Former Republican US Rep. Sues South Carolina GOP for Cancelling 2020 Presidential Primary

image
Published: 01 Oct, 2019
Updated: 15 Aug, 2022
2 min read

Two South Carolina voters, including a former US congressman, have filed a lawsuit against the South Carolina Republican Party, arguing that the party violated state law, the state constitution, and the party's rules when its executive committee "unilaterally and unlawfully canceled the 2020 South Carolina Republican presidential preference primary."

Former US Rep Robert Durden Inglis, of Greenville County, and Frank Heindel, of Charleston County, filed the suit on Tuesday, October 1. They argue:

"South Carolina law, the rules of the South Carolina Republican Party, and the South Carolina Constitution require that a political party use a fair process to determine which candidate the state party supports in the general election. They don’t necessarily require a political party to hold a presidential preference primary election in all presidential election years.Rather, they merely require that if a party wishes to cancel its primary, it must observe certain democratic safeguards that ensure that a party’s supporters—and not just a small junta of party bosses—support canceling the primary, and the party must instead choose which candidate it will support at its state convention."

However, plaintiffs argue that the party didn't follow any of the democratic safeguards required by law. But it is not just state law. The plaintiffs point to a party rule that requires a presidential primary unless “decided otherwise by the state party convention within two (2) years prior to each presidential election year.”

They also say that the Republican Party has turned its back on its own principles:

"[T]he Republican Party has gone so far as to argue to a court that canceling a presidential primary would cause 'irreparable harm to the public interest' because 'the citizens of South Carolina deserve an opportunity to vote on the Republican nominee for President of the United States.'”
But here—for whatever reason—the State Executive Committee of the South Carolina Republican Party has not heeded its own wise counsel from 2014 and 2015. And its failure to do so violated its own rules, the South Carolina Election Law, and the South Carolina Constitution."

The Republican Party of South Carolina is one of a handful of Republican Parties that have cancelled their 2020 presidential primaries, denying even their own members an opportunity to vote for their preferred presidential candidate next year.

Read the full complaint:

Latest articles

Marijuana plant.
Why the War on Cannabis Refuses to Die: How Boomers and the Yippies Made Weed Political
For much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American physicians freely prescribed cannabis to treat a wide range of ailments. But by the mid-twentieth century, federal officials were laying the groundwork for a sweeping criminal crackdown. Cannabis would ultimately be classified as a Schedule I substance, placed alongside heroin and LSD, and transformed into a political weapon that shaped American policy for the next six decades....
30 Jun, 2025
-
2 min read
Donald Trump standing behind presidential podium and in front of two American flags.
Has Trump Made His Case for the Nobel Peace Prize?
A news item in recent days that was overshadowed in the media by SCOTUS and the One Big Beautiful Budget Bill was a US-brokered peace agreement that was signed between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – which if it holds will end a conflict between the two countries that has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands of people....
30 Jun, 2025
-
7 min read
Picture of skyscraper in New York behind a bridge.
Knives Come Out Against Reform at NYC CRC Hearing as Independents Rise
Last week in Staten Island, the NYC Charter Revision Commission held its next-to-last public hearing. As Commissioner Diane Savino commented, addressing NYC's closed primary system “is the single biggest issue we’ve heard this year.”...
30 Jun, 2025
-
3 min read