South Carolina state representative Con Chellis – son of former state treasurer Converse Chellis – will not seek another term in the S.C. House of Representatives this spring, creating an open election for the Republican-leaning seat he has held since 2019.
Chellis, 41, made the announcement on his website.
“It is with bittersweet emotion that I have decided not to pursue re-election, he wrote, adding that the “decision is the toughest that I have ever made.”
What prompted it?
“I believed that I could serve in the State House making the daily commute to and from Columbia,” Chellis continued. “I came home every night to tend to my family and my business. But with candid humility, that schedule is just not sustainable, and the fact is that we need a representative that can commit to spending more time in Columbia so that our district can receive the attention and advocacy we need. With three young children in sports and with my wife and I both running our own respective businesses, I am simply not the person for the job at this time.”
If true, that strikes us as one of the more commendable statements we have heard from a Palmetto politician in some time.
An insurance agent, Chellis won the GOP primary for S.C. House District 94 (.pdf) in 2018. The incumbent Republican at the time, Katie Arrington, didn’t seek a second term because she was campaigning for a seat in the U.S. congress.
Prior to Arrington, the seat was held for eight years by Jenny Horne – who gained fame (infamy?) during the 2015 debate over the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the S.C. State House.
All 170 seats in the S.C. General Assembly (124 House seats and 46 Senate seats) are up for election this year – although as we have frequently pointed out very few of these races wind up being competitive.
Will this one? We shall see …
Candidate filing for legislative seats opens at 12:00 p.m. EDT on March 16, 2020 and closes at the same time on March 30.
Partisan primary elections will be held on June 9, 2020 – with runoff elections held on June 23, 2020, if necessary (if no candidate receives a majority of votes in a partisan primary election in South Carolina, the two top vote-getters advance to a head-to-head matchup two weeks later).
Once major party nominees are selected (and any petition candidates are certified), the general election will take place on November 3, 2020.
-FITSNews
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