By Drew McKissick
Two S.C. House Republican leaders recently wrote a column excusing the failure to take any action whatsoever regarding the S.C. GOP’s repeated calls to reform the party primary nomination process in our state.
The current system allows supporters of one party to help choose the other party’s candidates. It’s the equivalent of South Carolina or Clemson fans helping choose what players the other team should put on the field when they play one another. It’s patently unfair, and we believe it violates our constitutional right to freedom of association.
The column begins by stating that we were “once again” debating the issue. In fact, a bill hasn’t received so much as a subcommittee vote so that debate might actually begin.
It was stated that the Republican Party’s supported legislation would “require voters to register by party in advance” of voting in primaries. This is not true. Our bill allows for same-day party registration to participate in a primary. But it would keep out supporters of a different party.
They suggest that Republicans were demanding that changes be made in a rush in order to apply to the coming June primaries. Yet again, not true. The bill was written and filed in December 2024, which allowed plenty of time for legislative action. They opted to delay instead. We care about the bill’s passage — not the effective date.
They suggest potential problems with state funding to conduct primary nominations if they are limited to supporters of only one party. This is a straw man that flies in the face of the dozens of other states that have done exactly that for decades.
The column also mentions a mysterious poll that was done to determine how Republicans really feel about this issue. No information is given as to how it was conducted, who was sampled, how many people were polled or what the questions were.
What we do know for a certainty is that Republican voters have had four opportunities to let us know if they support the right to register by party in South Carolina. More than 1.5 million votes have been cast in the affirmative, with an average of 82 percent support. These are actual Republicans, not some mystery sample of a mystery poll.
Finally, they suggest that there’s just not enough agreement on this issue for them to take action. Of course, demanding consensus on an outcome prior to the start of an actual debate is a standard that the Legislature doesn’t even enforce on itself.
There’s a “Republican Caucus” and a “Freedom Caucus” with regular disagreements over how to handle other issues, yet they somehow manage to move things forward and develop a consensus. It’s a double standard.
They say we should “work through” the differences. We’ve done that. The Republican Party has worked for numerous years to draft and introduce legislation that could represent a consensus. We even did so with the assistance of a member of the House leadership, which would seem to merit more than just total inaction.
The resulting bill is the closest thing that we’ve ever seen to unanimity among Republicans on this issue. It has been discussed over numerous years within our party leadership, and approved three times by our state committee — the last time unanimously. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other opinions, but it does mean that the party is on record with the broadest consensus that’s ever been put forward on this issue.
Every potential GOP candidate for governor has spoken out in favor of each political party being able to limit its nomination processes to supporters of that particular party. They’re not doing so out of ignorance of where Republicans stand on the issue.
S.C. Republican Party leaders at every level are trying to respond to the voices of grassroots Republicans across our state. Our goal is to fix the current system, but that requires partnership in the Legislature. Our hands have been extended for years and have been ignored, and patience among grassroots Republicans has evaporated.
After years of waiting for the Legislature to even begin debate, much less conclude it, our state committee voted unanimously to file a lawsuit over the issue if it hasn’t been addressed by the close of this legislative session.
The clock is ticking.
Drew McKissick is the Chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party.