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by WILL FOLKS
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South Carolina lawmakers who awarded themselves an unconstitutional pay raise earlier this year – a move temporarily blocked by the S.C. supreme court – were badly exposed in court filings published this week.
As FITSNews exclusively reported back in April, the overwhelming majority of South Carolina’s “Republican” supermajority voted to give themselves an additional $25,500 apiece in taxpayer-funded compensation prior to November 2026.
The problem with that tone-deaf decision (well, one problem)? Lawmakers are constitutionally prohibited from giving themselves pay raises. They can – and have – increased their pay on many occasions in the past, but they are only allowed to do so if these raises take effect after the next election cycle.
These raises – which were rubber-stamped by status quo governor Henry McMaster – would have taken effect immediately, depriving taxpayers of an estimated $4.3 million in illegal compensation.
Thankfully, state senator Wes Climer of Rock Hill, S.C. filed a lawsuit to block the pay raises – and the high court unanimously agreed to keep them from being paid out while the issue was debated.
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“The court has not permanently blocked the proviso, but determined the money should not be paid out while the constitutionality of the raises are in question,” this author noted in our coverage of the court’s order.
Last Wednesday (October 22, 2025), justices heard oral arguments in this case – with chief justice John Kittredge at one point inquiring as to why the S.C. General Assembly changed the name of this particular pot of money shortly after they began distributing it in 1983. Originally referred to as a “legislative expense allowance,” the name of the payout was later changed to “in-district compensation” – and codified by lawmakers as “earnable compensation.”
In other words, lawmakers clearly specified it as income.
“No pension system anywhere includes out-of-pocket expense reimbursements with earned compensation,” attorney Phillip Barber wrote in a filing (.pdf) submitted to the supreme court on Monday (October 27, 2025), arguing lawmakers’ own definition of the “proves the ‘in-district expense’ payment… is earned compensation, not reimbursement for un-itemized out-of-pocket expenses.”
Barber works for former S.C. senator Dick Harpootlian, who represents Climer and state retiree Carol Herring – the other plaintiff in this high-profile case.
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Rather than admitting the obvious unconstitutionality of their pay raise, legislative leaders have hired well-heeled attorneys to argue in support of their action – amassing huge legal bills in the process.
As previously noted, FITSNews has no objection to lawmakers being paid more money – so long as they accompany any funding increases with stringent anti-corruption legislation. In fact, eight years ago we proposed an inflation-adjusted $80,000 annual salary for lawmakers – although this pay hike would have been accompanied by “the most draconian anti-corruption measures South Carolina state government has ever seen.”
Under our proposal, lawmakers would have received a larger base salary – enabling more non-attorneys to serve – but their ability to profit from elected office would have been eliminated. Included within this draconian ban would have been constitutional restrictions on legislative meddling in other branches of government – including the elimination of the current legislatively controlled judicial selection racket.
“Until those reforms are enacted, lawmakers should not receive any additional taxpayer-funded compensation,” we editorialized at the time.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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