The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled state lawmakers improperly gave themselves a $1,500 a month raise in a ruling that also will end up cutting the pay of legislators by thousands of dollars.
The justices ruled unanimously Wednesday that the money that is called “in-district compensation” counts as salary and therefore the increase can't start until General Assembly faces election again at the end of 2026. The budget item earlier this year made the raise immediate.
It also tied the raise to the $1,000 that all 46 senators and 124 House members receive for their expenses meaning until the General Assembly can pass another proposal, their paychecks will drop by $1,000 a month.
The suit was brought by a Republican senator who voted against the proposal along with one of his constituents.
During arguments before the state Supreme Court last month, attorneys for the House and Senate emphasized the raise was for expenses and not salary and was exempt from the waiting period.
The justices instead sided with Sen. Wes Climer's attorney who argued lawmakers themselves called it compensation and since they aren’t required to provide any receipts or documentation, it is salary.
In their opinion, the justices wrote they understand the compensation hasn't been raised since 1994 and “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.”
But they also pointed out until this year the General Assembly scrupulously honored the constitutional requirement that lawmakers' salaries not be raised until the next legislature is seated.
“Where a legislative enactment clearly contravenes our constitution, we have a duty to declare the legislative enactment unconstitutional,” the justices wrote.
The ruling means when the part-time lawmakers return to the South Carolina capitol in January, they will get a lump sum of $10,400 to account for their $260 a day compensation for all of 2026. The members also can get expenses for mileage to drive to Columbia and a hotel room.
The move to even take away the $1,000 a month they have been getting for deacdes took legislators by surprise. Some lawmakers said they have had to use their own private salaries for town halls, equipment needed to help constituents or common expenses to serve the public.
During the arguments in October, the justices laid out ways lawmakers can fix the problem.
They said legislators could have officially called the raise an expense fund instead of compensation. They could have held off paying the extra money until 2027 after the next election for all members of the General Assembly, or they could have separated the raise in the budget from the money lawmakers already get paid so it all wouldn’t have gone away, the justices said.
The in-district compensation raise was first suggested toward the end of the budget process by Republican Sen. Shane Martin. He spent about 30 seconds on the Senate floor saying the first raise in 30 years was needed because inflation and a world where there are more expenses means the amount was no longer adequate.
South Carolina already has some of the lowest compensated legislators in the country. Comparing pay is hard because it includes salary, expenses and mileage, but the combination of $22,400 for salary and in-district expenses is well below other states with part-time legislatures like Alabama and Tennessee, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
It is a lot more than the $100 a year plus mileage that New Hampshire lawmakers get, but well below California and New York, where being a legislator is considered a full-time job with a salary over $100,000 a year.