Bills to Move Presidential Primary Back Inch Forward in Missouri

The two bills that would shift the Missouri presidential primary back into compliance with the national party delegate selection rules both moved forward this week.

On the Senate side, SB 892, got referred to the Financial and Government Organizations and Elections Committee on Thursday and will be part of the committee's Monday hearing. The House bill -- HB 1902 -- got the thumbs up from the House Rules Committee on Thursday and is on the House calendar (for perfection) this coming Monday.

As FHQ mentioned in describing these bills recently, both initially sought to push the presidential primary in the Show Me state from the first Tuesday after the first Monday in February back to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in April. The paths of both pieces of legislation diverged when the House bill was amended in Committee on Elections. Instead of April, the House committee substitute bill now calls for the presidential primary to occur on the first Tuesday after the second Monday in March. That is the move that the full House will consider on Monday.

As we head into the new legislative week in the Missouri General Assembly, then, there are a few things to eye. First, what kind of reception will the House committee substitute bill receive on the floor and how easily does it pass (or not)? Second, to what extent does the Senate (Financial and Government Organizations and Elections Committee) reconcile the timing of the primary in their version of the bill with that of the House? If the Senate committee sends their version on with no changes, then there will be a conflict between its bill and the House bill when and if the House bill moves over to the Senate side for consideration there.

Again, these types of inter-chamber disputes have derailed efforts to move the Missouri presidential primary back into compliance with the national party rules since the late summer of 2011. Will history repeat itself or is Missouri ready to move back?

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May Presidential Primary Could Be on the Move in Nebraska

Add Nebraska to the list of states reacting -- directly or indirectly -- to the recent Republican National Committee (delegate selection) rules changes.

As it stands now, Nebraska is slated to have a presidential preference primary election on the first Tuesday after the second Monday in May. That would be May 10, 2016. There is, however, a movement afoot to add an amendment to a broader elections bill before the state legislature that would shift that date up by a month into April. From the vantage point of early 2014, that may be a shrewd decision on at least one front: The first Tuesday after the second Monday in April, 2016 is in the middle of an otherwise vacant portion of the the 2016 presidential primary calendar. If state actors, then, are seeking to maximize the impact Nebraska voters may have on the nominations processes in 2016, moving to a date on which Nebraska is the only game in town, may work to their advantage.¹

Of course, there are potential roadblocks to this.

Moving the primary up, triggers the classic dilemma for the late (presidential primary) state -- like Nebraska -- with concurrent primaries for the presidential nomination among a host of state and local offices. Move everything up or create and fund a separate and earlier presidential primary? As the article from the Omaha World Herald indicates, the former affects state legislators' primaries while the latter may be viewed as less than cost-effective. Moving everything to April extends the general election campaign for state legislators by a month, meaning more work for the very people making this change. And creating a separate presidential primary does not seem to be on the table.

Nebraska Democrats also seem to have indicated that they are going to continue operating outside of the state-funded primary option. Since 2008, Nebraska Democrats have selected delegates through a party-funded caucuses/convention format that allows them to begin their process earlier than is possible with the May primary funded by the state.

But it is on that particular point where this gets even more complicated. The bill (LB 1048) that will supposedly contain the amendment provision that would move up the date of the primary also sets the parameters around other parts of the delegate selection process in the Cornhusker state:

1. State parties have to submit delegate selection plans to the Nebraska Secretary of State by December 1 in the year prior to the presidential election.
2. Those plans should allocate at least 80% of the total number of delegates to candidates based on the results of a primary or caucuses.
3. The plans must also specify how or if those delegates would be bound to particular candidates.
4. Finally, those plans must also set a minimum threshold of 15% in the primary for a candidate to eligible for any delegates whether allocated proportionally or in a winner-take-all manner.

All of this mostly aligns with how both Nebraska Democrats and Republicans allocated delegates in 2012. The one exception is that the Republican primary process has always been advisory to the caucus/convention process.² LB 1048 seeks to end the advisory nature of the primary, eliminating the provisions concerning the state conventions from the current law and adding a binding mechanism to any primary or caucuses utilized by the parties.

What may look like a good idea on paper -- moving the date up -- may not look as good once partisans (in the nonpartisan, unicameral Nebraska state legislature) get a closer look at what some of the other provisions in the bill will do to the delegate selection process. There are a number of items that may not sit well with various groups.

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¹ It is also true that that position may not prove advantageous at all. Such an incremental shift may still come after the point at which the nomination has been decided, depending on how other states move around and how the preceding contests have allocated delegates to the various candidates.

² Truth be told, there is a Democratic primary election as well on that May primary ballot, but Democrats abandoned it for the 2008 cycle, meaning that the primary vote in both the major party presidential primaries was next to meaningless.

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Primary Movement Starts with the State Legislatures: The 2014 State Legislative Session Calendar

The name of the action may have changed since the last time FHQ did this in 2011, but if we're going to follow along as states shuffle -- or don't shuffle -- around on the 2016 presidential primary calendar, that activity will happen on the state level.

…in the state legislatures (for primaries).

A number of state legislatures return to work today, but their start points stretch out across the first half of 2014. From the National Conference of State Legislatures:

State Legislative Calendar 2014

Midterm years are not normally times for states to begin calendar jockeying. The national parties have yet to finalize their respective sets of delegate selection rules to govern the 2016 presidential nomination processes after all. That will happen later this year. However, that does not mean that there will not be legislation introduced that will affect when presidential primaries will be held in two years. Nor does it mean that the national parties will not begin to preemptively exert some pressure on political actors on the state level in states that may potentially cause some problems in 2016.

A few to keep an eye on in 2014:
1) Arizona:
The governor does have the power of proclamation to move the primary up but not back on the calendar. If the discrepancy in Rules 16 and 17 of the current RNC rules is resolved, then both Arizona and Michigan will find themselves in a bind at a point on the calendar one week ahead of the March 1 position all states other than the four carve-outs can fall on or after. The bottom line in the Grand Canyon state (and further east in the Great Lakes state) is that it is going to require state legislative action to move the primaries in each around.

2) Michigan:
See Arizona, minus the gubernatorial proclamation power.

3) Missouri:
The Show-Me state presidential primary is technically -- or will technically -- be in violation of the RNC (and likely DNC) rules on the first Tuesday in February. The state legislature there has also proven inept in 2011, 2012 and 2013 at moving the primary into compliance. FHQ would be surprised if there is not another attempt to move the 2016 election back during the 2014 session. But it is far from clear that the outcome will be any different now than in previous years. Regardless, the Missouri Republican Party is likely to trigger caucuses for allocating delegates in 2016 -- just like the party did in 2011 -- to avoid penalty if the state government proves resistant to moving the contest.

4) North Carolina:
The General Assembly in Raleigh will not reconvene for 2014 until May and even then the duration of the session is very short. Still, the omnibus elections bill passed during a special session during the summer of 2013 anchored the North Carolina presidential primary to South Carolina's. That will put the Tar Heel state in the crosshairs of both national parties penalties. The presidential primary provision added to the bill (and ultimate law) was also inserted last minute by the state Senate and rather than risk killing the bill, the state House -- a member of which is the national committeeman to the RNC from North Carolina -- opted to go along. But that did not mean that the primary move was kosher with everyone. FHQ has been told by a couple of sources that efforts are likely to be made later this year to bring the North Carolina primary back into compliance with the likely national party rules.

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