Iowa Back in the Democratic Pre-Window?

During the last month or so there has been significant chatter about not to mention back and forth between New Hampshire Democrats and the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) over the position of the Granite state presidential primary on the 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar. But that has mostly overshadowed the impact the proposed calendar overhaul has had on the other traditional lead-off state, Iowa. 

Sure, the caucuses in the Hawkeye state were ousted from their spot at the head of the class in the Democratic presidential nomination process for first time in the last half century. However, more (national) attention has been paid to the defiance of New Hampshire Democrats, who received a pre-window waiver (albeit with a demanding set of conditions), than to Iowa Democrats also potentially breaking the rules to continue occupying the top slot. 

Placed on the back burner in reality or not, the Iowa situation has not gone anywhere. In fact, the recent deadline for the states granted contingent pre-window waivers by the DNCRBC to check in with their progress did not go unnoticed. When it was revealed that Georgia and New Hampshire had both fallen short of meeting the state-specific mandates from the national panel, Iowa Democrats took the opportunity to lobby once again to be reinserted into the lineup. 

In a letter to the DNCRBC, Ross Wilburn, outgoing Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) chair, astutely leaned on the feasibility argument that weighed so heavily on the panel down the stretch in their decision-making process. Those potential complications forced the committee to punt on a calendar decision until after the 2022 midterms. As Wilburn wrote:

"The Iowa Democratic Party believes that, with two states apparently unable to meet the criteria set forth as conditions of a waiver, within the timeline set forth by this committee, we have a compelling case to be granted a conditional waiver for a pre-window contest. As a state party run contest, we retain the ultimate ability to tailor our contest to RBC rules and specifications and maintain a flexibility that states with state-run contests cannot. To that end, we request consideration for a conditional waiver be considered at the February meeting of the RBC."

Honing in on the revised, fully-absentee caucuses that the IDP pitched to the DNCRBC in the summer, Wilburn continued:

"The process we proposed allowed flexibility as to the date while complying with Iowa law. We believe that Iowa can be an important part of the solution to an early nominating calendar by providing flexibility with its new process."

But Wilburn was not the only one making the case. Iowa's sole member of the DNCRBC, Scott Brennan also weighed in:

"We view this as an opportunity to go back and say, 'Take another look, you made a mistake with us the first time. We're willing to forgive and forget and take our spot back in the pre-window."

Brennan added that Iowa Democrats "stand ready, willing and able to fill in" before setting expectations for the coming weeks before the DNC presumably votes on finalizing the early calendar:

Brennan said he expects the committee will discuss Wilburn’s request at its February meeting, but meet virtually in the meantime in the next couple of weeks to discuss granting a deadline extension for New Hampshire and Georgia.

Even Governor Kim Reynolds (R-IA) added her two cents during her second inaugural speech this past week:

“To the national Democrats, to President Biden, I say this: Reconsider,” she said. “Come back to Iowa, and you won’t regret it.”

None of this is unexpected. The Iowa loose end will have to be tied off at some point by either the DNCRBC or the Iowa Democratic Party. But until (and perhaps after) the DNC finalizes the 2024 calendar rules, the IDP clearly has no qualms about continuing to pitch the caucuses as a solution to any implementation problems other states may have. 

But one thing this highlights that I do not think has been emphasized enough since the DNCRBC handed down its proposal in December is that that action has so far served as a massive wedge in between a host of institutionalized traditions that have developed during the post-reform era with Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the queue. 

Think about how both parties in each state may have differed on every policy position under the sun, but agreed on one thing, keeping their respective states first in the presidential primary order. That bipartisanship still exists in both states, but it has been weakened. State parties in Iowa and New Hampshire are still fighting to remain first, but Republicans in both states have not been shy about pointing out how the DNCRBC decision means that national Democrats do not care about the interests of either state. And neither have Democrats in the two states been unwilling to tell the national party what the decision may mean for Democrats in their states or nationally. That past togetherness on the matter between Democrats and Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire is gone. 

And that is not the only wedge. The DNCRBC decision has also undermined the Iowa/New Hampshire relationship. It has not always been the case, yet both states have done well to band together to ward off threats in the past. Now, those threats were from other potential rogue states and not a change in national party rules, but Iowa and New Hampshire would work together. Iowa Democrats even consulted with New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner in the lead up to the 2020 cycle to insure that any changes to the caucus process in the Hawkeye state would not run afoul of the state law in the Granite state. 

That working relationship now seems to be gone too in the aftermath of the DNCRBC adoption of the calendar rules package. New Hampshire Democrats failed to meet the DNCRBC stipulations by January 5, and Iowa Democrats did not hesitate to offer the caucuses up as a substitute. That would not have happened in the past. 

None of that was by design, per se. The DNCRBC and the Biden administration simply wanted to change up the states and order of the contests in the pre-window. But it would be a mistake not to make note of the extent to which that has already eroded rituals if not instincts that have developed in the post-reform era, traditions primary watchers could be excused for taking for granted. 

In the end, as the DNC winter meeting approaches at the beginning of February, Iowa may or may not prove to be a suitable substitute. However, the DNCRBC did not support a plan that included five state-run contests by accident. It has a preference for them. That is why the Iowa caucuses -- feasibility of movement aside -- should be discounted as much as New Hampshire Democrats potentially offering to shift to a party-run contest in order to comply with the DNCRBC proposal (which they have not done and likely will not).

Of course, that may leave the DNCRBC with other imperfect possibilities relative to the criteria it has used during the selection process. Then again, Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats may just ignore them anyway. But that is another matter. 

--

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Progress Report: New Hampshire's calendar status, post-deadline day

Part of the calendar package that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) adopted early last month was a deadline for states that were at that time granted conditional waivers to be able to schedule primaries and caucuses in the pre-window period. That deadline -- January 5, 2023 -- was put in place as an early marker by which those states were to have shown state-specific progress toward the goal of moving their contests into the prescribed positions. 

Three of the five states -- South Carolina, Nevada and Michigan -- are in good shape after January 5 based on a variety of factors. South Carolina's state parties, and not the state government, select the date of the presidential primary, Nevada is on the prescribed date already, and the 2022 midterms left Democrats in unified control of state government in Michigan. That puts each on a glide path to compliance with the likely DNC rules for the 2024 presidential nomination cycle.

But the remaining two states have run into problems and failed to meet the January 5 deadline. The easy explanation is that both New Hampshire and Georgia have a Republicans problem. Republicans control state government in New Hampshire and the secretary of state's office in Georgia. 

However, both states were required to do different things by the DNCRBC before January 5 in order to retain their waivers. 

Georgia Democrats had to win over Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and convince him to move the presidential primary to February 13. They have failed to do so to this point. Yet, the secretary's office has provided the criteria by which the primary could occur earlier: 1) the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries must occur concurrently (as has been the custom in the Peach state and most states with state-run primaries, for that matter) and 2) the primary cannot be so early that it leads to delegate penalties from one or both national parties. February 13 does not work under those criteria, but a date later in the pre-window period may.

New Hampshire Democrats, on the other hand, had a much higher bar to clear before January 5. Although the secretary of state selects the date on which the presidential primary in the Granite state falls -- just as in Georgia -- the DNCRBC instead targeted the legislative process. The panel expected progress toward changing state law to specify the February 6, 2024 date on which the DNC has proposed to schedule the New Hampshire primary and to expand voting to include no-excuse absentee balloting in the state. Democrats in New Hampshire would have likely balked at those demands anyway, but had no real recourse with Republicans uninterested in making those changes in unified control of state government. 

But FHQ will not rehash all of that again. One can always go read about the New Hampshire defense of the first-in-the-nation law, the lose-lose situation in which the Democratic Party there finds itself for the 2024 cycle and what happened in 1984 when New Hampshire was in a similar predicament (and what that might mean for 2024).

Instead, let's examine where this process has been and where it is likely to go given that it looks like both the DNCRBC and New Hampshire Democrats may be digging in for an extended standoff.

Where this has been

I. In the lead up to the December 2 DNCRBC meeting it looked as if the panel might take the path of least resistance toward change: knock Iowa from its perch atop the calendar, move every other early state up and add an Iowa replacement to the mix. That set expectations high that New Hampshire Democrats would be able to easily protect their traditional first primary position. When the Biden calendar proposal was revealed and adopted by the DNCRBC, those high expectations were dashed and New Hampshire Democrats reacted swiftly and defiantly. 

II. But it was not just that South Carolina supplanted New Hampshire in the president's plan that rankled Democrats in the Granite state. Sure, that stuck in their craws, but the aforementioned hoops through which the DNCRBC required the New Hampshire Democratic Party to jump added insult to injury. The herculean tasks made it appear as if the DNCRBC had only provided the New Hampshire primary a waiver-in-name-only; a hollow protection of the state's first-in-the-nation status in the Democratic process given impossibly high requirements. Again, the reaction was (pre-Christmas) defiance.

III. Then came January 5. And the reaction was again defiance but this time mixed with a request that the DNCRBC not punish New Hampshire Democrats for being unable to meet "unrealistic and unattainable" goals. That was further buttressed by the New Hampshire Republicans in power from the governor to the legislative leaders and the secretary of state on down signaling that no changes were imminent. 

Where it is going

IV. However, since there are clear roadblocks to compliance in the cases of both New Hampshire and Georgia, an extension was granted. That grace period will provide both sides -- the DNCRBC and, in this case, New Hampshire Democrats -- some time to consider alternatives. 

V. Extension or not, all states conditionally granted waivers to hold nominating contests in the pre-window have until February 1 -- the night before the February 2-4 Democratic Winter meeting kicks off -- to complete all action on making the changes required by the DNRBC. That early February meeting is when the DNC is set to vote on the calendar proposal adopted by the DNCRBC in December. 

VI. Following the final DNC adoption of the calendar rules for 2024 state parties will spend the spring finalizing draft delegate selection plans, including when the state's nominating contest is scheduled to occur. Those plans must face a public comment period of at least one month before being submitted for DNCRBC review before the early stages of May 2023. 

VII. Thereafter, any points of contention -- any noncompliance issues in state delegate selection plans -- will be hammered out between the state parties in question and the DNCRBC before final approval is granted (or not) during the summer and into the fall. Noncompliance at that stage will trigger penalties. The automatic penalty for a timing violation is a 50 percent reduction in a state's delegation. But if the New Hampshire secretary of state schedules the presidential primary for any date other than the one prescribed by DNC rules and Granite state Democrats go along with it (defying DNC rules), then the party is likely to draw the Florida/Michigan treatment from the DNCRBC. It is also at the discretion of the DNCRBC to go beyond the 50 percent penalty and in the case of Florida and Michigan, both of which planned to and held noncompliant primaries in 2008, that penalty was a raised to 100 percent. [Of course, there are caveats to that penalty.]

FHQ will stop there. To go further is to speculate more than I am willing given the intended scope here.

The point is less to lay out the above timeline than it is to show that New Hampshire Democrats have already had around three opportunities to respond to the DNCRBC concerning the proposed changes to the calendar. They will have roughly four more chances to do so in the coming year both before the national party rules are finalized and after. 

How they respond (or continue to respond) matters.

There is a reason FHQ said this when the president's calendar plan was released on the eve of the December DNCRBC meeting:

"If I'm folks in NH, I'm real quiet right now other than to say, "There is a state law. We will defer to the secretary of state on the matter as the law requires." That's it. Quietly and happily go along for the ride and say you did everything you could to lobby for a change."

That drew the ire of some in New Hampshire at the time, but it reflects the DNC rules and the nature of how they have been interpreted over time. Those rules, specifically Rule 21, require state parties to have "acted in good faith" and to have taken "all provable positive steps" towards making any changes on the state level to bring the state's delegate selection plan into compliance with DNC rules. 

DNCRBC co-Chair Jim Roosevelt echoed the language in that rule when he recently discussed the New Hampshire and Georgia situations with NPR. 

"Hopefully there will be flexibility," said Jim Roosevelt, co-chair of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, of his colleagues. The committee is likely to meet and vote on granting the extensions in the coming weeks before a planned DNC-wide vote to approve or deny the new calendar at a meeting in Philadelphia in early February. 

Roosevelt said the DNC has worked with other states in the past as long as they can show they are making their "best effort" and taking "provable, positive steps."

Notice that. Roosevelt mentions both DNCRBC-side flexibility on providing more time but also in working with state parties that will meet them in the middle somewhere. 

New Hampshire Democrats have certainly leaned in on the law the state has on the books to protect its first-in-the-nation status in the time since the calendar proposal was unveiled. But whether they have to this point made their "best efforts" at change or taken "provable, positive steps" toward compliance is debatable (if not in the eye of the beholder). 

The DNC will likely adopt some calendar plan next month in Philadelphia. There may even be some changes to accommodate New Hampshire and/or Georgia. But if the New Hampshire primary remains tethered to the Nevada primary on February 6 in those adopted rules, then how New Hampshire Democrats react may go some way toward telling interested onlookers how the DNCRBC is likely to respond. 

Does the New Hampshire Democratic Party delegate selection plan submitted to the DNCRBC for review go along with the proposed February 6 date or leave that part open pending the decision of Secretary of State Scanlan (R)? 

Do Democrats in the New Hampshire state legislature make any moves to change the primary date (futile though those efforts may ultimately be)? Do they make some attempt to consolidate the Democratic primary with town meetings in March (as the primary was initially intended to be prior to 1975)? 

Does the New Hampshire Democratic Party offer to hold a party-run contest? 

Those are all signals of, if not outright, good faith moves and/or provable, positive steps. And those steps may in some cases still trigger a 50 percent delegate reduction, but it may also help the party avoid making the New Hampshire primary into a "state-sponsored public opinion poll" in the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination process. 

Continued defiance in the eyes of the DNCRBC will not help avoid that fate. 

But ultimately New Hampshire Democrats may bank on the fact that the DNC will eventually cave and not be able to enforce any effort to keep a swing state delegation out of the convention. Of course, a president who wanted to diversify the early calendar who becomes presumptive nominee with little or only token opposition and leads said convention may have some input on the matter. 

However, that is a ways down the road and both sides -- New Hampshire Democrats and the DNCRBC -- have some built-in off ramps (as laid out above) along the way. Will either or both take them or will the showdown continue into 2024? 

--

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Progress Report: A view of an early Georgia Democratic Presidential Primary, post-deadline day

Last week's DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee-imposed deadline for states granted contingent waivers for early contests to update their progress came and went on January 5 with little new light shed on the subject. 

Yes, South Carolina, Nevada and Michigan gave favorable reports and received positive marks from the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC). And all of that was expected because of either how dates are chosen (South Carolina), being on the prescribed date already (Nevada) or the midterms shifting state legislative control in the direction of Democrats (Michigan). None of that was new or unexpected. 

Neither was it unexpected that New Hampshire, Iowa and Georgia may present some problems for the recently adopted calendar proposal put forth by President Biden and his team. It came as little surprise, then, that the DNCRBC co-chairs granted both New Hampshire and Georgia some extra time beyond January 5 to work toward the plan outlined in the proposed pre-window calendar in the Democratic presidential nomination process for 2024. 

And that is less a story of backlash than it is about the political realities of changing the lineup at the beginning of the calendar. Again, if it was so easy to change, then it would have changed by now. 

Look, the calendar proposal, as is, was unworkable from the start. New Hampshire Democrats were most assuredly going to balk at losing their position atop the primary calendar, and their defiant reaction is mostly just par for the course. Plus, given the hoops that Granite state Democrats were given to jump through to retain their waiver, the very clear signal was that 1) the DNCRBC never really thought New Hampshire Democrats were going to play along and/or 2) the panel was going to have this standoff with them anyway and boot the state from the pre-window altogether. 

[But FHQ digresses. We will return to the Granite state in a separate post.]

Georgia is much the same. As in New Hampshire, Republicans control the levers of power with respect to the selection of a date for the presidential primary. Thus far, the secretary of state's office in Georgia has resisted entreaties about shifting up the date of presidential primary in the Peach state:

"We’ve been clear: This needs to be equitable so that no one loses a single delegate and needs to take place on the same day to save taxpayer funds."

-- Jordan Fuchs, Georgia Deputy Secretary of State

And representatives in Secretary Raffensperger's (R) office have not been doing this just recently. Democrats, in the state of Georgia and nationally, have been repeatedly rebuffed throughout the course of Georgia Democrats' efforts to appeal to the DNCRBC to add the Peach state to the pre-window lineup. 

"Sterling said the agency 'has been telling Democrats for over a year that we will do nothing that would require having two dates' for the parties’ primaries. He said that because of the national GOP’s calendar, holding Georgia’s Republican primary before March 1 'would cut their delegate count in half.'”

-- Gabriel Sterling, COO  Georgia Secretary of State

[Actually, a primary before March 1 would cost Georgia Republicans around 85 percent of their delegates.]

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) also opposes the move. A spokesman said, "the governor has no role in this process and does not support the idea." Well, under Georgia law, the governor issues a proclamation about the presidential primary, but that follows the secretary of state scheduling the contest. Informally, the governor could lobby on behalf of such a move. ...if he was so inclined. 

And in this case, Kemp is not. 

That is a fair amount of resistance to the calendar proposal adopted by the DNCRBC in December to shift the Georgia primary to February 13. But that just makes February 13 unworkable.  

In looking at the above comments from folks in the Georgia secretary of state's office, there is a path for Georgia to be added to the pre-window that satisfies the two main criteria: 1) the state holds just one primary for both parties and 2) neither party loses delegates (for going too early). Just because February 13 is unworkable for Georgia does not mean that the DNCRBC does not have a set of workable component parts, New Hampshire aside, to assemble an alternate pre-window calendar. 

Nevada is likely locked into the February 6 position called for in state law. But everything else is maneuverable. 

If the space between South Carolina and Nevada(/New Hampshire) is deemed to be too small and the three state cluster in the calendar's first four days too heavy a lift in the eyes of the DNCRBC, then South Carolina could be shifted up slightly (if the panel and the president remain wedded to the idea of the Palmetto state primary leading off the proceedings).

Michigan is also maneuverable. Yes, Democrats in power in the state recently submitted their letters to the DNCRBC pledging to make the necessary changes to state law to add the Great Lakes state to the early window. But those Democrats are also in "you say jump and we'll ask how high" mode. In other words, they are happy to be a part of the conversation and could just as easily shift up to an earlier date if necessary to better space out currently listed contests across February 2024.

There is no reason the DNCRBC cannot work with the component parts already described in the proposal. To that end, just swap Georgia and Michigan in the order. Move Michigan up a week or two and slot Georgia into a spot on Saturday, March 2. Democrats in Michigan can make that sort of change just as easily as they can moving to February 27, and Georgia can be the lead-in contest to Super Tuesday on March 2 without costing Peach state taxpayers any additional money for a second presidential primary election or the Georgia Republican Party any delegates to the national convention. 

The beginnings of the Democratic and Republican calendars are unaligned in the rules and a contest can slip into a slot ahead of the first Tuesday in March (Democratic) but after March 1 (Republican) in 2024. Again, February 13 is unworkable for a Georgia Democratic presidential primary, but there are tweaks the DNCRBC can make to create a doable pre-window slate of contests that also satisfies the basic premise of the Biden proposal.

They will still have the New Hampshire problem, but the DNCRBC was always going to have to have that fight if they and the president are serious about dislodging the Granite state from the first primary position in the Democratic order. But as I say, that is a story for a separate post. 

Everything else? That is fixable. 

--

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"It will be a state-sponsored public opinion poll"

Anthony Brooks of WBUR had a nice report on Here and Now about the showdown over the New Hampshire presidential primary between Granite state Democrats and the Democratic National Committee. 

Regular readers of FHQ will note that it covers familiar ground, but Brooks also did well to get DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) Co-chair Jim Roosevelt on record for the piece. And Roosevelt's comments were illuminating:

On New Hampshire generally...

"New Hampshire has done this [held the first-in-the-nation primary] and done this well for a century or more, but they have always abided by the party rules. This is the first time they are not doing that."

On the effects of punishments for DNC rule breaking... 

"It [the New Hampshire presidential primary] will be a state-sponsored public opinion poll."

Neither of those statements is all that surprising. The notion of the DNCRBC going beyond the 50 percent penalty on states that violate the rules on the timing of primaries and caucuses came up at the panel's meeting in early December. It is not even a revelation that this is the first time in the post-reform era that New Hampshire will have broken the DNC timing rules. FHQ has covered that ground.

However, what is surprising -- or perhaps, noteworthy -- is that Brooks even reached out to Roosevelt for comment or that Roosevelt went on the record. It is not exactly common for rules committee members, much less chairs, to either comment or be a part of these stories. It is not that chairs cannot or should not do so, but rather, that they usually do not. Roosevelt's comments represent a small counter to the very vocal defiance from the Granite state to this point following the DNCRBC adoption of the president's calendar proposal. But it does say something about how the DNCRBC is signaling it will deal with states that run afoul of the party rules. ...even New Hampshire.

--

There is one other thing from the Brooks interview that merits mentioning. The edit of the final story transitions from Brooks describing the penalties New Hampshire Democrats may face -- mainly focused on not seating delegates at the national convention -- to Roosevelt's comment about the state-sponsored public opinion poll. Unfortunately, it is not clear at this point whether those two things necessarily track one another. 

In personal conversations, Roosevelt has always made plain to me the fact that the delegate penalties on candidates or states apply during primary season; meaning a violating state's/candidate's delegates are not included in the various delegate counts that are tallied as the race moves from one state to another. It is a perceptual (if not real) penalty. [The count is very real to the perception of how the race is going and how it typically ends.]

The convention and the seating of delegates are different matters. A convention -- or its Credentials Committee -- makes the decisions on whether to seat delegates, and those decisions are made after primary season (and typically after the nomination race) has concluded. Alternatively, a presumptive nominee can urge the full seating of a sanctioned state's delegation as Barack Obama did with Florida and Michigan in 2008 (reversing a May 2008 decision by the DNCRBC to seat all of the two states' delegates but only count each delegate's vote as half).

So, it is not clear from this Here and Now story that Roosevelt is threatening to hypothetically not seat the New Hampshire delegation at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (should the state ultimately not be in compliance). It is clear that the DNCRBC has only so much power and it exists mainly before and during primary season. But a national convention is the ultimate arbiter in either national party. And a convention has different goals from what the party is attempting to accomplish during a nomination race. It can go against a previous decision by one of the party's standing committees. 

In fact, this is kind of what New Hampshire Democrats are banking on for 2024.

But, that Roosevelt is speaking out now suggests that such an eventuality will not come without a fight. And that is really the take home message from all of this. New Hampshire Democrats are telegraphing that they intend to break what are likely to be the DNC calendar rules (when adopted in February). And Roosevelt is signaling that New Hampshire will not be protected in 2024. It will be treated as any other state that breaks the timing rules. 

--

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South Carolina's Rise to the Pre-Window

If you have not already read it, then FHQ highly recommends the recent Washington Post opinion piece from College of Charleston political scientists Gibbs Knotts and Jordan Ragusa. How the South Carolina primary gained primacy -- From first in the South to first in the Nation is a really good accounting of how, over time, the presidential primary in the Palmetto state got to where it did in the calendar proposal adopted by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee earlier this month. 

There were a couple of passages in the piece that made me think of a pair of stories.

1. In the section about the efforts of South Carolina Democrats to move the party-run presidential primary up in the 1992 process, Knotts and Ragusa write:

"By the 1990s, however, the success of South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary was undeniable and, in 1992, the state’s Democrats attempted to position themselves alongside Republicans as the First in the South state. Despite support for the early primary, Georgia leaped past South Carolina to host the first primary in the South that year as its governor, Zell Miller, worked with Georgia’s state legislature to secure the coveted position."

The jockeying between South Carolina in Georgia during the 1992 cycle is partly a story of a change in Democratic rules for the cycle. Following 1988, the DNC made the decision to widen the so-called window -- the period that states can hold presidential primaries and caucuses without penalty or a waiver -- by a week. In previous cycles the earliest states could conduct the first stage of their delegate selection events was the second Tuesday in March. But for 1992, that earliest point got bumped up to the first Tuesday in March. 

Several states took advantage of the change and moved to the new earliest position for 1992 during 1991. But none of them were from the South other than South Carolina. And that left the South Carolina Democratic primary as the first primary in the South scheduled on the Saturday before the remnants of the 1988 Southern Super Tuesday (on the second Tuesday in March 1992).

But things changed.

In early October 1991, Governor Bill Clinton (D-AR) entered the Democratic nomination race. And the story goes that Clinton discussed with his fellow southern governor, Zell Miller (D-GA), the idea of moving the presidential primary in the Peach state up to that earliest point to potentially give Clinton a lifeline on the early part of the calendar. 

Miller came to Clinton's aid, but there are two things to note here. First, Bill Clinton entered the race in October 1991, barely five months before the Iowa caucuses kicked off the voting phase of the 1992 cycle. In current presidential nomination politics that is white knight time, not a juncture in the cycle when serious contenders, much less future nominees, decide to throw their hats in the ring. Times have changed. 

Second, at that point in time -- fall 1991 -- the Georgia General Assembly was already adjourned for the year. Miller eventually leaned on the legislature, but did so when the body reconvened for the second half of the 1991-92 legislative session. HB 196 -- changing the date of the primary -- did not clear the legislative hurdle to be signed into law until mid-January 1992. And that was less than two months before the primary election. But that was not the end of the story. Section V preclearance under the Voting Rights Act was still a thing at this time and Georgia was a covered jurisdiction. The presidential primary date change still had to win preclearance from the Justice Department (which it ultimately did). 

The Georgia move is unusual in a great many respects. Primary date changes do not usually happen in the year of a presidential election. And if they do, those changes are typically intended for the next cycle. Also, this change came together rather quickly. That was also unique. More often than not, coordination on this sort of move -- one that goes through the legislative process -- takes some time (and in the case of Georgia at the time, was an effort eased by a Democratic legislature).

But that is how Georgia came to jump South Carolina -- really late -- and claimed the first-in-the-South mantle during the 1992 cycle. 

2. Knotts and Ragusa also pinpoint the 2004 cycle as a turning point for the South Carolina Democratic primary rising to the early part of the Democratic calendar. They write:

"Later that decade, the DNC prevented South Carolina Democratic leaders from holding an early primary alongside the state’s GOP contest because of national rules prohibiting primaries from occurring before the first Tuesday in March. Only two states had waivers: Iowa and New Hampshire. 

"Eventually, the DNC conceded, and South Carolina Democrats held the inaugural First in the South primary in 2004. Since then, the state has played a critical role in the race for the White House, often serving as a decisive vote after mixed, and often controversial, results in Iowa and New Hampshire."

Here, FHQ would gently push back to add some context. The 2004 cycle was important, but it did not represent a cycle in which the DNC relented and let South Carolina go early. Well, the DNC did not let South Carolina alone go earlier. As in the 1992 cycle, the DNC decided to widen the window for 2004. This time the party allowed states -- those with no waiver -- to hold contests as early as the first Tuesday in February, a month earlier than had been the case from 1992-2000. It was both a response to the Republican calendars that had come to include February contests over the previous few cycles, but also to compress the calendar and settle on a nominee as early as possible and better prepare for a run against an incumbent Republican president.

Again, South Carolina Democrats took advantage of the earlier window and moved their presidential primary to that first Tuesday in February position alongside six other states. Missouri and Oklahoma, two peripherally southern states, held primaries that same day, but, technically, South Carolina was the first-in-the-South.

It was not until after 2004 and the 2006 Price commission that the DNC moved on recommendations to expand the pre-window lineup for the 2008 cycle. Those changes brought geographic and racial diversity in to the early part of the calendar before the window opened that cycle (once again on the first Tuesday in February). They also ushered South Carolina not only into the pre-window period on the calendar, but as the lone southern representative there. 

That was what gave South Carolina Democrats the early (first-in-the-South) and a distinct (with a pre-window waiver) position that it still holds. Only, the proposed slot for the Democratic presidential primary in the Palmetto state is slightly earlier in 2024.

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Iowa and New Hampshire Are No Strangers to Threats: The case of 1984 and what it may mean for 2024

For those who closely follow presidential nominations, there are handful of things that everyone knows about them. Among them are that Iowa and New Hampshire always go first, both states jealously guard those respective positions, and, for some time in the Democratic Party process, both have become decreasing demographically aligned with the party's overall primary electorate. That last one is a new(-ish) element and is part of what has Iowa on the outside looking in, and New Hampshire likely to follow it, in the new calendar outline proposed by President Biden and recently adopted by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC).

But guarding first-in-the-nation status is a reality that constantly keeps Iowa and New Hampshire under threat whether by ever-changing national party rules or by other states encroaching on their turf (or both!) in a given cycle. The 2024 cycle, then, is not the first time that those in Iowa and New Hampshire have had to stare down a long and difficult journey back to the top before voting starts. Some, in the wake of the newly rolled-out Democratic calendar outline, have been quick to raise 2008 as a case when the traditional first pair overcame the odds and ended up back at the front of the queue. Yes, in 2007 state governments -- legislators and governors -- in both Florida and Michigan pushed primaries in each state into January. Legislators in Florida first slotted the primary there into a January 29 position, and later in the year, the Michigan primary was scheduled for January 15. 

Those moves had the effect of disrupting the DNC plans to hold an expanded early window of four contests (instead of just two), none of which could be held before their respective dates below:

Monday, January 14: Iowa caucuses

Saturday, January 19: Nevada caucuses

Tuesday, January 22: New Hampshire primary

Tuesday, January 29: South Carolina Democratic primary

But the Florida and Michigan primary shifts had the effect of nudging Iowa and New Hampshire closer to the beginning of the year while Nevada held the line on January 19. South Carolina Democrats, to stay ahead of Florida as the first contest in the South, bumped their contest up to Saturday, January 26. But again, all four states were protected. Unlike Democrats in Florida and Michigan, those in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina had spots codified in DNC rules that each attempted to protect once the interloping states had crossed into the pre-window period (which at that point, meant contests earlier the first Tuesday in February).

And that is a good example of a threat to Iowa and New Hampshire. But it is not exactly the best historical example of a cycle that found the typical leadoff states pitted against the Democratic National Committee and its rules for delegate selection. To find such an example one has to go all the way back to the 1984 cycle, one that partially laid the predicate for some of the actions taken in 2008. 

The 1984 environment

Rules changes

After the Democratic Party fundamentally reshaped the way in which candidates were nominated for president after 1968, the party spent the 1970s tinkering with the rules by which those candidates were nominated. The 1984 cycle, the fourth since reform, was no different. This was the cycle after all that added superdelegates to the equation. 

But there were also changes to the rules regarding the timing of delegate selection events. The rule for 1972 and 1976 was that all primaries and caucuses were to be held within the calendar year of the presidential election. For 1980, the party added the so-called "window" rule. All contests were to occur in a thirteen week period between the second Tuesday in March and the second Tuesday in June. Exceptions were made then for any states that held contests in 1976 before that earliest point in the window. That not only exempted Iowa and New Hampshire in 1980, but a host of other caucus states. 

Coming off a loss in the 1980 general election, however, the DNC altered the parameters of that rule for 1984 even further. It specified for the first time the states that could hold contests prior to the second Tuesday in March, granting the New Hampshire primary a slot seven days before the opening of the window and the Iowa caucuses one 15 days before it. Furthermore, Charles Manatt, the DNC chair, signaled that the party would crack down on window violations in the 1984 cycle, warning that refusal to seat delegates from violating states was on the table. 

New Hampshire conflict

Of course, a problem arose. [They nearly always do.]

Granted, the rule change was mostly effective in ridding the early window of would-be rogue contests in 1984. Importantly, it cleared the Massachusetts primary and Minnesota caucuses from the pre-window. But a quirky legacy system in Vermont remained and proved problematic. Town meetings have always been scheduled for the first Tuesday in March. They still are. During that era, however, Vermont Democrats added a non-binding presidential preference vote to the proceedings as well. It was a straw poll that had no bearing on delegate allocation in the state. Allocation did not occur until the state convention in April. 

New Hampshire maneuvered around the straw poll in both 1976 and 1980, going one week earlier each time. But in each of those cycles, the secretary of state, acted not only in accordance with the 1975 law granting his office the ability to set the date of the primary (and keep it first), but consistent with the DNC rules for those cycles as well. 

Yet, the DNC rules were different for 1984. The beauty contest "primary" in Vermont was scheduled for the week before the second Tuesday in March opening to the Democrats' recognized window. And New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner viewed Vermont's presence on the date set aside for the New Hampshire primary by the DNC as a problem for him with respect to implementing the date-setting provision of the presidential primary law in the Granite state. 

This was already inflaming tensions between Democrats in the neighboring northeastern states and at the national party as early as January 1983, more than a year the voting began. Vermont's state chair said at the time, "If there is a problem, it is New Hampshire's."

But it was a problem for Democrats in more than just New Hampshire. Gardner's signal that the New Hampshire primary would fall on February 28 -- out of compliance with the DNC timing rules -- roiled Democrats in Iowa. If Vermont pushed the New Hampshire contest up a week from their DNC-designated position, then that primary would be held just a day after the slot set aside by the DNC for the Iowa caucuses. Legislators in the Hawkeye state responded in kind in the spring of 1983, changing state law and creating a New Hampshire-like buffer for the caucuses. Under state laws after that point, the New Hampshire primary would be scheduled by the secretary of state there for a week before any other similar event and Iowa's caucuses would end up eight days earlier than any other similar contest. 

All of this occurred before June 1983 when the DNC's Compliance Committee, the precursor to Rules and Bylaws, met to consider delegate selection plans from the state Democratic parties for the 1984 cycle. With the backing of DNC Chair Manatt -- who again, was adamant that the rules would be enforced in 1984 -- rejected all state plans that broke with the timetable for contests, including both Iowa's and New Hampshire's.

And those threats from the national party meant enough at that time that Iowa Democrats had second thoughts as the impasse with the national party stretched deep into the fall of 1983, barely three months out from the commencement of voting. A compromise emerged from a November 1983 state central committee meeting that set December 10 as a deadline for the Iowa Democratic Party's state central committee. If New Hampshire had not shifted its primary into compliance with DNC rules by that point, then the caucuses in Iowa would proceed on February 20 (instead of the rules-based February 27 date). The rationale was that if the DNC eventually let New Hampshire slide, then Iowa would be in the clear as well. 

The courts get involved

December 10 came and went with no changes from New Hampshire, and that seemed to lock both states into the non-compliant dates for 1984. But the fear that Iowa's delegation would not be seated at the national convention had extended from some quarters of the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) to the campaigns themselves. Charles Gifford, a member of the IDP state central committee and two state co-chairs of former Vice President Walter Mondale's campaign brought suit against the state party to prevent it from conducting a non-compliant contest on February 20 and reinstate the February 27 date.

However, the state party along with the campaigns of John Glenn and Alan Cranston argued that changing back to the February 27 date would create "irreparable harm" for the candidates because of the investments of both time and money each campaign had made in Iowa. 

Not only was this a political conflict between representatives of three campaigns for candidates involved in the 1984 Democratic nomination race, but it indirectly raised a conflict between the state law in Iowa and the national party rules. The decision in the case conceded that the Iowa Mondale representatives were "entitled to relief" but that that was "outweighed by the irreparable harm that changing the rules of the presidential nominating process [in Iowa] at this late date may have."¹

It was the timing that mattered. That the date impasse lasted nearly into 1984 and additionally that the campaigns had already invested based on a particular calendar were factors that ended up carrying the day in court. And it is that sort of timing issue that tends to catch up with national parties in this process. Enforcement of the rules -- if they rise to a delegation not being seated at a convention -- come at a point at the end of primary season when the party is shifting toward unifying with general election victory in mind. That is why the DNC conceded in May 1984, agreeing to seat both states' delegations at the convention.

That was the precedent set in 1984, and what actors in both Iowa and New Hampshire banked on in 2008. Once again for 2008, the DNC had carved out particular positions for not only Iowa and New Hampshire, but also Nevada and South Carolina. And technically, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina all broke the rules for 2008. But each did so to protect the order the DNC had laid out for the nomination to progress; an order disrupted, in part, by Democrats in Florida and Michigan. Each avoided sanction. And in the end, on the eve of the Denver convention, the Florida and Michigan delegations were reinstated in full as well.

What 1984 may mean for 2024

Clearly there are some similarities. Just like in the 1984 cycle, Iowa and New Hampshire perceive some threat in the proposed calendar changes to their privileged status as lead off states in the presidential nomination process in 2024. And timing matters too. Past actions have indicated to decision makers in both states that the national party is likely to fold in the interest of general election unity in the end anyway.

But 2024 is different. 

The proposed rules are different. Iowa is no longer protected at all. And New Hampshire has more specifically been assigned to a position that conflicts with its state law. Or rather other states have been protected -- and placed ahead of or alongside the New Hampshire primary -- in the proposed DNC rules with no regard for that state law (or with a probably futile eye toward attempting to change it). This is not a situation like Vermont in 1983. This is the national party codifying a different order, and in the process creating a different starting point for this exercise than has existed in any other cycle in the post-reform era. 

There is a certain latitude that Iowa and New Hampshire have always operated under prior to this cycle. And the rationale is simple enough. It came out in the late 1983 discussions in Iowa and was a part of the lore of both 1984 and 2008. Essentially, it comes down to "if the national party protected us as the first contests, then it will not matter if we make moves to insure the order they wanted."

Look, Iowa and New Hampshire will be first in 2024. ...in the Republican process. Iowa Republicans will schedule early (likely January) caucuses and the New Hampshire secretary of state has already promised to do likewise to protect the status of the presidential primary in the Granite state.

The question is whether the state Democratic parties break and seek alternate means of allocating delegates under the pressure of the national party penalties and candidate deterrents designed to keep candidates away and off the ballot. This, of course, will be greatly affected by whether President Biden opts to throw his hat back into the ring and seek renomination. 

Should the president run largely unopposed, then Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats are stuck; stuck between state law and national party rules. However, in Iowa that same state law that creates an eight day buffer between the caucuses and any other contest still empowers the state central committees of the parties to schedule those contests. And in both 2008 and 2012, Iowa Democrats selected dates that were fewer than eight days before the New Hampshire primary without any penalty. There is no penalty for breaking the state law. That is true in the Granite state as well. There is no penalty for breaking state law there either. But in contrast, the New Hampshire secretary of state controls the selection of the primary date and not the state party, leaving the party to find some alternative should it opt out of the primary.

Early reviews for 2024, however, from both Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats has been mostly negative and the tone struck, defiant in the face of the proposed rules changes. 

But the lesson of 1984 may not be in what has come to be an on-again-off-again struggle between the earliest states and the national party. Instead, the lesson may be in potential legal remedies if those with standing move quickly. Remember, the challenge to the earlier 1984 caucus date in Iowa played out between campaign proxies of one candidate on one side and a state party with opposing candidates as intervenors on the other. 

If Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats remain defiant into 2023 and if Biden opts to run -- relevant IFs -- then Biden proxies in Iowa and/or New Hampshire (if there are any left) could bring suit against the state parties, arguing that supporters of the president from those states run the risk of being shut out of the national convention. In other words, because of the non-compliant contests, both states gamble that their delegations will either be reduced or not seated.

Admittedly, that is quite a few steps down the line. And if Iowa and New Hampshire are serious about protecting their first-in-the-nation status -- which they are -- then neither will have official contest dates until far later in the year.  That appears to once again push this exchange between the national party (or national candidates) and those on the state level to a point that is once again close to when voting begins; a point in the timeline in 2023 when other candidates may have entered the race and already invested heavily in those two states. 

But there may not be other candidates. There may not be other candidates who are willing to expend resources in a couple of states that stray from the DNC rules. 

Even before that, however, there are processes in place. Democrats from both Iowa and New Hampshire will have to submit delegate selection plans to the DNCRBC by early May 2023. That process will document either the state parties' continued defiance or that they will stand down and follow the rules. Continued defiance -- a documented non-compliant date in a proposed delegate selection plan -- would mean that Democrats from both states would find themselves with a rejected plan likely in June. 

With the state parties on record and a plan rejected, interested Democrats in the two states -- whether for the president or not -- may move legally to compel the state parties to hold compliant contests for fear of being disenfranchised in the process without one.

They could.

But again, that is long way down the road. The DNCRBC wants to break the will of Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats. Actually, the panel and the party just want states to follow the rules. But they are unlikely to get that. Instead, they will have to lean on penalties designed to compel state cooperation. That may not work either. But if the president runs for reelection as expected and runs unopposed or largely unopposed for the nomination, then that may not mean the temperature gets turned down on this as it otherwise would in an uncompetitive environment. It may mean that the party ratchets up the tension with the state parties to set a new precedent for 2028 and beyond. 

The first step of that is in place. And unlike 1984, Iowa and New Hampshire do not have the same protections in DNC rules for 2024.

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¹ Information in The 1984 environment section leans on work in Hugh Winebrenner's essay, "Defending Iowa's First-in-the-Nation Status -- The 1984 Precinct Caucuses" from the Annals of Iowa (1986).

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Why South Carolina Got the Nod to Lead the 2024 Democratic Calendar

It has been a while since the national parties have either allowed states other than Iowa and New Hampshire to go first on the presidential primary calendar or have failed to expressly protect the traditional first pair in their rules. 

In fact, the entire post-reform era since the 1972 cycle has operated that way in both parties' processes. Now, to be clear, states have challenged Iowa and New Hampshire throughout that period, but the two have always been able to maneuver around those threats on their own -- banded together in first-in-the-nation solidarity or individually -- or in recent years, have kept their spots, protected by national party rules. 

That has changed.

The decision by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) late last week to adopt the proposal put forth by the president stripped Iowa of its position and effectively/indirectly did the same to New Hampshire. Instead of the usual two states at the front of the queue, South Carolina got the green light to move up from the fourth and final spot in the pre-window -- the one that the Palmetto state has held in the Democratic nomination process since the 2008 cycle -- all the way up to the top slot. 

President Biden's late input on the DNCRBC process to award waivers to four or five states to lead the 2024 calendar upset the emerging consensus that Nevada and New Hampshire were the states vying for the honor of going first. The proposition also set off a flurry of chatter that South Carolina received the prized spot because the state had rescued his primary campaign in 2020 and/or that it was meant as a favor to Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC, 6th), whose endorsement appeared instrumental in the days leading up to the late February primary in the Palmetto state. That all may be, but it is not anything that is foreign to this process. Incumbent presidents tend to support the rules -- calendar and otherwise -- that got them to the nomination, and Biden has done just that, at least in part. 

Is that intended to insulate himself against a primary challenge? Again, that would not be a foreign concept. Jimmy Carter's team nudged state legislators in several states -- notably in the South -- to shift their primaries to earlier dates during the 1980 cycle to counter expected (Ted) Kennedy wins in the northeast. And just last cycle, the Trump campaign leaned on a number of states to shift from primaries to caucuses (or to cancel contests altogether) in order to produce electorates likely to minimize or eliminate any opposition success.

The only catch in the 2024 discussion is that there is no looming (and legitimate) challenge to Biden on the horizon. Of course, there is plenty of time for that to change and besides, the president may -- although it does not appear that way at this time -- pass on a reelection bid.

Nonetheless, the South Carolina ascension has "reignited tensions" in the Democratic Party that has some crying foul. And at least some of that is based on the perceptions that some of the above historically consistent actions by incumbent presidents are now wrong in some way. Others have pointed to the Palmetto primary as a poor lead off contest because the state is a virtual lock for Republicans in the electoral college. 

That criticism is all entirely fair. 

But is also overlooks some of the very real and practical reasons that South Carolina ended up first in the proposal. 

To examine this further, let's look at the DNCRBC's own criteria for states to attain an early window waiver. Early on in the process before applications for waivers were submitted, the DNCRBC highlighted diversity, competitiveness and feasibility as markers the panel would use in considering states for potential waivers.

Diversity

South Carolina hits the mark for the most part on diversity. That African Americans comprise a majority of the primary electorate there was clearly something the committee and the president prized as a component of raising minority voices in the process. That is basically why the state was added to the early state lineup for 2008. The state is a nice mix of urban, suburban and rural as well, and is also relatively economically diverse. However, South Carolina is a right-to-work state, which is a knock on the state in a party that values unions/labor interests. Finally, South Carolina is a southern state and has been the lone representative from the South among the first four states since 2008. 

Let's pause there because South Carolina is not the only southern state from which the DNCRBC could have chosen. And, in fact, the committee also designated neighboring Georgia to also appear in the pre-window. But this factors in elsewhere.

Competitiveness

Nope, South Carolina is not a competitive general election state for Democrats. Organizing there for the primaries and not simultaneously preparing for the general election seems like something of a sunk cost (or at the very least an inefficient use of finite resources). That is why the committee had targeted competitive states. So South Carolina does not fit the bill there. 

Feasibility

If one looks at the checklist above, South Carolina has a couple of checks by racial diversity and regional diversity (across the whole lineup of early states). That is neither an exhaustive nor overwhelming list of positives in the favor of South Carolina Democrats. But recall that the primary reason driving the DNCRBC decision in July to punt on the final early calendar lineup until after the midterms was that state were still working on “answering several final but critical questions regarding election administration and feasibility in their states.”

So, to return to the question from above, why South Carolina and not some other southern state? Feasibility.

There are roadblocks in the way of the DNRBC adding another southern state other than South Carolina. Much of it has to do with partisan composition of state government. Republicans dominate most states in the region and have an interest in following RNC rules that forbid states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada from holding contests before March 1. 

Here's how that looks (based on what entity makes the decision on the date and administration of a primary election):

Alabama: unified Republican control of state government

Arkansas: unified Republican control of state government

Florida: unified Republican control of state government

Georgia*: Republican secretary of state

Kentucky: Republican legislature

Louisiana: Republican legislature

Mississippi: unified Republican control of state government

North Carolina: Republican legislature

Oklahoma: unified Republican control of state government

South Carolina*: state parties select the date for their own state government-run (and funded) primary

Tennessee: unified Republican control of state government

Texas*: unified Republican control of state government

Virginia: Republican governor

West Virginia: unified Republican control of state government

*States among the 20 states and territories that actually applied for a waiver from the DNCRBC.

Very simply, South Carolina is maximally maneuverable in the Democratic process compared to all of the other southern states, much less those that applied. 

That maneuverability also likely played a role in South Carolina getting the call over another diverse state that had high hopes of vaulting to the top slot, Nevada. Again, South Carolina Democrats, under state law, can move to a position on the calendar of their choosing with no input from Republicans who control the state government there. 

The midterms changed the calculus in Nevada. The formerly unified Democratic government in the Silver state became divided when Republican Joe Lombardo won the gubernatorial race in November. That meant that Nevada was most likely stuck with the February 6, 2024 date for its newly established presidential primary. Democrats could not move it earlier because Lombardo would not be inclined to take on possible RNC penalties. Ironically, the switch to a primary that was seen as a feather in the cap of Nevada Democrats in this waiver process came back to haunt them. Under a caucus system like the state had in 2020, Nevada Democrats would have been much better able to move around to suit any date the DNCRBC may have placed them in (...although the committee, the president and the party as a whole have largely rejected caucuses in the Democratic nomination process).

In the end, political favoritism may have played some role in the South Carolina Democratic primary rising to the top, as did diversity, but feasibility was also a major, major component in the reasoning behind the move. 

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DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Adopts Biden Calendar Proposal

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) on Friday voted in favor of rules and regulations granting waivers to five states to conduct primaries the pre-window period of the 2024 presidential primary calendar. Every member of the panel supported the proposal offered by President Biden with the exception of Scott Brennan (Iowa) and Joanne Dowdell (New Hampshire).

The calendar outline for the pre-window agreed to looks like this:

Saturday, February 3: South Carolina primary

Tuesday, February 6: Nevada primary, New Hampshire primary

Tuesday, February 13: Georgia primary

Tuesday, February 27: Michigan primary

Originally, as came out in the meeting, the plan called for the South Carolina primary to fall on February 6 which would have knocked the Nevada/New Hampshire pair of contests and the Georgia primary back a week each from their positions in the adopted outline above. Artie Blanco, a DNCRBC member from Nevada, raised the issue of the primary in the Silver state already being scheduled for the February 6, and wondered aloud whether South Carolina could be shifted to the Saturday prior. This was something that Carol Fowler, the DNCRBC member from South Carolina, not only did not object to, but she additionally pointed out that the Democratic primary in the Palmetto state has traditionally been conducted on a Saturday anyway. 

As noted in yesterday's post, there were already going to be state-level obstacles to implementing this plan in 2023. 

• South Carolina is maximally maneuverable. The state party merely has to indicate to state elections officials when they plan to hold the primary and the state government funds and implements the primary election from there. There is no problem meeting that goal.
• Nevada, as mentioned, is already in position by virtue of legislation passed and signed into law in 2021. Had the original plan been passed, it would have meant that the now-divided government in the Silver state would have to pass new legislation to change the date of the primary. With a newly elected Republican governor, change was unlikely. No compromise could likely be reached between Democratic legislators attempting to follow DNC rules and a Republican governor who likely would have wanted a date even later than the February 13 date Nevada was slotted into in the initial proposal from the president. That stalemate would have led back to the status quo, something the DNCRBC acknowledged by adopting the amended outline.
• The New Hampshire secretary of state selects the date of the presidential primary in the Granite state, and under law that is required to be at least seven days before any other similar contest. Regardless of partisan alignment, the secretary is required to follow that guidance. But the current secretary is a Republican and inclined to not only keep the New Hampshire primary first, but to keep it first as set forth in national Republican rules for the 2024 cycle. In other words, New Hampshire Democrats' hands are mostly tied on this, stuck between a secretary of state likely to follow state law and a national party threatening sanction if the state party fails to meet new guidelines that would have them break with tradition. 
• Similarly, the Georgia secretary of state schedules the date of the presidential primary in the Peach state. And although Secretary Brad Raffensperger (R) does not face the same requirement to be first as in New Hampshire, he is, nonetheless a Republican who would be less than interested in shifting the primary up to a point on the calendar that would draw penalties from the Republican National Committee. And the proposed February 13 date conflicts with those rules. 
• Michigan, like South Carolina, is more maneuverable under the new DNC guidance than Democrats in the state would have been without the newly won majorities in both chambers of the Michigan legislature. Holding unified government means that Democrats in control can more easily pass legislation and take advantage of the waiver offered by the national party. 

However, the DNCRBC tacked on an additional set of state-specific contingencies for each of the five states above to even qualify for the waivers in question. And the window for action on those conditions is short. All five states would have to share their base voter file with bona fide Democratic candidates for president at an expense of no more than $10,000. All five states have to meet their specific requirements or risk forfeiting the waivers now preliminarily granted. That forfeiture would mean that any state unable to comply would be required to conduct a contest in the designated window on the calendar (between the first Tuesday in March and the second Tuesday in June). The contingencies diverge from there...

• All South Carolina Democrats have to do is have the state party chair submit a letter to the DNCRBC pledging that the party will call on the state of South Carolina to conduct a primary on February 3 regardless of what other states do. That action must be taken by January 5, 2023.
• Nevada has basically already met its main condition. The primary is already scheduled for the date the DNCRBC settled on. But Nevada Democrats must certify that any statutory changes have been made -- none are necessary -- to align the primary law with DNC rules by January 5, 2023.
• To reiterate, New Hampshire Democrats are stuck, and the additional conditions they must meet to successfully gain a pre-window waiver from the DNCRBC are collectively a tall order. The state party has to submit to the committee by January 5, 2023 letters from the New Hampshire governor, the New Hampshire state Senate majority leader and the New Hampshire state House majority leader -- all Republicans -- pledging to make all necessary statutory changes to 1) cement the February 6 primary date and 2) implement no excuse early voting. For a variety of reasons, none of those letters from Granite state Republican leaders is likely to be forthcoming by January 5 of next year or any time ever. And that makes the next condition even more unpalatable to New Hampshire Democrats. The new DNC regulations require that all those changes be made -- as in finalized -- by February 1, 2023. That is a recipe for New Hampshire Democrats losing their waiver.
• Georgia is in a similar boat. Again, the secretary of state in the Peach state sets the primary date, and Georgia Democrats must submit a letter from Secretary Raffensperger to the DNCRBC by January 5, 2023 in which he pledges to schedule the contest for February 13. Since such a move would negatively impact the Republican primary and Republicans in the state, that letter is unlikely to be acquired by Georgia Democrats to pass on to the DNCRBC. And that is likely to end the waiver chances there, pushing Georgia back to Super Tuesday (March 5) or later. [NOTE: There is no similar push by the DNC to have Georgia make statutory changes as was the case in New Hampshire.]
• Michigan appears poised to move its primary date. The only real question is whether that happens before the current Republican-controlled legislative session adjourns or after new Democratic-controlled session begins in early January. Regardless, similar letters from the Michigan governor, state Senate majority leader and state House majority leader -- all Democrats -- must be submitted to the DNCRBC by January 5, 2023 and action completed by February 1, 2023. Like South Carolina and Nevada, Michigan Democrats being able to jump through the hoops set before them by the DNCRBC seems like a formality. 

But what about Georgia, Iowa and New Hampshire?

Well, the addition of Georgia may have been a polite nod to a state that was both instrumental in the president's electoral college victory in 2020 and aligned well (as a possible fifth early state) with the criteria the DNCRBC had set forth in its process to award waivers for the 2024 pre-window. While the Georgia code setting the parameters of the presidential primary scheduling describes a singular primary election, it also indicates that a primary election will be held for each party. That seemingly provides some wiggle room to a willing secretary of state, but the custom in Georgia has never been to conduct separate presidential primaries; one for each party. The state budget also does not allocate funds for a second/separate presidential primary election. 

Iowa and New Hampshire are different. 

Both have obviously long held privileged positions in the presidential nomination processes of both parties. And both also have state laws protecting those positions (although there are no explicit penalties for violations in either). Both still have them on the Republican side for 2024 and only Iowa Democrats have had their waiver directly denied by the DNCRBC. New Hampshire Democrats appear to have been granted a reprieve but only a short one given that the marching orders handed down from the DNC are an indirect denial of a 2024 waiver. 

Theoretically, the DNC has more leverage over a state party like Iowa's than over the New Hampshire Democratic Party working -- or trying to work -- through an unaffiliated (and uninterested) secretary of state there. And typically the DNCRBC has been more lenient on states and state parties that try their best to comply with any new set of regulations handed down by the national party setting the parameters around the next nomination cycle. 

In other words, if Iowa Democrats are defiant and openly flaunt the new rules to hold a contest alongside Republican caucuses that are likely to be scheduled for some time in January 2024, the the DNCRBC is likely to drop the hammer on them. And in this case, the hammer means going beyond the 50 percent delegation penalty called for in the rules (which is discretion the DNCRBC has). It was hinted at during the DNCRBC meeting in a passing comment on rogue states that the committee may be inclined to take all of a violating state's delegates. 

There are other candidate-specific penalties as well, but the effectiveness of those deterrents hinge on there actually being an active and competitive nomination race; something that would not be on the table if President Biden opts to run for renomination. [Yes, that can change, but from all indications, the president is running and most of the big names that are thought to be possible challengers have deferred to him.] With no candidates, there is nothing for states to lure by breaking the rules to go early (other than tradition).

Is the prospect of no delegates enough to keep Iowa Democrats from jumping back into the pre-window? Probably not if those penalties are only in place during primary season. However, the DNC and the convention have the ability to not recognize a delegation from a state that has run a delegate selection process that runs afoul of DNC rules. If Biden is the nominee, then that may be enough to keep Iowa Democrats in line. But it is also an eventuality that the DNC would have to signal early and often was a very possible end point for a rogue state. Carrying through on that is equivalent to the DNC admitting Iowa is a red state and completely writing it off in the general election.

These same things affect New Hampshire as well, but again, Democrats in the Granite state are stuck in a different dilemma. They could completely agree with the DNCRBC changes and still not be able to do anything about it with either Republicans in control of state government or the secretary of state. Of course, so far New Hampshire Democrats have struck a stridently defiant tone in response to the proposed calendar changes, vowing to still go first. 

In the past it may have enough for New Hampshire Democrats to try their best to comply and be given the benefit of the doubt by the DNCRBC (as FHQ noted in the close of this post). But the contingencies the DNCRBC adopted made it more difficult for Democrats in the Granite state to not only "try their best" but to comply at all. The conditions added insult to injury, especially considering that it looked like New Hampshire stood a pretty good shot of retaining its position given all the chatter leading up the DNCRBC meeting, but before the Biden team released its proposal the day before the panel convened. 

New Hampshire Democrats and the DNC, then, may be in much the same position as Democrats in the Hawkeye state are with the national party: destined for a clash. Of course, while Iowa may be a red state, New Hampshire remains purple. And even if just a sliver of the New Hampshire electorate is motivated by the state being stripped of its position in the nominating process -- whether by costing Democrats all of their delegates during primary season or not seating a Democratic slate from the state at the convention -- it would not take that much to flip the state to Republicans in a presidential contest. Around 30,000 votes would have accomplished that in 2020. That is a real potential cost to national Democrats. 

The DNC may be willing to send that sort of message to Iowa, but New Hampshire is a different matter. New Hampshire Democrats have leverage that Iowa Democrats do not. But if the DNC is serious about this -- if the president is serious about making these calendar changes a part of his legacy -- then that would be the potential price the national party has to pay. 

Again, however, the national party would not only have to adopt these rules -- the DNC will at their meeting early next year -- but would have to publicly and often discuss the possible ramifications of going rogue. 

...and follow through on them. 

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Recent posts:

Biden Calls for Calendar Shake Up Ahead of Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting

The Calendar Pieces on the DNCRBC's Board

Michigan Senate Passes Bill Moving Presidential Primary to February

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