Latest Updates

  • State's top court focusing on free-market dispute over eye exams

    By RICK BRUNDRETT Editor’s Note: This story is part of a two-article package published today. The other story can be found here. Although eye exam businesses and rural transportation companies are clearly different from each other, an eye-exam case before the S.C. Supreme Court might ultimately affect the regulation of...
    Rick Brundrett

    Written by
    July 11, 2025

  • SC rural transportation company seeks regulatory relief

    By RICK BRUNDRETT Editor’s Note: This story is part of a two-article package published today. The other story can be found here. The video component for both stories can be found here. David Crawford will tell you he’s been an Edisto Island musician for 43 years, noting that’s how he...
    Rick Brundrett

    Written by
    July 11, 2025

  • Charleston’s climate lawsuit is a dead-end for South Carolina

    Editor’s note: This article is an opinion piece written by Michael Burris, CEO of the South Carolina Policy Council – the parent organization of The Nerve. Later this month, a Charleston court will hear the case about whether to dismiss a climate lawsuit that never should have been filed. As...
    Michael Burris

    Written by
    May 28, 2025

  • Hidden costs: How state agencies quietly spend above their budgets

    By RICK BRUNDRETT The adopted state budget for the current fiscal year that ends June 30 totaled more than $42 billion, though a low-key state office quietly approved an additional $858 million in collective “other” or federal fund spending requests after the fiscal year started, records show. And since the...
    Rick Brundrett

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    May 05, 2025

  • SC awash in multibillion-dollar surplus of 'other' funds

    By RICK BRUNDRETT In South Carolina, $8.6 billion represents about $1,600 for every man, woman and child. It’s also the total amount of “other” fund surpluses that state agencies carried into the start of this fiscal year, The Nerve found in a review of records provided by the S.C. Department...
    Rick Brundrett

    Written by
    April 23, 2025

  • Taxpayer tab now at $8M to investigate disputed $1.8B, related matters

    UPDATE: 4/21/25 - After hours of debate, the S.C. Senate voted 33-8 to remove state Treasurer Curtis Loftis from office for “willful neglect of duty” under a provision of the S.C. Constitution that requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers. The removal resolution will go to the S.C. House for...
    Rick Brundrett

    Written by
    March 31, 2025

  • State agencies reveal hiring outside lawyers after initial denials

    UPDATE: 4/21/25 - After hours of debate, the S.C. Senate voted 33-8 to remove state Treasurer Curtis Loftis from office for “willful neglect of duty” under a provision of the S.C. Constitution that requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers. The removal resolution will go to the S.C. House for...
    Rick Brundrett

    Written by
    March 31, 2025

  • Turf War: How a liquor-liability reform bill died in the S.C. Senate

    By RICK BRUNDRETT In South Carolina, lawyers represent far less than 1% of the state’s total workforce, but they make up nearly 30% of the 170-member S.C. Legislature. And in the club of 50 lawyer-legislators, those who practice personal injury law or whose law firm colleagues handle those types of...
    Rick Brundrett

    Written by
    February 26, 2025

  • McMaster's priorities: Reduced taxes, school choice, civil liability reform

    By RICK BRUNDRETT In his eighth State of the State Address on Wednesday before the S.C. General Assembly, Gov. Henry McMaster outlined his priorities as South Carolina’s longest-serving governor, including lowering the income tax rate further, reforming civil liability laws and improving school choice opportunities. The Republican governor, who took...
    Rick Brundrett

    Written by
    January 31, 2025

  • State treasurer dodges key questions on $1.8B controversy

    By RICK BRUNDRETT Under questioning last April at a state legislative hearing, longtime S.C. Treasurer Curtis Loftis answered “yes” when asked by then-Sen. Mike Fanning if the mystery $1.8 billion was “real money that I can touch,” and if it could be withdrawn “today.” Loftis, a Republican who was first...
    Rick Brundrett

    Written by
    January 29, 2025