Statehouse handicappers say 2025 may be the year that lawmakers require South Carolinians to declare allegiance to one political party or the other when they register to vote, a long-time wishlist item for many GOP legislators.
The 2025 session of the S.C. General Assembly will open on Jan. 14.
Under current law, Palmetto State residents register without reference to political party and can then participate in the party primary of their choice. But two Republican-sponsored bills in the S.C. House, H.3310 and H.3643, would change that by requiring partisan registration.
The switch would allow the GOP to close its primaries, limiting participation to registered Republicans. Political observers believe this would likely have the effect of moving the party further to the right by excluding registered Independents and moderate Democrats.
S.C. Rep. Jordan Pace (R-Berkeley), leader of the hard-right S.C. Freedom Caucus, says he supports the change.
“One of our main priorities is closed primaries,” Pace told Statehouse Report last month. “That’s high on our list because it not only achieves something our constituents have told us they want, but has a major trickle-down effect on everything else.”
But Lynn Teague, vice president of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of South Carolina, says a switch would not be in the interests of nonpartisan voters.
“The League opposes both bills,” Teague said in a Jan. 9 statement. “Although either would be acceptable if all unaffiliated voters could vote in any primary, without further conditions.”
Despite opposition from the League and other nonpartisan groups, Teague calls the likelihood of passage this year “especially high,” given the GOP’s new supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature.
In other recent news
Charleston to host major national Democratic forum on Jan. 24. Charleston will be in the glare of national politics Jan. 24 when it hosts a forum among candidates who want to be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee, sources confirmed this morning.
Lawmaker warns of uncontrolled growth and development. On the Jan. 10 episode of the Conversing with Nature podcast, S.C. Rep. Spencer Wetmore (D-Charleston) warned the state. is reaching “a tipping point” with regard to unconstrained development. “If we don’t protect the places people love, we are going to lose those places,” Wetmore told listeners.
Panel selects design, location for Robert Smalls memorial. A bipartisan legislative panel chose a design and location for the future Robert Smalls statue on the Capitol grounds, the first monument to an individual African American on the S.C. Statehouse grounds.
S.C. doctors ask federal court to throw out state’s abortion ban. Columbia obstetrician Dr. Patricia Seal and four other S.C. doctors laid out a legal complaint filed Jan. 8 that asked a federal court to throw out — or at least limit — the state’s abortion ban.
S.C. lawmakers fas- track school voucher bill. With hearings already complete, the state Senate plans to make a private school voucher bill its first big vote of 2025.
Senate GOP leader cites cost of dining out in S.C. Taxes on a restaurant meal in parts of South Carolina can run higher than rates paid in many of the United States’ largest cities, including Los Angeles and New York City, according to Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield.
S.C. legislators to discuss school bus conditions, teacher salaries. The “School Bus Privatization Act,” would place school bus selection and operation into the hands of individual school districts or private carriers instead of the South Carolina Department of Education. If passed, the bill would prohibit the state from owning or purchasing any additional school buses and its current fleet of buses would be disposed of starting in July.
S.C. environmentalists praise Biden’s offshore drilling ban. President Joe Biden took executive action this week to enact a ban on new offshore and gas drilling in most of the country’s coastal waters on 625 million acres of ocean. The ban includes the entire eastern seaboard, parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, as well as the coasts of California, Washington and Oregon. S.C. environmentalists said the ban would help to preserve the state’s special places.
S.C. starts scheduling executions again. The state Supreme Court set a Jan. 31 date for the next execution following a pause in scheduling for the holidays. Next to face death is Marcus Bowman Jr., 44, who was convicted of murder in the shooting of a friend in 2001 in Dorchester County.
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