SC Supreme Court declines to halt proceedings for state treasurer's removal
South Carolina Treasurer Curtis Loftis pictured Monday, April 14, 2025, at the Greenville County GOP convention in Greenville. The South Carolina Supreme Court will not stop efforts to remove state Loftis from office. (Photo by Mark Susko/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — The South Carolina Supreme Court will not stop efforts to remove state Treasurer Curtis Loftis from office.
'This matter is not yet ripe for the court's consideration,' the justices wrote in a joint opinion Thursday, throwing out the treasurer's lawsuit that sought to halt the so-called 'removal on address' process.
That means senators can continue with proceedings as scheduled Monday, when they'll weigh whether Loftis 'willfully neglected his duties' for his role in a $1.8 billion accounting error that went unreported for nearly a decade.
For more than a year, Loftis has maintained he did nothing wrong and compared the Senate-led investigation to a political 'witch hunt.' Loftis said he's prepared to make his case.
'We know this process will be more political theatrics than the formal trial one would expect to overturn a statewide election,' he said in a statement. 'We stand ready to show the citizens of South Carolina that the State Treasurer's Office has faithfully fulfilled our statutory duties to provide core financial management services to state government. I certainly hope that the senators will agree with us once all the information is shared.'
South Carolina's accounting problems, which involved almost no actual money, stem from the changeover from the state's legacy accounting system to a new one.
During the process, a series of electronic ledger entries made it appear the state had $1.8 billion sitting untouched in a fund with no record of where it was supposed to go. The state's financial officials never alerted the General Assembly to the issue.
A forensic accounting firm hired by the state ultimately found staff had made the entries in error and all but $200 million of the money was never real.
Facing his own 'removal on address,' former Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom — the state's chief accountant for 20 years — resigned in 2023 over a separate but related accounting blunder. And former State Auditor George Kennedy resigned in January.
But Loftis has refused to step down and re-affirmed to reporters that no matter what happens Monday, he will be running for re-election in 2026 even if he has to go deep into his own pockets to fund a campaign.
As an elected official, Loftis can't be fired. But the Legislature can remove him using an obscure constitutional measure, which has a lower bar than impeachment and applies when an official commits willful neglect of duty rather than a serious crime.
Under the process, the governor must remove an executive officer from office if two-thirds of both chambers of the Legislature vote to remove him.
While the Senate has invoked the procedure, it's unclear what the House will do — if anything. Only Democrat Rep. Heather Bauer of Columbia has introduced legislation calling on the House to start impeachment proceedings.
'I don't believe the Senate thinks they can actually get me out of office,' Loftis told the SC Daily Gazette. 'They just want to make my life miserable so I leave.'
In his statement, Loftis also noted his court case 'was not dismissed on the merits.' Rather, the justices, citing past case law, declined to declare the process unconstitutional because Loftis had yet to go through the removal proceedings.
The court dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning the treasurer could file again at a later date.
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