Fifth Candidate Files For Clementa Pinckney’s Seat

|| By FITSNEWS || Five candidates have formally filed paperwork to run for the South Carolina State Senate seat vacated by the tragic death of S.C. Senator Clementa Pinckney last month.

Pinckney was among the nine victims of last month’s horrific, racially motivated “Holy City Massacre” – the mass murder of nine black churchgoers at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston, S.C.  He was the church’s pastor, and was leading a Bible study at the time of the attack.

Earlier this week we did a post on four of these candidates – S.C. Rep. Kenneth Hodges, businessman and former Marine Kent Fletcher, Walterboro, S.C. attorney Margie Bright Matthews and Hardeeville, S.C. attorney Chauncey Barnwell.

Each of these Democratic candidates has filed paperwork to run for Pinckney’s seat – and so has a fifth candidate, Colleton County school board member William Bowman, Jr.

No “Republicans” have filed for the seat, although they have until noon on July 13 to do so.

Pinckney’s district – S.C. Senate District 45 – covers parts of Allendale, Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper Counties. It is among the poorest regions of the Palmetto State – which is one of the poorest states in the nation.

Primary elections for the seat are currently scheduled to take place on September 1.  If no Democratic candidate receives a majority of the votes cast on that date, the top two finishers would face off on September 15 in a Democratic runoff election.

The special election itself is set for October 20.

***