Three South Carolina Representatives have introduce HB 3557, which would require that candidates nominated in convention must pay filing fees. The authors are Brandon Newton (R-Lancaster), Fawn Pedalino (R-Manning), and Bill Taylor (R-Aiken).

The U.S. Supreme Court said in Lubin v Panish (1974) that filing fees are unconstitutional unless they are needed for the purpose of keeping ballots from being too crowded. There is no problem with crowded primary ballots when parties nominate by convention. South Carolina lets each party decide for itself whether to nominate by primary or convention, but the two major parties always use primaries and all the minor parties always use conventions.

On January 30, the New Jersey legislature passed AB 5117, which increases the number of signatures for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. The Governor signed it on February 3. The bill passed on a party-line vote in each house, with Democrats supporting it and Republicans opposed.

On Thursday, February 6, the Montana House passed HB 207 on second reading. This is the bill that originally increased the number of signatures for independent legislative candidates from 5% of the winner’s vote in the last election, to 10%. The vote was almost perfectly party-line, with Republicans voting for it and Democrats voting against. However, one Democrat, Scott Rosenzweig, also voted for it. UPDATE: the bill was amended so that it no longer raises the number of signatures. Instead it bars “sore loser” write-in candidates and makes the deadline for filing as a declared write-in somewhat earlier.