Statehouse Watch

SC senators control more than 300 county magistrates and their jobs.

These judges handle thousands of relatively minor criminal and civil cases.

When magistrates finish their terms without being reappointed, they can serve indefinitely – and may feel pressured to please their local state senators to hang onto their paychecks.

Court records show that 73, or 23%, of 312 magistrates are in this position.

Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, has a bill to allow magistrates to continue working while in what’s called holdover status.

His bill to give double-digit pay raises to magistrates was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

18 - almost 40% - of the Senate’s 46 members are lawyers, the S.C. Bar, the state’s professional lawyers association, reported.

In Hutto’s Orangeburg County, 8 of 9 magistrates are in holdover status.

Sen. Ronnie Cromer who represents Lexington County voters, is a co-sponsor. He said he hadn’t read the bill “in its entirety” and didn’t know about the specific language allowing holdovers.

“We don’t want to put a holdover status to mean something that’s accepted – at least I don’t,” he said.

The problem with holdover status, said Cromer, chairman of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, is that affected magistrates “don’t really have a permanent job.

“It puts them in a position where they can’t really make any plans on finances because they don’t know whether some senator will appoint someone else.

“To me, it gives an unfair advantage to the senator over the magistrates.”

Senators can’t remove magistrates during their terms. The SC Supreme Court can sanction judges and remove them from office for ethical violations.

Magistrates, who aren’t required to be lawyers, handle speeding tickets and other relatively minor traffic offenses, crimes that carry maximum jail sentences of 30 days, and civil cases involving $7,500 or less.

State court records show that base pay ranges from $37,105 to $77,744.

Hutto’s bill will set base pay at $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000 depending on the county’s size. It would result in raises of 3% to 62%.

Cromer said the intent of bill is to equalize magistrates’ pay, noting that in larger counties, “they make more money,” while the “problem is that the smaller counties do an equal amount of work because they have fewer of them to hear the cases.”