by Jack O'Toole

Statehouse handicappers say 2025 may be the year that lawmakers require South Carolinians to declare allegiance to one political party or the other when they register to vote, a long-time wishlist item for many GOP legislators.

The 2025 session of the S.C. General Assembly will open on Jan. 14.

Under current law, Palmetto State residents register without reference to political party and can then participate in the party primary of their choice. But two Republican-sponsored bills in the S.C. House, H.3310 and H.3643, would change that by requiring partisan registration.

The switch would allow the GOP to close its primaries, limiting participation to registered Republicans. Political observers believe this would likely have the effect of moving the party further to the right by excluding registered Independents and moderate Democrats. 

S.C. Rep. Jordan Pace (R-Berkeley), leader of the hard-right S.C. Freedom Caucus, says he supports the change.

“One of our main priorities is closed primaries,” Pace told Statehouse Report last month. “That’s high on our list because it not only achieves something our constituents have told us they want, but has a major trickle-down effect on everything else.”

But Lynn Teague, vice president of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of South Carolina, says a switch would not be in the interests of nonpartisan voters.

“The League opposes both bills,” Teague said in a Jan. 9 statement. “Although either would be acceptable if all unaffiliated voters could vote in any primary, without further conditions.”

Despite opposition from the League and other nonpartisan groups, Teague calls the likelihood of passage this year “especially high,” given the GOP’s new supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

Read more from the Statehouse Report at the link above.