South Carolina’s elected treasurer is asking the state’s highest court to stop a hearing later this month to start the process of removing him from office
South Carolina’s highest court dragged into fight over $1.8 billion accounting errorBy JEFFREY COLLINSAssociated PressThe Associated PressCOLUMBIA, S.C.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s elected treasurer is asking the state’s highest court to stop a hearing later this month to start the process of removing him from office over a $1.8 billion accounting error that has plagued the state for nearly a decade.
The Republican-dominated South Carolina Senate has set a April 21 date for a hearing on Treasurer Curtis Loftis saying the Republican in charge of the state’s bank accounts willfully neglected his duty. It cited one part of the state constitution.
Treasurer Curtis Loftis said in a state Supreme Court filing late Thursday that instead the only legal way to remove him from office is a different section of the constitution which requires impeachment like the U.S. government. That process has to start in the House and would involve proceedings similar to a trial.
The $1.8 billion did not exist as cash but showed up on the books as the state shifted accounting systems in the 2010s. Senators said Loftis did not tell them about the mistakes as required by law.
Supreme Court showdown
Loftis said a Supreme Court ruling is needed to clarify if the Senate can use its process, where there are no witnesses called, to overturn the results of his last election in 2022. Loftis is serving his fourth term.
“The people of South Carolina deserve a process that upholds the law and the democratic principles they have entrusted to us,” Loftis said in a statement.
The Republican leadership of the Senate has not responded to the court filing. But they have said before that both methods of removing someone from office are valid or they wouldn’t be in the constitution.
If at least two-thirds of the Senate votes to remove Loftis later this month, then the process moves on to the House where a two-thirds vote would also be needed.
Time could become an issue, whether the hearing is delayed or not. The General Assembly’s 2025 session ends on May 8 and no arrangements have been made to let lawmakers come back and hear the matter. Also no Republican leaders in the House have come out to forcefully call for the treasurer’s removal.
A statewide office holder has never been removed in this way in South Carolina’s more than two centuries as a U.S. state.
Problems with the Senate hearing
A lawyer for Loftis wrote the Senate earlier this week to detail problems she has with the hearing from having less than three weeks to prepare to not putting the senators presenting the case against Loftis under oath and not allowing Loftis’ lawyers to ask them questions.
The Senate will meet at noon on April 21 for the hearing. The two Republican senators leading the investigation, Sens. Larry Grooms and Stephen Goldfinch, will get 90 minutes to present their case against Loftis. The treasurer’s team will get three hours to answer and then the senators will get 30 minutes to rebut.
The rest of the Senate will then get 10 minutes each to ask any questions of the presenting senators or Loftis’ team.
Loftis’ attorney Deborah Barbier said in her letter she didn’t understand why she only had 19 days to prepare for a hearing that would remove from office a man who won nearly 80% of the vote in 2022 and didn’t have a Democrat run against him.
“It would be far more appropriate to leave this decision to the South Carolina electorate in November of 2026,” Barbier wrote.
Investigation in money that didn’t exist
A 49-page report released last month on the accounting error said South Carolina’s books have been inaccurate for 10 years and continue to not be corrected. The state paid millions of dollars to forensic accountants who eventually determined the missing money was not cash the state never spent, but instead was a series of errors in balancing books and shifting accounts from one system to another that were never reconciled.
The problems started as the state changed computer systems in the 2010s. When the process was finished, workers couldn’t figure out why the books were more than $1 billion out of whack.
The error came to light after Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom resigned in March 2023 over a different accounting mistake and his replacement reported the mystery account.
The report said Loftis not only ignored or failed to find mistakes made by his office but also rejected or slowed down attempts to independently investigate the problem.
A Senate subcommittee has held hearings to question Loftis under oath. They have been contentious. Loftis has slammed papers, accused senators of a witch hunt and threatened to get up and leave.
