On June 1, the South Carolina Republican Party sued the South Carolina State Election Commission to obtain a closed primary for itself. South Carolina has never had registration by party, and has always had open primaries. Here is the party’s complaint. The case is Greenville County Republican Party v State of South Carolina and Hudgens, 6:10-cv-1407-HFF. It was assigned to Judge Henry F. Floyd, a Bush Jr. appointee.
The party argues that because South Carolina parties must pay for their own primaries for municipal office, at least parties should be able to limit their municipal primaries to persons who identify themselves as party members.
The weakness in the lawsuit, as applied to primaries for federal, state and county office, is that South Carolina permits parties to nominate by convention if they choose. The party’s complaint acknowledges that, so the complaint also attacks a state law that says if a party decides to hold a convention, it may only do so if three-fourths of the delegates to the convention vote in favor of nomination by convention. That part of the complaint seems strong, given the U.S. Supreme Court precedents that say parties have a right to make such decisions for themselves. But if the Court knocked out the three-fourths rule, that would weaken the part of the lawsuit that attempts to get a closed primary.
