COLUMBIA, S.C. - Senate sessions may be carried live on the Internet, but forget about sending them e-mail while they're on the Senate floor.

For at least six years, the Senate's e-mail system has been set up to block all incoming e-mail for senators while they're on the floor, Senate Clerk Jeff Gossett said.

That apparently went unnoticed until Wednesday during the state budget debate as Sen. Brad Hutto waited for an e-mail that never arrived.

When the Orangeburg Democrat checked into it, he found out about the block. By Thursday, he had arranged to have his e-mail unblocked, but was steaming.

"The rest of you out there, if you want to hear from the public, you better make that request," Hutto said.

Some legislators didn't like the suggestion that e-mail was being blocked while the Senate debated the state budget.

"To tell them there's some plot to block e-mail while we're having a debate is a poor inference," said Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island.

Gossett said that Senate's e-mail system captures all messages sent to senators when they go into session and then sends it to them when they finish for the day. "There's nothing sinister about it," he said.

That policy was implemented long before Gossett took the job in 2001, he said. Staffers around at the time said that the policy was put in place to keep senators from being besieged by e-mail while on the floor.

Gossett also said filters keep legislators from getting all the mail sent to them. For instance, one type of filter blocks mass-mailed e-mails called spam. Another searches messages for expletives and keeps them from reaching senators, Gossett said.

The policy of blocking e-mail while senators work on the floor will be reviewed and may be changed, he said.

"I didn't know the e-mails are blocked," Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell said.