No, you can’t believe Curtis Loftis. He just compared himself to MLK | Opinion
It wasn’t me!
It’s not my fault!
You just don’t understand!
To these weak excuses — the time-worn trickery that most children learn at a young age doesn’t work — South Carolina state Treasurer Curtis Loftis added a new tactic this week to try to win over the 41 state senators who were considering voting to recommend his removal from office.
He compared his plight to the slings and arrows — and worse — suffered by Martin Luther King Jr.
“Courage” is the word Loftis used to describe his refusal to be held accountable for a $1.8 billion accounting error that has cost the state tens of millions of dollars to correct, puts it at risk of big penalties in a federal investigation and threatens the state’s borrowing costs and capacity.
“I’ve studied great men and women in history that have stood up to the establishment, stood up to the status quo. From Martin Luther King to Alfred Dreyfuss to my friend Donald Trump, they’ve all been repeatedly investigated and attacked because they stood up to the establishment,” Loftis told the Senate Monday. “I want to make a simple point, that standing your ground in the face of political adversity is not an act of defiance. It’s an act of courage.”
Political adversity? Loftis is a liar.
He is downplaying a problem so big and so real that it has led to the departures of the state auditor, the state comptroller general and Loftis’ two top deputies as well as an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into inaccurate (i.e. illegal) financial statements (that by definition mislead bond investors). Loftis calls all this a “contrived controversy” and a “weaponized issue” when he and most senators are in the GOP. He said it’s all so complex it has “overwhelmed most observers, the press and elected officials.”
Contrived? Weaponized? Overwhelmed? I don’t think so. In fact, I just explained it very quickly, accurately and clearly. To paraphrase a better writer, Loftis doth protest too much, methinks.
A two-thirds Senate majority needed to pass this measure saw right through Loftis’ feigned disbelief and misdirection, voting 33-8 in favor of removing him after a 10-hour hearing. It’s now up to the House of Representatives, also dominated by Republicans, to hold its own vote with a two-thirds threshold. When and even whether such a vote will be held are sadly open questions even though the longer Loftis stays, the more he will cost the state he purports to want to help.
“I assure you that I remain resolute,” Loftis told the Senate. “I will not turn my back on the voters who elected me. I will not betray their trust. I took an oath and I intend to follow it.”
But he didn’t follow it.
The Senate voted to remove him for “willful neglect,” meaning he did not do his duty.
He could help by leaving. As Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Berkeley, said Monday, the auditor and comptroller general took responsibility for mistakes and resigned, doing “the honorable thing.”
The House of Representatives has until May 2026, the end of next year’s legislative session, to decide whether to consider the Senate’s formal resolution to remove the treasurer. There is no reason to wait that long. It may be unreasonable to expect the House to consider Loftis’ fate before the current session ends May 8 but it could easily discuss it over the summer and not wait until next year. A lengthy delay won’t be viewed favorably by many, including investigators.
“If I was a bond rating agency and I was watching this very carefully, I would be concerned about the state of South Carolina leaving the architect of the problem in place more so than the state of South Carolina taking a proactive approach to getting rid of the cancer,” Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, R-Georgetown, told me. “It’s not our fault that we lose our credit rating if we lose our credit rating. It’s the treasurer’s fault. The blame needs to be placed squarely on him.”
Loftis remains indignant. Monday, he and three lawyers — one of whom briefly represented Trump during one of his impeachments, one of whom works for the state Treasurer’s Office and one of whom is a former U.S. attorney for South Carolina — tried every strategy they could to prevent the state Senate from voting to remove him from office.
They said the process — outlined in the state Constitution — didn’t amount to due process. They said Loftis — whose staff knew about the accounting error that originated in 2015 but supposedly never told the treasurer before it became public in 2023 — was a good manager of money and people. They said voters should be able to decide Loftis’ fate in 2026 and hold those who voted against him accountable.
Could Loftis win if given the chance to run? He could.
He unseated his predecessor, a fellow Republican, in 2010; easily defeated a Republican challenger in 2014 and faced only a Democrat and a third-party candidate in 2018 and then just the same third-party candidate in 2022.
He is already using the Senate’s vote against him to drum up support for his re-election from anyone who wrongly believes this is a witch hunt and won’t read up on it. To hear his lawyer Deborah Barbier tell it, he is “the most popular statewide official in the history of South Carolina.”
I didn’t get those vibes when Loftis abruptly ended my first interview with him about this, which I published in its entirety, a year ago. Even then, I said he shouldn’t be asked to resign until more information came to light. As news of the SEC probe spread, I called on him to resign in January. This month, I urged someone — anyone — to run against him if he does as he says and seeks re-election in 2026. He’s got to go.
Here today, I reiterate my call for a serious, responsible candidate to emerge now to challenge Loftis next year.
Of course, officials should uphold their duties to the state constitution to remove constitutional officers who are derelict in their duties. But if the House fails to act (and that would be a tremendous failure on its part) someone needs to beat Loftis at the polls.
House members, South Carolina voters and potential challengers all need to realize what’s at stake if the SEC probe and Loftis’ intransigence continue.
We should all listen to the Senate.
“Because of his failures, the self-proclaimed best friend of the taxpayer is costing the taxpayers tens of millions in legal, auditing and oversight fees,” Grooms said. “And these costs to the taxpayer are just beginning. With friends like this, who needs tax-and-spend liberals?”
“Curtis Loftis is no Donald Trump,” Goldfinch said. “And he’s certainly no Martin Luther King.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "No, you can’t believe Curtis Loftis. He just compared himself to MLK | Opinion."