South Carolina has never charged candidates filing fees if they are nominated in a convention. Only candidates running in primaries have ever needed to pay a filing fee. In South Carolina minor parties always nominate by convention instead of by primary.

Also, South Carolina has always had open primaries since primaries first began in the state.

But forty-nine South Carolina Representatives have introduced HB 3643, which requires candidates nominated in a convention to pay a filing fee. Also the bill establishes closed primaries, and provides that voter registration forms ask applicants to choose a party, or independent status. If the bill passed, no one could vote in a primary without being a party member.

The bill has a hearing on January 21, Wednesday, at noon, in the House Judiciary Committee. Here is the text of the bill.

The South Carolina House has 124 members.

The bill does not require independent candidates to pay a filing fee, but independent candidate petitions in South Carolina are very severe. South Carolina is the only state in which no one has ever qualified as an independent candidate for either house of Congress. The requirement for statewide office and U.S. House is 10,000 signatures.

UPDATE: a second bill for closed primaries, HB 3310, would not impose filing fees on convention nominees.

The Democrxatic National Committee is thinking about revising the order of presidential primaries. Traditionally one state from each region of the nation is permitted to hold a primary or caucus before March of presidential election years. In 2024 South Carolina enjoyed the “southern” early primary spot. Virginia wants to replace South Carolina. See this story. The Virginia Democrats argue that the Virginia Democratic Party deserves the spot, partly because the legislature recently took efforts to redistrict the U.S. House district boundaries to elect more Democrats to the U.S. House.

On January 14, Bloomberg News posted a story titled “Will California Get a Republican Governor After Newsom?” It is behind a paywall and cannot be reproduced here in its entirety. The subtitle is, “California’s primary election rules, which advance the top two candidates to a runoff election regardless of party, could result in a Republican being elected Governor in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one.” Also, “Unless something changes, what could happen is that Bianco and Hilton become the two candidates on the ballot in November.”

Democrats hold over two-thirds of the membership of each house of the legislature, so they have the power to pass a bill with an urgency clause. They could pass a bill legalizing write-in space on the general election ballot for top-two offices, so that if the November 2026 ballot does just contain the names of Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, whichever Democrat had placed third in the primary could mount a write-in campaign in November and potentially win. Californians have elected write-in candidates in the general election office in the past. Three times, a write-in candidate was elected to Congress from California in the general election, in 1930, 1946, and 1982,

The Bloomberg story, by Erika D. Smith, is incorrect to refer to the California November election as a “runoff.” A runoff is only held following an actual election, and is only held when the actual election fails to elect someone. But the California June event is not an “election”, because no one can be elected in June. Even if a candidate receives 100% of the vote in June, he or she is not yet elected and must run in November in order to be elected. The California top-two system was written that way because federal law requires all states to hold congressional elections in November of even years.