Payday lenders gave more than $100,000 to S.C. lawmakers, state officeholders and political groups in 2008, a year in which the entire General Assembly was up for election. And the industry spent more than $180,000 on a cadre of lobbyists around the State House.

The spending on lobbyists, public records show, intensified in the second half of 2008. That was after Senate lawmakers came within three votes of approving a bill that would ban the industry and lawmakers ultimately failed to pass a bill regulating payday lending.

From June to December, the trade group for payday lenders, Community Financial Services Association of America, paid lobbyists more than $143,000, according to reports filed with the State Ethics Commission. The group had 10 registered lobbyists.

Check Into Cash paid out $41,800 to lobbyists from June through December 2008, and handed out an additional $18,000 in contributions to lawmakers, political action committees, and to the Senate Republican and Democratic caucuses, at $6,000 each.

That’s because nearly all state money has been cut for a $1.3 million specialized medical program that helps identify victims and deals with their abusers.

The need for child abuse medical expertise is so crucial that six years ago, four of South Carolina’s children’s hospitals got a $1.1 million grant from the Duke Endowment to set up a network of experts trained to evaluate such cases.

But the state Department of Health and Human Services, which took over funding in 2007, axed most of the money in December, after it was forced to make nearly $137 million in state-mandated cuts, roughly 15 percent of its total budget.

Child abuse is ranked second, behind asthma, as the most chronic childhood condition in South Carolina, said Maggie Michael, executive director of a nonprofit collaborative of the major state children’s hospitals.

Winners

Unemployed South Carolinians

The state with the third-highest unemployment rate — and climbing — will get more unemployment benefits. The S.C. Employment Security Commission says it needs to borrow more than $300 million to pay unemployment claims, as the unemployment rolls have more than doubled to more than 125,000. South Carolina is set to get $557 million for unemployment.

K-12 education

The other is a governor and former congressman known for sleeping on his couch in Washington and bringing pigs to the state Capitol to protest what he saw as pork-barrel spending.

Jim DeMint and Mark Sanford are major political players in South Carolina, but they have been blips on the national political screen.

Until now.

Both men were among the most vocal and prominent opponents of the federal stimulus package that President Barack Obama could sign into law as soon as Monday. And both men are positioned to continue to oppose what they see as the big-government tendencies of the new president.

The modified bill passed the House earlier Friday without support from any Republicans despite revisions that added tax cuts and reduced the plan’s overall cost.

House Budget Committee chairman John Spratt joined 245 other Democrats in voting for legislation that melded separate bills the House and Senate passed earlier.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of Columbia played a key role in reshaping the package, but he left before the vote to fly to Columbia for his daughter’s wedding Friday evening.

South Carolina’s four Republican representatives voted against the measure, along with 179 other GOP lawmakers.

"There are days you don't know what to say and these are one of these days," said Pastor David Uth, who offered a "prayer of peace" for Casey Anthony, who was in the Orange County Jail less than a mile away, facing a first-degree murder charge. She has pleaded not guilty and claims a baby sitter kidnapped Caylee.

Images of the girl, who was 2 when she disappeared, flashed on a giant screen in front of the First Baptist Church of Orlando sanctuary as a pianist played, "You Are My Sunshine" and "If You're Happy and You Know It." A video montage of her jumping on a bed and dressed like an Easter bunny ended the service.

Casey Anthony could have asked for permission to watch the memorial broadcast live on TV but didn't, according to jail officials. The 22-year-old said in a statement read by her attorney that she missed Caylee "every day and every minute of every day."

Casey Anthony's parents, George and Cindy, who arranged the public service, urged mourners to support their daughter.