielding this power to increase their own compensation. The South Carolina Constitution addresses this concern by prohibiting legislators from raising the pay of current legislators, but permitting legislators to raise the pay of future legislators.

Our General Assembly has scrupulously honored this constitutional provision over the years, declining to raise legislators’ salaries at all for nearly 40 years. Nonetheless, in 1984, in recognition of the ever-growing extent of legislative duties outside of the regular session, the 105th General Assembly began appropriating $300 per legislator per month as a “legislative expense allowance” intended to reimburse legislators for their official expenses incurred while serving their districts outside of the statehouse. The General Assembly’s fiscally cautious approach to increasing legislators’ salaries and in-district compensation means neither of those amounts have kept pace with inflation; indeed, the current amounts appropriated for either are paltry in comparison to the time, energy, and effort it takes to serve South Carolinians as a state legislator. Perhaps in recognition of that fact, this year, the 126th General Assembly at last raised the amount of in-district compensation from $1,000 to $2,500 per month per legislator—almost equaling the amount of inflation from the last increase in 1994. However, unlike the 1994 increase (which was made effective for a future legislature), the proviso’s increase was to become effective at the start of the 2025-2026 fiscal year, while the 126th General Assembly still presided. Governor McMaster signed the 2025-2026 Appropriations Act, including the proviso, into law on June 3, 2025.

Three days later, Petitioners sought to enjoin the State Treasurer from disbursing the funds for the proviso under the Act. We issued a temporary injunction in June 2025. No payments pursuant to the proviso have been made at this point. There is no other language in the proviso or the Act as a whole that even hints that the legislators’ use of the funds is limited to only official expenses. Moreover, the amount of in-district compensation is characterized as true “compensation” (i.e., gross income) for the purposes of both federal income taxes and retirement benefits.

We have a duty to declare the legislative enactment unconstitutional. It is for this reason that we are constrained to find Petitioners met their burden to show the proviso is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt. No matter how well-intentioned or long-overdue, the result of the 126th General Assembly’s increase in in-district compensation without limiting language in the proviso or delaying implementation of the increase to the seating of the 127th General Assembly is to increase its own compensation, which our state constitution expressly prohibits.

Injunction granted.

Climer v. Loftis (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 010-054-25, 8 pp.) (Per Curiam) In the Original Jurisdiction. Richard A. Harpootlian, Andrew R. Hand, and Phillip Donald Barber, all of Richard A. Harpootlian, PA, of Columbia, for Petitioners David Wesley Climer and Carol Herring. M. Dawes Cooke Jr. and John William Fletcher, both of Barnwell Whaley Patterson & Helms, LLC, of Charleston; and Shawn David Eubanks and Christopher Alton Majure, both of South Carolina Treasurer’s Office, of Columbia, all for Respondent Curtis M. Loftis, Jr. Kenneth M. Moffitt, John Potter Hazzard V, and Cassidy Evans Murphy, all of Columbia; Sara Stinson Parrish, of Burr & Foreman LLP, of Daniel Island; and Tracey Colton Green, of Burr & Foreman LLP, of Columbia, all for Intervenor-Respondent President Thomas C. Alexander; Mark Carroll Moore and Michael Antonio Parente, both of Maynard Nexsen PC, of Columbia; and Andrew A. Mathias and Julia McDonald Tillman, both of Maynard Nexsen PC, of Greenville, all for Intervenor-Respondent Speaker G. Murrell Smith Jr. John Vernon Crangle, of Columbia, pro se Amicus Curiae. South Carolina Supreme Court