On February 11, the South Carolina House Judiciary Committee passed HB 3262. It would require candidates seeking the nomination of a party that nominates by convention to pay a filing fee during March of an election year. It has 21 sponsors, all Republicans: Russell Fry, Chip Huggins, Sylleste Davis, William Newton, Garry Smith, Adam Morgan, James Burns, Shannon Erickson, Linda Bennett, Anne Thayer, Bill Taylor, Bruce Bryant, Jason Elliott, Mark Willis, Raye Felder, Sandy McGarry, V. Stephen Moss, Patrick Haddon, Steven Long, Thomas Pope, and Cal Forrest.
If enacted, the bill would be unconstitutional for two different reasons. The first is that the Fourth Circuit ruled in Dixon v Maryland State Board of Elections, 878 F 2d 776 (1989) that states can’t require filing fees, unless the purpose of the filing fee is to keep a ballot uncrowded. In the Dixon case, the court struck down a $290 fee to file as a declared write-in candidate. The rationale was that a write-in candidate does not cause any ballot to be crowded with too many names. Similarly, for the South Carolina situation, a candidate seeking the nomination of a convention party is not causing any primary ballot to be crowded, because there are no primary ballots for parties that nominate by convention.
Independently of that, South Carolina has lost two federal cases in the past when it tried to enforce other election procedures on newly-qualifying parties. The bill requires fees to be paid in March of election years, but the election law also says that a petition for a new party is not due until May of an election year. In 1996 the Natural Law Party submitted a petition by the deadline, but the state tried to keep it off the ballot because it had not held various conventions in the months before it qualified. A U.S. District Co9urt said the state can’t impose duties on parties before they have submitted their petition. Natural Law Party v DePass, 3:96-2301 (1996).
The state tried to impose the same rules on the Working Families Party in 2006, the yeare it submitted its petition, and again that was held unconstitutional. Working Families Party v Bowers, 3:06-2125. Thanks to Scott West for the news about the bill. UPDATE: see this story about the bill.
With all those Republican sponsors, would they have a particular party as a target?
THE LP IS THE TARGET OF FASCIST ELEPHANTS.
GREENS/WORKING FAMILIES = TARGETS OF COMMIE DONKEYS.
THUS – JOINT COMMIE/FASCIST CONSPIRACY TO WIPE OUT ALL MINOR PARTIES AND INDEPENDENTS –]
SEE CURRENT USA CONGRESS — PENDING BILL HR 1.
The sponsors seem to be acting because the Constitution Party ran someone for US Senate last year. The Constitution Party is the only party in South Carolina last year, besides the Dems and Reps, that had any congressional candidates.
I thought that requiring filing fees was illegal discrimination against indigent candidates?
Tom, that is a very good point. In 1972 some indigent candidates sued and the 3-judge US District Court agreed. However in 1975 in the same case (Culbertson v Fowler), all sides agreed that indigent candidates could be required to submit a petition of 5% of the voters eligible to participate in the primary. That stipulation doesn’t seem to be in the election code. Perhaps a convention party could have a bylaw that only persons who show up at the nominating convention are eligible to participate in that convention, and therefore 5% of that number of people might be a very small number of signers.