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COLUMBIA -- State transportation commissioners have voted to spend agency money to defend themselves in a lawsuit brought by Greenville's Edward "Ned" Sloan earlier this year alleging two of the current members are serving illegally.

Sloan, whose case the South Carolina Supreme Court has agreed to hear, claims three of the board's seven members were in violation of a law that limits the terms of each commissioner to one consecutive term. One of the three commissioners has since ended his term.

The DOT board, with little discussion, voted to use DOT money to pay for their legal bills. DOT General Counsel Linda McDonald said legal bills thus far total about $25,000.

Officials asked the board to decide how to pay the bills, since officials have said the agency is under financial strain.

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The vote means the commissioners will not have to pay for the legal work out of their own pockets.

Chairman Tee Hooper of Greenville, Commissioners Marion Carnell of Ware Shoals and Bobby Jones of Camden and former Commissioner William "Bud" Turner of Greer all have been dismissed from the suit, as well as Secretary of State Mark Hammond, who certifies the commissioners' elections, records show.

In February 1996, a senior assistant attorney general issued an informal opinion to a House member that commission members could not succeed themselves. Another opinion issued by another assistant attorney general the year before had concluded the same thing.

The law, enacted in the wake of agency restructuring in the 1990s, allows lawmakers from each of the state's six congressional districts to select one member of the commission, with counties within each district rotating representation. The seventh commissioner is appointed by the governor.

This summer, Commissioner John Hardee of Columbia, one of those whose term Sloan is challenging, filed a response to the Sloan suit in which he argued that the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction over the case because it would violate the separation of powers among state government's three branches. He and the other two commissioners were appointed by lawmakers.

"The issue presented in this case is a political question," Hardee stated. "The issue present in this case cannot be decided by the judiciary under the doctrine of the separation of powers."

Sloan disagreed.

"If separation of powers prevents this court's review of this case," he wrote in response to Hardee's filing, "that doctrine will render the statutory criteria for eligibility for persons to be elected commissioner unenforceable and meaningless."

Hardee, Commissioner Bob Harrell Sr. of Charleston County and former Commissioner John "Moot" Truluck of Lake City all have denied that their terms of office violate the law.