South Carolina’s Republican governor keeps veto pen mostly capped for budget

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The invitation from South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said he was bringing reporters together Wednesday to talk about his vetoes in the state budget.

But instead, it was a victory lap for both the Republican governor and the Republican-dominated General Assembly as McMaster spent his time talking about all his priorities that the legislature kept in the spending plan — not the 10 things worth $10,000 he took out of the 2025-26 fiscal year budget.

It was a stark reminder after nine years in office how much different McMaster is than his previous Republican predecessors, governors who relished in fighting the General Assembly, then often ripped into them or ignored their ideas on how to spend the state’s billions of dollars.

“Back in the old days, nobody was talking to anybody,” McMaster said, repeating his favorite tagline of “communication, collaboration and cooperation.”

McMaster issued 10 vetoes from the state’s $14.5 billion spending plan that starts July 1. Just one struck money from the budget — $10,000 for what McMaster said was a duplicative effort to review a state agency.

Ten years ago, Gov. Nikki Haley struck 87 items from the $7 billion budget totaling more than $18 million. And in 2005, Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed 163 items worth $96 million from the $5.8 billion spending plan. A year later, an exasperated Sanford vetoed the entire budget and lawmakers quickly overrode him by wide margins.

Instead of spending, McMaster’s handful of vetoes were on rules like getting rid of a requirement that visitors to the new Pine Island State Park make reservations or striking out of the budget a provision allowing some school districts to use private companies for security.

There are so few vetoes that lawmakers don’t expect to return to the Statehouse to try to override them.

McMaster kept what is effectively an $18,000 per year raise for the General Assembly in the budget.

Lawmakers will see their “in-district compensation” — money set aside for legislative duties that has few limits on how it can be spent — increase from $1,000 a month to $2,500 a month for all 46 senators and 124 House members.

The monthly stipend for lawmakers has not been increased in about 30 years. Their in-district compensation would increase from $12,000 a year to $30,000.

Lawmakers also get an annual salary of $10,400 that has not changed since 1990. In addition, they get money for meals, mileage to drive to Columbia and hotel rooms while in session.

The rest of the spending plan was much less controversial. There are pay raises for teachers, and the state’s highest income tax rate will be cut from 6.2% to 6%.

There is $200 million to fix bridges, $35 million to pay for cleanup from Hurricane Helene last year and $50 million for a program to let parents use tax money to pay private school tuition that will undergo court scrutiny.

About 80% of the more than $14 billion the state will spend next year is what the governor asked for back in January when he suggested a spending plan to lawmakers, a relationship he has carefully cultivated since 2017.

“Many of us are like a family. We go back a long way,” McMaster said. “You try to understand the other fellow’s point of view. sometimes he’s right and I’m wrong. sometimes it’s the other way. Sometimes we’re talking about the same things but using different words.”