The S.C. Senate on April 23 passed its version of the 2025-26 state budget, a $14.4 billion spending blueprint chock full of popular line items like income tax cuts, teacher pay increases and new money for roads and bridges.
But it was the $18,000-a-year raise senators gave themselves that got all the attention — and the social media blowback. Lawmakers currently earn $10,400 a year salary plus district expenses.
“[This pay raise] sends the wrong message while families across our state are still struggling with inflation and the cost of living,” said Sen. Tom Fernandez (R-Dorchester), one of two no votes on the budget, in a widely shared April 24 social media post. “Leadership should come with sacrifice, not self-reward.”
Popular Palmetto State conservative influencers were quick to pile on.
“South Carolina lawmakers currently make between $34,000 and $38,000 a year … for a job that requires them to show up 51 out of 365 days,” conservative blogger Will Folks said in a video post. “And now they want us, the taxpayers, to pay more for them to profit from those positions of power?”
Nevertheless, supporters like Sen. Shane Martin (R-Spartanburg) argue that lawmakers, who haven’t seen a pay raise in 30 years, are overdue for a cost-of-living adjustment.
“We all know that we’ve been dealing with things in the budget to help other people deal with inflation,” Martin told his colleagues during the budget debate. “I think it’s time we take care and make sure the people who are elected to serve as elected representatives … keep up with our expenses.”
The 2025-26 budget will now move back to the S.C. House, which passed a broadly similar spending plan in March. Among the differences House and Senate negotiators will have to work out before the session comes to a close in May: increases in state employee health insurance premiums and in-state college tuitions under the House plan, which senators voted to freeze at current levels instead.
But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler says he’s not expecting a difficult negotiation.
“I’m sure they’ll find something in the House that they don’t agree with, but it [the Senate version] funds core functions of government [and] has the 6% income tax level that we were working for,” Peeler told reporters after the Senate vote. “Overall, it’s a good budget.”
Regarding the pay raise amendment, which he voted against, Peeler remained skeptical but measured.
“I just didn’t personally feel like I needed to do that, but each senator voted their conscience,” he said. “Everyone had their say.”
In other recent news
S.C. Senate votes to remove Loftis over $1.8B accounting error. South Carolina’s Republican-dominated Senate voted 33-8 on Monday to kick Republican state Treasurer Curtis Loftis out of office over a $1.8 billion accounting error that threatens the state’s financial rating.
State Republicans revive plans to cut taxes for wealthy. Statehouse Republicans are reviving a contentious proposal to advance some form of income tax reform by the end of the 2025 legislative session that state fiscal analysts say would slash taxes for the wealthy while low- and middle-class earners would see increases.
S.C. Senate vote on private school vouchers again delayed as time dwindles. Time is running out this year to reinstate a controversial program that gives thousands of South Carolina families taxpayer money to send their children to private schools.
S.C. senators push debate on strengthening state DUI laws to 2026. After postponing debate on the bill at multiple meetings, the Senate Judiciary Committee decided last week to carry over the bi-partisan legislation that aims to close the loopholes allowing people to escape convictions for driving under the influence until 2026.
Three gambling bills get debated at S.C. Statehouse. Three bills to legalize gambling received hearings April 22 in a major shift for the gaming industry and one of the first signs of life for a vice that has long faced headwinds in the socially conservative Southeast.
S.C. bill to protect public from politicians’ lawsuits advancing in legislature. Thirty-five states have laws that protect the free speech of citizens targeted by politicians who file frivolous, but expensive to defend, defamation claims. An S.C. House bill that’s now advancing in the Senate would make South Carolina the 36th.
Protester disrupts introduction of new S.C.-Israel Caucus. A pro-Palestine protester briefly interrupted a press conference introducing the S.C. General Assembly’s new South Carolina-Israel Caucus, a bipartisan group led by Columbia Democratic Rep. Beth Bernstein. According to reports, the protester was led out of the room by law enforcement but not arrested.
Proposed state anti-vaccine mandate puts S.C. pharmacists in tough position. Legislation in the Senate dubbed the Medical Informed Consent Act, sponsored by Sen. Shane Martin, R-Spartanburg, would eliminate any possibility for the state or a corporation operating in South Carolina to mandate vaccines for their employees.
Prisons director expected to become new U.S. attorney. Bryan Stirling, director of South Carolina’s prisons agency since 2013, is expected to be the state’s next U.S. attorney, according to multiple media reports.
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