SC’s Republican Party let voters down with its shady move to cancel GOP primary

Back in September the South Carolina Republican Party’s state executive committee canceled the party’s 2020 presidential primary.

The committee said the move was meant to save taxpayer money, but everyone knows it was done to protect President Donald Trump: a top advisor to former Gov. Nikki Haley called it “a shady backroom deal … that stops hundreds of thousands of voters from participating in the process.”

South Carolina isn’t the only state where this is happening; Republican parties in six other states have canceled their primaries while three more Republican state parties have refused to list any primary candidates other than Trump.

That’s not how things are supposed to work in this country. We don’t cancel or rig elections to protect incumbents; free, fair and regular elections are the cornerstone of the American experiment — they allow citizens to exercise their basic political right to choose who governs.

That’s why we sued the South Carolina Republican Party and its chairman last October; we aimed to vindicate the right of all South Carolina Republicans to vote in the party’s famous “First in the South” primary.

In response party leaders asked the court to dismiss our lawsuit — despite having argued to a federal court four years ago that South Carolinians “deserve an opportunity to vote on the Republican nominee for president of the United States.”

Unfortunately, the court dismissed our lawsuit.

We respectfully disagree with the decision but appealing it would almost certainly be futile; under South Carolina law, the party wouldn’t be able to hold its primary until well into April at the earliest even if we won an expedited appeal. By that point Trump will likely be running unopposed and the state party’s executive committee would still likely cancel the primary.

Because of these realities, we have decided not to appeal.

Giving up our case is a bitter pill, because our party used to celebrate its primaries. A 2014 party resolution, for example, observed that “spirited and competitive primaries are a healthy way to grow the Republican Party.” Now, however, party leaders use party funds to defend and celebrate disenfranchising party members.

Hopefully, this is a passing phase and the party will come to its senses. Otherwise the court’s decision in our case portends trouble ahead: it could allow party leaders to cancel the 2024 primary and decree who will be the Republican Party’s nominee.

The South Carolina Legislature should make sure this can’t happen: it should amend the state’s election law to make even clearer what is already plain: major political parties need consent from a majority of party members before they cancel primaries.

In addition, Republicans should take action during the next state convention to more explicitly prohibit the executive committee from unilaterally calling off primaries.

The right to vote is too important to be left to the whims of party bosses.

Bob Inglis is a former South Carolina congressman; Frank Heindel is a Mount Pleasant businessman.