Earlier this week FHQ began an examination of Republican proportionality rules changes for the 2016 presidential election cycle. On the most basic level, the Republican National Committee 1) cut the proportionality window in half for 2016 as compared to 2012 and 2) narrowed its 2012 definition of what constitutes a proportional delegate selection event for the 2016 cycle. Theoretically, the former would cut down on the number of proportional states while the latter would increase that number.1
Having established that as a baseline understanding of the differences between the 2012 and 2016 rules, the focus can now turn to the implications of those changes. In other words, now that the RNC has changed the mandate on proportionality, how will the states and state parties adapt their 2012 delegate selection plans in order to remain compliant? Four years ago, after the RNC first introduced the proportionality requirement, most states took the path of least resistance. Assuming state Republican parties had a baseline/traditional method of allocating delegates to the national convention (and of binding those delegates based on the presidential preference expressed in the primaries and caucuses) in 2008, then in response, the majority of states made the smallest changes possible to remain rules-compliant in 2012.
Proportionality Tweaking
If states in 2015 follow the same pattern, the changes will be quite minimal. As FHQ said in part one, the Republican state parties would only have to very slightly turn the knob toward the more proportional requirement the national party put in place for this cycle. To get a better sense of this let's apply the 2016 proportionality rules to the states that held contests in the 2012 proportionality window.2 This will provide a glimpse, albeit an imperfect one, into just how large the effect of the 2016 rules changes would be. If those 16 2012 states in the proportionality window created delegate selection rules in line with the 2016 rules, only 28 delegates would have been reallocated based on the results of the 2012 contests.3 That is 28 delegates out of a possible 676 total delegates in those states; just 4% of those delegates and 2% of the 1144 needed to clinch the 2012 nomination would have been reallocated.
Just over half of those 28 were from two states: Alabama and Louisiana. The Alabama primary was so closely contested between Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum both statewide and in all seven congressional districts that, proportionally, each of the three candidates would have received a delegate from each of the seven congressional districts. The 2012 rules stipulated that the winning candidate in each congressional district should receive two delegates and the runner-up the remaining one delegate. That would have reallocated seven delegates.
In Louisiana, the state Republican Party devised rules designed to leave a number of the at-large delegates to be allocated in the primary uncommitted. Ten of the 25 at-large delegates ended up uncommitted/unbound which presumably would not be allowed under the 2016 RNC rules. Those delegates would have been proportionally allocated to Romney and Santorum.
That leaves just 11 delegates that would have changed hands in the remaining 14 2012 states if the 2016 proportionality rules had been in place. Mostly, that is due to the the fact that nine of those 14 states would have been compliant in 2012 under the 2016 rules. The dynamics will be different in 2016 than they were in 2012, but the above exercise does paint a picture of minimal effects from the proportionality changes for this current cycle.
Thresholds
One additional layer, where there may be some more tinkering in 2016 than there was in 2012, comes from the vote thresholds that allow candidates to either receive some delegates and/or all of the delegates in a state or district. Again, state parties can set a minimum threshold of 20% of the vote for candidates to receive any delegates from the statewide, at-large pool or in a congressional district. Additionally, the state parties can set a minimum threshold of 50% that, if a candidate won a majority of the vote statewide or in a district, that candidate would receive all of the delegates in the corresponding political unit.
States that moved more toward the proportional end of the spectrum in 2012 already mostly put thresholds of varying degrees in place (see Alabama and Mississippi). States like Ohio, which only proportionalized its at-large delegates in 2012 -- the bare-minimum action to achieve proportionality -- but left their congressional districts winner-take-all would have to make those districts proportional for 2016. Still, the rules provide a range for state parties. They can be truly proportional, where a candidate who receives 40% of the vote is allocated approximately 40% of the total pool of delegates (or delegates statewide or in a congressional district). Alternatively, states can institute a threshold up to 20% for candidates to be eligible to be allocated delegates. In other words, states are not required to have a threshold for delegate eligibility, but if they have one it cannot be set higher than 20%.
The same sort of dynamic works for the other threshold -- the winner-take-all threshold -- but in reverse. State parties do not have to put in place a percentage of the vote a candidate must win statewide or in a congressional district to receive all of the delegates in that unit, but if they do choose to put one in place, it can be no lower than 50%, a simple majority. Many states had 50% winner-take-all conditionality in 2012 (which was allowed even in the proportionality window). Ohio Republicans had such a threshold for their at-large delegates. Other states left out such a rider in their rules (see Massachusetts). Tennessee was the only state that had a threshold and set it anywhere other than 50%. For Tennessee to have been winner-take-all in 2012, a candidate would have to have won greater than 66% of the vote statewide and in each of the Volunteer state's nine congressional districts. That is a high bar to hit for winner-take-all to have been triggered.
Even though this could add to that variation, those thresholds -- both the 20% one and the 50% one -- were already built into the above simulation. Again, the changes in 2016 do not present fundamental, sweeping changes to how the delegates may be allocated in 2016.
2016 Conditions
Now, if you have read this far and are still awake, you may have thought, "Well sure, FHQ. It is easy to apply the 2016 rules to the 2012 environment, but the 2016 Republican nomination race will play out in the 2016 environment." FHQ agrees. That's why we said the earlier simulation was imperfect. It does shed some light on the limitations of rules changes, but only so much light.
So what's different about 2016?
Some might argue and indeed have argued that the 2016 Republican presidential nomination process is the most wide open a Republican nomination race has been in the post-reform era. Our measure of that is at a minimum the number of candidates who are thought to be considering a run. But better yet, the wide open race is a function of the number of potentially viable candidates who are included in that list.
Of course, there have been wide open Democratic races in the past waged under a stricter proportionality requirement that have resolved themselves in short order and certainly far short of a deadlocked convention. In the current part of the post-reform era, the earliest contests and now, even more so, the invisible primary winnow the field of candidates. The fewer candidates there are seriously competing for the nomination, the less influential proportionality rules (or proportionality rules changes) will matter, one could hypothesize.
Now, some of that winnowing effect could be countered by the raising and spending of larger amounts of money through and by super PACs. As the line from 2012 went -- and make no mistake its echoes are being heard in 2015 -- super PACs allow candidates to hang around longer. That could be. 2012 was not a good test of that hypothesis though. 2016 may be. But we'll have to wait for the data to come in.
But let's assume that a comparatively greater number of candidates with or without the help of super PACs successfully navigate and survive through Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada and make it to the proportionality window that opens on March 1. [REMINDER: The carve-out states are not affected by the proportionality rule. New Hampshire is proportional based on state law and Nevada was proportional in 2012. South Carolina is winner-take all by congressional district. The jury is still out on Iowa's Republican caucuses. The age of non-binding caucuses and fantasy delegates may be over.]
Furthermore, it is worth recalling, given the Iowa part of that reminder above, that there are no more non-binding caucuses.4 Adding those states to the proportional rolls, may also have some impact on all of this. FHQ would argue that that, too, will be minimal in nature. The real change there is that delegate processes essentially go from being unregulated in 2012 to regulated in 2016. That change takes the mystery out of the delegate count. It tamps down on chaos rather than adding on to it.
Assuming then that there are a greater number of viable candidates heading into a proportional phase of the process jam-packed with contests, what sorts of fun or interesting outcomes might the proportionality rules changes for 2016 produce?
One idea that has caught some traction is that if there are a lot of candidates alive as March 1 hits and state parties have instituted the highest possible threshold for receiving any delegates, then states could end up triggering a sort of backdoor winner-take-all allocation within the proportionality window.
Let me parse that out some. Say, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker all make it through to the proportionality phase. [See, I'll bet some of you are saying to yourselves that there's no way that happens. Good. I don't think so either. When was the last time six viable candidates made it through the first four contests (some of them without winning anything)? Bear with me here.] Let's also say that every state in the proportionality window has a 20% delegate threshold. If all six candidates are on equal footing in the race to that point, then mathematically, no one can get to 20% of the vote. But all of the candidates will probably not be at parity with each other at that point in the race. Perhaps, though, one candidate is at or above 20% in a contest or more. If only one candidate clears that 20% threshold statewide or in a congressional district, that candidate would receive all of the delegates.
To be quite plain, this scenario does not require six candidates to work. It could work with fewer candidates, but as candidates are dropped one-by-one, the chances of triggering this backdoor winner-take-all allocation decreases.
Look, this sort of thing is fun to consider, but let's be real about these proportionality rules changes the RNC has added for 2016. Compared to 2012, the effects are likely to be quite minimal even with a different environment. Before we fully come to that conclusion, there is still more more phase to consider: the part of the primary calendar after the proportionality window closes. That is earlier in 2016 than it was in 2012 and has already drawn a fair amount of commentary and speculation. Some if not a majority of that commentary is misguided. FHQ will focus on the winner-take-all myth in part three.
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1 That hypothesis assumes that the presidential primary calendar remains static cycle over cycle. As this blog well establishes, that is a faulty assumption. In reality, it depends on how many states choose to wedge their contests into them two week proportionality window in 2016. At this point, though the states have changed, the number of states in that proportionality window looks as though it will be approximately the same as the number of primaries and caucuses in the month-long window in 2012.
2 This excludes the carve-out states as they are exempted from the proportionality requirement under the RNC delegate selection rules. FHQ will also exclude rogue states like Arizona, Florida and Michigan that ignored the proportionality rules in 2012 and skirted penalties in the process. The reasoning for their exclusion is twofold. First, all three fall outside of the proportionality window for 2016. Simulating their proportionalization is meaningless to 2016. Second, congressional district results from the 2012 primaries in those states were not readily available. Those data are necessary to reallocate the delegates under the 2016 rules. Finally, FHQ does not include in this exercise the caucuses states where there were no formal rules for delegate allocation in 2012. Drawing a comparison, then, would be quite difficult. Additionally, congressional district results were not available in most caucuses states even if there had been rules on allocation. Overall, that removes all of the 2012 caucuses states except Alaska, Idaho, Hawaii and Kansas.
3 Those 16 states are Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Kansas, Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi, Louisiana (25 at-large delegates), Puerto Rico and Illinois.
4 FHQ has added those non-binding caucuses to the projected number of states in the proportionality window already. That is what helps push the number of 2016 contests in the proportionality window up to around the number in the month-long window in 2012.
Showing posts with label RNC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RNC. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2015
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Republican Proportionality Rules Changes for 2016, Part One
These discussions never really go away, but with candidates officially announcing and 2016 drawing closer, the salience of the delegate selection rules has begun its quiet rise. Already, FHQ has seen snippets of comments and reporting out there building up the potential for rules changes -- breaking with the typical rhythms of the nomination process -- to increase the chaos of the 2016 Republican nomination process.1 Perhaps they will. Certainly, as the story tends to go, rules changes of any stripe -- big or small -- will cause significant changes in the landscape of a nomination race.
Of course, it is always more nuanced than that. The rules changes are there, sure, but the impact is typically more muted than is often discussed. For 2016, FHQ wants to try and get out ahead of this as much as possible. That way, once primary season hits late next January or early next February, there can be a more informed discussion concerning the rules changes and the actual impact they are having on the Republican race in real time.
My column last week at Crystal Ball set a baseline of sorts, and FHQ dug a little deeper on some of the Republican rules changes for 2016 specific to the Ron-to-Rand Paul delegate maneuvering. Yet, a change by change examination may be more appropriate for our purposes; a primer in some sense.
To start, let's talk proportionality. FHQ will lay out the rules changes in this post and then follow up with an addition two or three posts on potential implications of the changes for 2016.
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The RNC adding a proportionality window was actually a big rules change during the 2012 cycle. No, the change was not large in terms of its impact. The definition of proportionality was sufficiently broad as to bring about only minimal changes to state party delegate selection plans as compared to how those same parties had operated in 2008. States were not lurching from a truly winner-take-all method of allocation to a truly proportional one. Instead, in a great many case, plans that were already hybrid plans -- in between the winner-take-all and proportional extremes on the spectrum -- that were tweaked ever so slightly to meet the requirements of the new rules for March contests.
What made the change "big" was that the Republican National Committee made the change at all. That the RNC voted for the recommendations of the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee, breaking with the national party's traditional hand-off approach to dealing with state delegate selection/allocation processes, was what was significant. Creating a mandate for proportionality in a more or less top-down way rather than leaving those matters up to the states/state parties as had historically been the case is still something that rankles some in the party.
Once such a rules change is introduced, though, the desire or perceived need to tinker with those rules becomes almost inevitable. That is particularly true after a party loses presidential election. Actually, the fun footnote to all of this is that the Romney team made the proportionality requirement optional (the infamous shall/may switch) in the version of the 2016 rules coming out of the Tampa convention. After the former Massachusetts governor had lost the 2012 election, though, the RNC readopted the requirement, trading may for shall in the language of the rule at the 2014 RNC winter meeting.
[Reference: 2016 Republican delegation selection rules]
With the quiet reintroduction of the proportionality requirement came a number of subtle changes to Rule 16(c)(2, 3).2 First, the RNC compressed the proportionality window by two weeks. Instead of the allocation in primaries and caucuses having to be proportional in all of March, the 2016 rules condensed that to just the first two weeks of March. That could mean different outcomes coming out of the proportionality period dependent upon how many states actually crowd into the window. If a smaller window yields fewer contests, then the difference is likely to be negligible. If, on the other hand, a month's worth of 2012 contests clusters in that two week opening in 2016, the effect may be larger. Of course, under the 2012 rules with the broad definition of proportionality, this distinction -- a two week or month-long proportionality window -- is largely irrelevant.
However, the party simultaneously tightened the definition of proportionality. The RNC reduced the number of ways in which a state party could proportionalize to meet the requirement. In combination, a smaller (or equivalent) number of primaries and caucuses in the proportionality window in 2016 relative to 2012 plus a stricter definition of proportionality are likely to cancel each other out. As of now, there are 17 states scheduled before March 15 (not counting the four carve-out states) in 2016. Once the Republican caucuses states are added into likely positions in early March, the number of primaries and caucuses in that two week proportionality window will approach if not match the 30 (non-carve-out state) contests held before April 1 during the 2012 cycle.3
To fully understand this, though, we need to take a step back and examine the actual change in the proportionality guidelines from 2012 to 2016. How narrowly has the RNC defined proportionality or more accurately what loopholes has it eliminated? The 2012 proportionality guidance the RNC legal counsel provide states granted states a great deal of latitude in achieving a proportional plan. As FHQ argued in 2011, all a state really had to do was to make the allocation of its at-large delegates proportional. Those delegates were a smaller part of a state's total number of delegates the large a state was (based on how the RNC apportioned delegates to each of the states). There were states like Texas that overreacted and changed to a truly proportional allocation plan,4 and states like Ohio that mostly maintained a winner-take-all by congressional district plan, but allocated its small cache of at-large delegates proportionally based on the statewide vote.
But here is what Republican state parties were looking at in 2011 as they were putting together delegate selection plans for 20125:
The RNC took that and between the convention period in 2012 and August 2014 boiled it down to this for 2016:
This would have the effect of very slightly turning the knob toward the proportional end of the spectrum in 2016 as compared to 2012. That would potentially split the delegates up even more between candidates and perhaps by some small measure slow down the nomination process. Potentially. It could also all be a wash considering that it looks like a smaller or roughly equivalent number of states will hold primaries and caucuses in the smaller 2016 proportionality window as was the case in 2012.
But those thresholds, where the state parties do have some discretion, do offer some interesting layers to the process. FHQ will examine the implications of those in Part Two.
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1 Yes, this is mostly a Republican thing. With no real competition on the horizon on the Democratic side and no changes of consequence to the Democratic nomination rules, there is far less to talk about as far as the Democrats are concerned.
2 FHQ says "quiet" because it was as if the proportionality requirement had never left. Folks at the RNC told FHQ in 2013 that the intention was to keep it in place all along; that "may" would change to "shall" in Rule 16(c)(2):
4 That change was made by Texas Republicans before redistricting challenges forced the primary from the first Tuesday in March to the end of May.
5 None of this was codified in the actual Rules of the Republican Party. Rather, the RNC legal counsel had to provide guidance concerning what constituted allocation on a "proportional basis". That protocol has changed for the 2016 cycle. The RNC included the proportionality guidelines in the rules regarding the proportionality requirement.
Of course, it is always more nuanced than that. The rules changes are there, sure, but the impact is typically more muted than is often discussed. For 2016, FHQ wants to try and get out ahead of this as much as possible. That way, once primary season hits late next January or early next February, there can be a more informed discussion concerning the rules changes and the actual impact they are having on the Republican race in real time.
My column last week at Crystal Ball set a baseline of sorts, and FHQ dug a little deeper on some of the Republican rules changes for 2016 specific to the Ron-to-Rand Paul delegate maneuvering. Yet, a change by change examination may be more appropriate for our purposes; a primer in some sense.
To start, let's talk proportionality. FHQ will lay out the rules changes in this post and then follow up with an addition two or three posts on potential implications of the changes for 2016.
--
The RNC adding a proportionality window was actually a big rules change during the 2012 cycle. No, the change was not large in terms of its impact. The definition of proportionality was sufficiently broad as to bring about only minimal changes to state party delegate selection plans as compared to how those same parties had operated in 2008. States were not lurching from a truly winner-take-all method of allocation to a truly proportional one. Instead, in a great many case, plans that were already hybrid plans -- in between the winner-take-all and proportional extremes on the spectrum -- that were tweaked ever so slightly to meet the requirements of the new rules for March contests.
What made the change "big" was that the Republican National Committee made the change at all. That the RNC voted for the recommendations of the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee, breaking with the national party's traditional hand-off approach to dealing with state delegate selection/allocation processes, was what was significant. Creating a mandate for proportionality in a more or less top-down way rather than leaving those matters up to the states/state parties as had historically been the case is still something that rankles some in the party.
Once such a rules change is introduced, though, the desire or perceived need to tinker with those rules becomes almost inevitable. That is particularly true after a party loses presidential election. Actually, the fun footnote to all of this is that the Romney team made the proportionality requirement optional (the infamous shall/may switch) in the version of the 2016 rules coming out of the Tampa convention. After the former Massachusetts governor had lost the 2012 election, though, the RNC readopted the requirement, trading may for shall in the language of the rule at the 2014 RNC winter meeting.
[Reference: 2016 Republican delegation selection rules]
With the quiet reintroduction of the proportionality requirement came a number of subtle changes to Rule 16(c)(2, 3).2 First, the RNC compressed the proportionality window by two weeks. Instead of the allocation in primaries and caucuses having to be proportional in all of March, the 2016 rules condensed that to just the first two weeks of March. That could mean different outcomes coming out of the proportionality period dependent upon how many states actually crowd into the window. If a smaller window yields fewer contests, then the difference is likely to be negligible. If, on the other hand, a month's worth of 2012 contests clusters in that two week opening in 2016, the effect may be larger. Of course, under the 2012 rules with the broad definition of proportionality, this distinction -- a two week or month-long proportionality window -- is largely irrelevant.
However, the party simultaneously tightened the definition of proportionality. The RNC reduced the number of ways in which a state party could proportionalize to meet the requirement. In combination, a smaller (or equivalent) number of primaries and caucuses in the proportionality window in 2016 relative to 2012 plus a stricter definition of proportionality are likely to cancel each other out. As of now, there are 17 states scheduled before March 15 (not counting the four carve-out states) in 2016. Once the Republican caucuses states are added into likely positions in early March, the number of primaries and caucuses in that two week proportionality window will approach if not match the 30 (non-carve-out state) contests held before April 1 during the 2012 cycle.3
To fully understand this, though, we need to take a step back and examine the actual change in the proportionality guidelines from 2012 to 2016. How narrowly has the RNC defined proportionality or more accurately what loopholes has it eliminated? The 2012 proportionality guidance the RNC legal counsel provide states granted states a great deal of latitude in achieving a proportional plan. As FHQ argued in 2011, all a state really had to do was to make the allocation of its at-large delegates proportional. Those delegates were a smaller part of a state's total number of delegates the large a state was (based on how the RNC apportioned delegates to each of the states). There were states like Texas that overreacted and changed to a truly proportional allocation plan,4 and states like Ohio that mostly maintained a winner-take-all by congressional district plan, but allocated its small cache of at-large delegates proportionally based on the statewide vote.
But here is what Republican state parties were looking at in 2011 as they were putting together delegate selection plans for 20125:
Proportional allocation basis shall mean that delegates are allocated in proportion to the voting results, in accordance with the following criteria:
i. Proportional allocation of total delegates based upon the number of statewide votes cast in proportion to the number of statewide votes received by each candidate shall be the default formula for calculating delegate allocation, if no specific language is otherwise provided by a state.
ii. If total delegate allocation is split between delegates at-large and delegates by congressional district, delegates at-large must be proportionally allocated based upon the total statewide results.
iii. If total delegate allocation is split between delegates at-large and delegates by congressional district, delegates by congressional district may be allocated as designated by the state based upon the total congressional district results.
iv. A state may establish a minimum threshold of the percentage of votes received by a candidate that must be reached below which a candidate may receive no delegates, provided such threshold is no higher than 20%.
v. A state may establish a minimum threshold of the percentage of votes received by a candidate that must be reached above which the candidate may receive all the delegates, provided such threshold is no lower than 50%.
vi. Proportional allocation is not required if the delegates either are elected independently on a primary ballot not in accordance with a primary presidential candidate's slate or are not bound at any time to vote for a particular candidate.The quick and dirty version of that is states in the 2012 proportionality window had to allocated their delegates proportionally. If the delegation was split between at-large and congressional district delegates, at-large delegates had to be proportionally allocated while states could maintain discretion over the allocation of congressional district delegates. States could further dilute proportionality by creating minimum thresholds for receiving delegates and/or receiving all of the delegates.
The RNC took that and between the convention period in 2012 and August 2014 boiled it down to this for 2016:
(3) Proportional allocation of total delegates as required by Rule 16(c)(2) shall be based upon the number of statewide votes cast or the number of congressional district votes cast in proportion to the number of votes received by each candidate.
(i) A state may establish by statewide vote or by congressional district a minimum threshold of the percentage of votes received by a candidate that must be reached below which a candidate may receive no delegates, provided such threshold is no higher than twenty percent (20%).
(ii) A state may establish by statewide vote or by congressional district a minimum threshold of the percentage of votes received by a candidate that must be reached above which the candidate may receive all the delegates, provided such threshold is no lower than fifty percent (50%).Gone in 2016 is the discretion the RNC gave state parties regarding the allocation of their congressional district delegates. Those delegates can no longer be allocated winner-take-all based on the results within the congressional district. In essence more states would have to adopt plans similar to the one Alabama Republicans used in 2012. And like Alabama Republicans did in 2012, 2016 states with contests in the proportionality window can -- CAN -- add a minimum threshold for receiving any delegates and/or receiving all of the delegates (at both the statewide and congressional district level).
This would have the effect of very slightly turning the knob toward the proportional end of the spectrum in 2016 as compared to 2012. That would potentially split the delegates up even more between candidates and perhaps by some small measure slow down the nomination process. Potentially. It could also all be a wash considering that it looks like a smaller or roughly equivalent number of states will hold primaries and caucuses in the smaller 2016 proportionality window as was the case in 2012.
But those thresholds, where the state parties do have some discretion, do offer some interesting layers to the process. FHQ will examine the implications of those in Part Two.
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1 Yes, this is mostly a Republican thing. With no real competition on the horizon on the Democratic side and no changes of consequence to the Democratic nomination rules, there is far less to talk about as far as the Democrats are concerned.
2 FHQ says "quiet" because it was as if the proportionality requirement had never left. Folks at the RNC told FHQ in 2013 that the intention was to keep it in place all along; that "may" would change to "shall" in Rule 16(c)(2):
Any presidential primary, caucus, convention, or other process to elect, select, allocate, or bind delegates to the national convention that occurs prior to March 15 in the year in which the national convention is held shall provide for the allocation of delegates on a proportional basis.3 This 2012 number includes states with primaries or caucuses before March. Florida's "move" to January 31 had the effect of stretching the proportionality window out to include February and March contests. That had a minimal impact because both Florida and Arizona ignored the proportionality requirement and most of the rest of the February delegate selection events were non-binding caucuses (not affected by the requirement).
4 That change was made by Texas Republicans before redistricting challenges forced the primary from the first Tuesday in March to the end of May.
5 None of this was codified in the actual Rules of the Republican Party. Rather, the RNC legal counsel had to provide guidance concerning what constituted allocation on a "proportional basis". That protocol has changed for the 2016 cycle. The RNC included the proportionality guidelines in the rules regarding the proportionality requirement.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Revisiting the 2016 Republican Delegate Selection Rules
There are a few points that FHQ left undiscussed -- or perhaps unclear -- when the RNC finalized their delegate selection rules on timing and allocation back at their winter meeting this past January. That was mostly by design, waiting for the clock to run out on when the party could actually make any further changes. We're still not there yet, but there are no meetings of the RNC scheduled between now and September 30 -- the deadline beyond which changes can no longer be made (see Rule 12).
With the rules governing the 2016 presidential nominations now in place at the national party level, FHQ can focus a bit more on the changes made to the rules relative to 2012. Since the DNC did little to alter their delegate selection rules from 2012, most of this will be directed at the Republican side.
The biggest thing here is to highlight the fact that the RNC had one set of rules coming out of the Tampa convention in 2012 and has altered them in the time since. Importantly, that meant changes to the combination of rules and penalties associated with the timing of delegate selection events and the method of allocating those delegates. The rules that emerged from the Tampa convention sought to remedy the problem with the 2012 rules: there were two possible violations (timing and allocation), but only one penalty. That meant that there was only one 50% reduction in a state delegation for rogue states like Florida and Arizona which not only went to early but also maintained winner-take-all allocation methods despite holding contests in the party-designated proportionality window. The RNC had one penalty, but no contingency in place for the possibility of a state violating both the timing and allocation rules. And the party did not have the ability to double penalize the states; assessing the 50% penalty twice.
The Tampa rules dealt with that, but inconsistently and ineffectively. The party added a super penalty to dissuade states from violating the timing rule and shifted the 50% penalty to allocation violations. The problem with the former was that the rule forbidding early contests (Rule 16) did not match the penalty for violating that rule (Rule 17). Rule 16 forbade contests other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina from holding primaries or caucuses before March 1. However, Rule 17 levied a penalty against states that would hold contests prior to the last Tuesday in February. In 2016, that difference in the calendar was a week. There was, therefore, a week in which states could hold contests and not be sanctioned by the party.
That was a problem. And one the RNC recognized.
That was the state of affairs heading into 2014. The RNC had a set of flawed delegate selection rules that it had to tweak in some way to more efficiently/effectively/ideally deter timing or allocation rules violations. The party maintained the super penalty and strengthened it to address one of the remaining issues on the timing front.1 The party also synchronized the rules and penalties for timing, squaring the March 1/last Tuesday in February loophole. The rule was a bit too specifically narrow in its first iteration. It and the penalties were tailored to hit the usual rogue suspects: Arizona, Florida and Michigan.
The thinking was that there would be a tiered penalty regime. And that most states would attempt to avoid the super penalty but that states like the offending trio above could go early -- but not too early -- and incur just the 50% delegate hit they had thumbed their noses at in 2008 and/or 2012. That loophole week between the last Tuesday in February and March 1 was designed as a landing place for rogue states. Those states would avoid the super penalty there, but because they would likely maintain winner-take-all methods of allocation, those states would incur the 50% penalty associated with an allocation violation.2
This plan proved to perhaps be too clever by half. In the process of amending the timing rules and penalties, the RNC also tweaked and simplified the allocation rules and penalties at their winter meeting last January. The changes were twofold. First, the proportionality window was squeezed into a smaller period. Instead of states with contests before April 1 having to have some element of their delegate allocation plan be proportional, that only applies to states with contests before March 15. Secondly, the applicability of the penalty was changed. The RNC tightening up the super penalty meant that the 50% penalty was no long necessary as a backstop against states willing to go too early and maintain a true winner-take-all method of allocation.
All that means is that the RNC laid out two distinct penalties; one for a timing violation and one deterring winner-take-all contests prior to March 15. Closing the last Tuesday in February/March 1 loophole cleaned that up. That left a super penalty for states willing and able to go rogue and a 50% penalty for pre-March 15 states that fail to include a proportional element to their allocation plans. Additionally, under the altered plan, states that do not comply with the proportionality requirement would have their delegates allocated to candidates proportionally automatically by the RNC at the convention. States with no proportional element to their allocation plans (and with contests before March 15) would have their at-large (statewide) delegates proportionally allocated to all candidates who received at least 10% of the vote in the primary or caucus.3 This automatic proportionalization would be in addition to the 50% penalty. Together, both penalties would seemingly and more effectively deter states from utilizing a true winner-take-all plan before March 15. No, the 50% penalty has proven less than effective as a one-off penalty over the 2008 and 2012 cycles. However, there is little to gain by stubbornly sticking to a winner-take-all allocation method if the RNC is just going to add an element of proportionality at the convention anyway.
The bottom line is that the RNC has synced it rules and penalties and has from all appearances closed any remaining loopholes in the party's delegate selection rules. States that violate the timing rule are assessed the super penalty and states that break the allocation rules are assessed a 50% penalty and automatically proportionalized by the RNC.4 The DNC rules are different. The Democrats require proportionality of all states regardless of when they hold their delegate selection events and levy a 50% delegate deduction on any state that holds a contest before the first Tuesday in March (March 1 in 2016). The trump card they can play if that 50% penalty proves an ineffective deterrent is that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee can increase the penalty at their discretion.
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1 The original super penalty treated states both differently and the same. The bigger the state, the larger the hit to the delegation. However, all states got knocked down to 12 total delegates. That meant that if a state was small enough -- or had a small enough delegation -- that the penalty ended up being less than the 50% penalty that has traditionally existed. The point of the super penalty was to be, well, super. The fix the RNC devised was to set a threshold at 30 total delegates. States with 30 or more delegates would be penalized down to 12 total delegates for a timing violation while those states with fewer than 30 delegates would have just nine left over after the penalty was assessed.
2 To reiterate, both Arizona and Florida were double violators in 2012, breaking both the timing and allocation rules. There were some issues with the Michigan allocation method that would potentially brought it under the winner-take-all regime. The RNC, then, hoped these states would be deterred by the super penalty, but not by a 50% penalty. Again, those states would have been incentivized to go early, but not too early. It would not be early enough to fundamentally disrupt the calendar.
3 One of the lessons of 2012 Republican delegate allocation rules that never seemed to sink in very well was what the true definition of "proportional" was and what that meant for allocation. Note that FHQ keeps using variations of the phrase "and element of the allocation plan has to be proportional". That is by design. States like New Hampshire can still maintain a strictly proportional allocation under the 2016 RNC rules, but that is not mandated. All states are required to do by the rules -- the bare minimum proportionality -- is to allocate their cache of at-large (statewide) delegates proportionally. That is a number of delegates that varies by state based on how loyally Republican a state has been in past votes for president, governor and overall state legislature control. The redder a state is, then, the more at-large delegates it receives. Ohio for instance is similar in (population) size but bigger than Georgia, yet the Peach state had more delegates in 2012 than did Republicans in the Buckeye state.
4 No, proportionalized is not a word. I'm making it up. Get in on the ground floor now and start using it.
Recent Posts:
Update: 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar (8/26/14)
So, It Turns Out Arizona Has Actually Moved Its Presidential Primary Back on the Calendar
DNC Set to Finalize 2016 Rules at Atlanta Meeting
Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
With the rules governing the 2016 presidential nominations now in place at the national party level, FHQ can focus a bit more on the changes made to the rules relative to 2012. Since the DNC did little to alter their delegate selection rules from 2012, most of this will be directed at the Republican side.
The biggest thing here is to highlight the fact that the RNC had one set of rules coming out of the Tampa convention in 2012 and has altered them in the time since. Importantly, that meant changes to the combination of rules and penalties associated with the timing of delegate selection events and the method of allocating those delegates. The rules that emerged from the Tampa convention sought to remedy the problem with the 2012 rules: there were two possible violations (timing and allocation), but only one penalty. That meant that there was only one 50% reduction in a state delegation for rogue states like Florida and Arizona which not only went to early but also maintained winner-take-all allocation methods despite holding contests in the party-designated proportionality window. The RNC had one penalty, but no contingency in place for the possibility of a state violating both the timing and allocation rules. And the party did not have the ability to double penalize the states; assessing the 50% penalty twice.
The Tampa rules dealt with that, but inconsistently and ineffectively. The party added a super penalty to dissuade states from violating the timing rule and shifted the 50% penalty to allocation violations. The problem with the former was that the rule forbidding early contests (Rule 16) did not match the penalty for violating that rule (Rule 17). Rule 16 forbade contests other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina from holding primaries or caucuses before March 1. However, Rule 17 levied a penalty against states that would hold contests prior to the last Tuesday in February. In 2016, that difference in the calendar was a week. There was, therefore, a week in which states could hold contests and not be sanctioned by the party.
That was a problem. And one the RNC recognized.
That was the state of affairs heading into 2014. The RNC had a set of flawed delegate selection rules that it had to tweak in some way to more efficiently/effectively/ideally deter timing or allocation rules violations. The party maintained the super penalty and strengthened it to address one of the remaining issues on the timing front.1 The party also synchronized the rules and penalties for timing, squaring the March 1/last Tuesday in February loophole. The rule was a bit too specifically narrow in its first iteration. It and the penalties were tailored to hit the usual rogue suspects: Arizona, Florida and Michigan.
The thinking was that there would be a tiered penalty regime. And that most states would attempt to avoid the super penalty but that states like the offending trio above could go early -- but not too early -- and incur just the 50% delegate hit they had thumbed their noses at in 2008 and/or 2012. That loophole week between the last Tuesday in February and March 1 was designed as a landing place for rogue states. Those states would avoid the super penalty there, but because they would likely maintain winner-take-all methods of allocation, those states would incur the 50% penalty associated with an allocation violation.2
This plan proved to perhaps be too clever by half. In the process of amending the timing rules and penalties, the RNC also tweaked and simplified the allocation rules and penalties at their winter meeting last January. The changes were twofold. First, the proportionality window was squeezed into a smaller period. Instead of states with contests before April 1 having to have some element of their delegate allocation plan be proportional, that only applies to states with contests before March 15. Secondly, the applicability of the penalty was changed. The RNC tightening up the super penalty meant that the 50% penalty was no long necessary as a backstop against states willing to go too early and maintain a true winner-take-all method of allocation.
All that means is that the RNC laid out two distinct penalties; one for a timing violation and one deterring winner-take-all contests prior to March 15. Closing the last Tuesday in February/March 1 loophole cleaned that up. That left a super penalty for states willing and able to go rogue and a 50% penalty for pre-March 15 states that fail to include a proportional element to their allocation plans. Additionally, under the altered plan, states that do not comply with the proportionality requirement would have their delegates allocated to candidates proportionally automatically by the RNC at the convention. States with no proportional element to their allocation plans (and with contests before March 15) would have their at-large (statewide) delegates proportionally allocated to all candidates who received at least 10% of the vote in the primary or caucus.3 This automatic proportionalization would be in addition to the 50% penalty. Together, both penalties would seemingly and more effectively deter states from utilizing a true winner-take-all plan before March 15. No, the 50% penalty has proven less than effective as a one-off penalty over the 2008 and 2012 cycles. However, there is little to gain by stubbornly sticking to a winner-take-all allocation method if the RNC is just going to add an element of proportionality at the convention anyway.
The bottom line is that the RNC has synced it rules and penalties and has from all appearances closed any remaining loopholes in the party's delegate selection rules. States that violate the timing rule are assessed the super penalty and states that break the allocation rules are assessed a 50% penalty and automatically proportionalized by the RNC.4 The DNC rules are different. The Democrats require proportionality of all states regardless of when they hold their delegate selection events and levy a 50% delegate deduction on any state that holds a contest before the first Tuesday in March (March 1 in 2016). The trump card they can play if that 50% penalty proves an ineffective deterrent is that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee can increase the penalty at their discretion.
--
1 The original super penalty treated states both differently and the same. The bigger the state, the larger the hit to the delegation. However, all states got knocked down to 12 total delegates. That meant that if a state was small enough -- or had a small enough delegation -- that the penalty ended up being less than the 50% penalty that has traditionally existed. The point of the super penalty was to be, well, super. The fix the RNC devised was to set a threshold at 30 total delegates. States with 30 or more delegates would be penalized down to 12 total delegates for a timing violation while those states with fewer than 30 delegates would have just nine left over after the penalty was assessed.
2 To reiterate, both Arizona and Florida were double violators in 2012, breaking both the timing and allocation rules. There were some issues with the Michigan allocation method that would potentially brought it under the winner-take-all regime. The RNC, then, hoped these states would be deterred by the super penalty, but not by a 50% penalty. Again, those states would have been incentivized to go early, but not too early. It would not be early enough to fundamentally disrupt the calendar.
3 One of the lessons of 2012 Republican delegate allocation rules that never seemed to sink in very well was what the true definition of "proportional" was and what that meant for allocation. Note that FHQ keeps using variations of the phrase "and element of the allocation plan has to be proportional". That is by design. States like New Hampshire can still maintain a strictly proportional allocation under the 2016 RNC rules, but that is not mandated. All states are required to do by the rules -- the bare minimum proportionality -- is to allocate their cache of at-large (statewide) delegates proportionally. That is a number of delegates that varies by state based on how loyally Republican a state has been in past votes for president, governor and overall state legislature control. The redder a state is, then, the more at-large delegates it receives. Ohio for instance is similar in (population) size but bigger than Georgia, yet the Peach state had more delegates in 2012 than did Republicans in the Buckeye state.
4 No, proportionalized is not a word. I'm making it up. Get in on the ground floor now and start using it.
Recent Posts:
Update: 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar (8/26/14)
So, It Turns Out Arizona Has Actually Moved Its Presidential Primary Back on the Calendar
DNC Set to Finalize 2016 Rules at Atlanta Meeting
Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
Monday, May 12, 2014
RNC Creates New Rule Dealing with Presidential Primary Debates
Under Rule 10(c) of the Rules of the Republican Party -- the rule granting the RNC chair the ability to create new committees with the approval of the RNC -- the Republican National Committee will charge a new committee with sanctioning the presidential primary debates during the 2016 cycle.
The new Rule 10(h) reads as follows:
The 2016 trial run of the debates committee may decide whether it joins the others in 10(a) at the next convention in the rules for 2020.
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Dems Do Little to Alter 2016 Delegate Selection Rules
Missouri Senate Bill on Presidential Primary Passes Committee Stage in State House
Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
The new Rule 10(h) reads as follows:
There shall be a Standing Committee on Presidential Primary Debates, which shall be composed of thirteen (13) members of the Republican National Committee, five (5) of whom shall be appointed by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and each of the four (4) regions shall elect two (2) members, one man and one woman, at its regional caucus at the RNC Summer Meeting in each even-numbered year in which no Presidential election is held. The chairman of the Republican National Committee shall appoint the chairman of the Standing Committee on Presidential Primary Debates from among the members thereof. The Standing Committee on Presidential Primary Debates shall have the authority to sanction debates on behalf of the Republican National Committee based on input from presidential campaigns and criteria which may include but are not limited to considerations of timing, frequency, format, media outlet, and the best interests of the Republican Party. Each debate sanctioned by the Standing Committee on Presidential Primary Debates shall be known as a “Sanctioned Debate.” Any presidential candidate who participates in any debate that is not a Sanctioned Debate shall not be eligible to participate in any further Sanctioned Debates.Rule 10(c) is the same rule that allowed for the creation of the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee that altered the rules under Chairman Steele's direction for the 2012 cycle -- Rule 10(d) in the 2008 Rules of the Republican Party -- and earlier this cycle created another temporary commission dealing with the preparation and planning of the national convention (Rule 10(g)). The difference between those committees and the new committee on presidential primary debates is that the latter is a standing committee. Unlike the other standing committees the rules call for, the debates committee provision is not housed in Rule 10(a) like the other seven "standing" committees.
The 2016 trial run of the debates committee may decide whether it joins the others in 10(a) at the next convention in the rules for 2020.
Recent Posts:
Missouri Poised to Move Presidential Primary Back into Compliance with National Party Rules
Dems Do Little to Alter 2016 Delegate Selection Rules
Missouri Senate Bill on Presidential Primary Passes Committee Stage in State House
Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Snapshots of Reactions to RNC Rules Changes from Around the Country
FHQ's inbox has filled up with news on the RNC rules changes over the last few days. Here are a few of the state-level reactions to the alterations:
California needs and will have an automatic waiver from the RNC if the Golden state primary stays in June.
Michigan looks to be staring down some stiff penalties without moving its February primary.
The gamble in Alabama is whether the state will matter on the second Tuesday in March. The Alabama Republican Party thinks it will.
As soon as North Carolina anchored its primary to South Carolina's in August, the talk shifted to moving it back. North Carolina Republican National Committeeman, Dave Lewis, says that is likely to happen in May.
South Carolina's safe.
FHQ will add more reactions as they are available.
California needs and will have an automatic waiver from the RNC if the Golden state primary stays in June.
Michigan looks to be staring down some stiff penalties without moving its February primary.
The gamble in Alabama is whether the state will matter on the second Tuesday in March. The Alabama Republican Party thinks it will.
As soon as North Carolina anchored its primary to South Carolina's in August, the talk shifted to moving it back. North Carolina Republican National Committeeman, Dave Lewis, says that is likely to happen in May.
South Carolina's safe.
FHQ will add more reactions as they are available.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
The Myth of Republican Proportionality Change
Before FHQ digs into this, go read James Hohmann's piece at Politico on the 2016 delegate selection rules changes the RNC enacted this week at its winter meeting in Washington.1 Then check out Marc Ambinder's reaction to the new rules at The Week.
...then come back and allow me to be nitpicky for a while.
--
Regular FHQ readers will recall that I spent a great deal of time and space pushing back against the nature of change that the introduction of the proportionality rules caused before and during the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. John Sides and I even showed that it was the calendar changes and not the proportionality requirement that was the culprit -- if a rules-based change was to be blamed -- that drew the process out. And while many continue to harp on the "rebrand" the Republican Party has undertaken with regard to issues, most forget that one of the findings of the Growth and Opportunity Project was that impact of delegate allocation rules (ie: proportionality) is dynamics-dependent. In other words, every nomination race is different and the ways in which those delegate allocation rules affect the process are different because of it.
That said, I think a number of analyses are overstating the changes the Republicans put in place this week. And much of it has to do with the supposedly new proportionality requirements. Hohmann mentions this "new" rule that allows a (proportional) state (before March 15) to award all of its delegates to any candidate that clears the 50% threshold statewide. Additionally, Ambinder hints at the 20% of the vote that states can now require candidates to hit in order to receive any delegates.
Both changes sound like they could have some impact on any race; 2016 or otherwise. But they aren't new. In fact, both thresholds are the exact same as they were in 2012. The only real change is that both have been officially added to the broader list of rules. That wasn't the case in 2012 when the office of the RNC legal counsel provided a memo to states and other ne'er do wells about compliance with the new requirement. That memo was the guide for compliance.
Section III deals with the proportionality requirement and parts iv and v set the thresholds:
Now, another cycle of this proportionality requirement being in place may mean that states (state parties and/or state governments) have had additional time to see the true nature of the possibilities. States may have learned some in other words. But that has not really been what has been witnessed over time. Are there changes that take place that seek to exploit -- for the state's gain -- the new rules? Sure, but more often than not, they end up being exception rather than rule.
Will these "new changes" have a pronounced effect? Well, we'll see. FHQ is guessing no, since they aren't really changes for 2016 anyway. In the meantime, let's all be careful about what has changed with these rules and what it may or may not mean for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination race.
--
One last thing:
Hohmann's conversation with North Dakota national committeeman, Curly Haugland is somewhat misleading. Haugland bemoaned the fact that the RNC did not take up proposed changes to correct the increased Rule 40 requirement on the number of state delegations a candidate has to control in order to have his or her name placed in nomination at the convention. This was a contentious part of the rules discussion in Tampa. Paul-aligned delegates were upset that that number of states was raised from five to eight.
The little secret here is that that rule is untouchable as are all the other rules that deal specifically with the next national convention (Rules 26-42). Rule 12, which was added in Tampa, allows for amendments to be made between conventions to Rules 1-11 and 13-25, but all the other rules -- Rule 40 included -- are off limits (to amendments) until the 2016 convention. That eight state requirement, then, could not be changed at the winter meeting of the RNC and cannot be changed until the 2016 convention.
--
1 This one is probably the best summary of the changes I've read.
...then come back and allow me to be nitpicky for a while.
--
Regular FHQ readers will recall that I spent a great deal of time and space pushing back against the nature of change that the introduction of the proportionality rules caused before and during the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. John Sides and I even showed that it was the calendar changes and not the proportionality requirement that was the culprit -- if a rules-based change was to be blamed -- that drew the process out. And while many continue to harp on the "rebrand" the Republican Party has undertaken with regard to issues, most forget that one of the findings of the Growth and Opportunity Project was that impact of delegate allocation rules (ie: proportionality) is dynamics-dependent. In other words, every nomination race is different and the ways in which those delegate allocation rules affect the process are different because of it.
That said, I think a number of analyses are overstating the changes the Republicans put in place this week. And much of it has to do with the supposedly new proportionality requirements. Hohmann mentions this "new" rule that allows a (proportional) state (before March 15) to award all of its delegates to any candidate that clears the 50% threshold statewide. Additionally, Ambinder hints at the 20% of the vote that states can now require candidates to hit in order to receive any delegates.
Both changes sound like they could have some impact on any race; 2016 or otherwise. But they aren't new. In fact, both thresholds are the exact same as they were in 2012. The only real change is that both have been officially added to the broader list of rules. That wasn't the case in 2012 when the office of the RNC legal counsel provided a memo to states and other ne'er do wells about compliance with the new requirement. That memo was the guide for compliance.
Section III deals with the proportionality requirement and parts iv and v set the thresholds:
iv. A state may establish a minimum threshold of the percentage of votes received by a candidate that must be reached below which a candidate may receive no delegates, provided such threshold is no higher than 20%.
v. A state may establish a minimum threshold of the percentage of votes received by a candidate that must be reached above which the candidate may receive all the delegates, provided such threshold is no lower than 50%.Again, this is the 2012 set up and it is no different than what the RNC officially added to the rules this time around. There was no widespread rush on the state level to up the threshold described in part iv above in 2012 (see Alabama as an example) and states like Idaho and Mississippi were among the handful of states that experimented or retained rules that allowed for a winner-take-all allocation of delegates if one candidate received a majority of the statewide vote. In fact, as I pointed out in 2011 and 2012, most states took the road of least resistance in reaction to the rules changes put in place for 2012. That is, states only changed what they had to. Where they complied with the RNC rules, they left well enough alone. This was especially true in states where the minimum threshold for gaining any delegates is set lower than 20% by state law (see New Hampshire and North Carolina for examples)
Now, another cycle of this proportionality requirement being in place may mean that states (state parties and/or state governments) have had additional time to see the true nature of the possibilities. States may have learned some in other words. But that has not really been what has been witnessed over time. Are there changes that take place that seek to exploit -- for the state's gain -- the new rules? Sure, but more often than not, they end up being exception rather than rule.
Will these "new changes" have a pronounced effect? Well, we'll see. FHQ is guessing no, since they aren't really changes for 2016 anyway. In the meantime, let's all be careful about what has changed with these rules and what it may or may not mean for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination race.
--
One last thing:
Hohmann's conversation with North Dakota national committeeman, Curly Haugland is somewhat misleading. Haugland bemoaned the fact that the RNC did not take up proposed changes to correct the increased Rule 40 requirement on the number of state delegations a candidate has to control in order to have his or her name placed in nomination at the convention. This was a contentious part of the rules discussion in Tampa. Paul-aligned delegates were upset that that number of states was raised from five to eight.
The little secret here is that that rule is untouchable as are all the other rules that deal specifically with the next national convention (Rules 26-42). Rule 12, which was added in Tampa, allows for amendments to be made between conventions to Rules 1-11 and 13-25, but all the other rules -- Rule 40 included -- are off limits (to amendments) until the 2016 convention. That eight state requirement, then, could not be changed at the winter meeting of the RNC and cannot be changed until the 2016 convention.
--
1 This one is probably the best summary of the changes I've read.
Friday, January 24, 2014
RNC Passes 2016 Delegate Selection Rules Proposals
The full RNC voted early this afternoon to pass a series of changes to the national party's delegate selection rules; the rules that will govern the process by which the party selects its next presidential nominee. Neither the Rules Committee process nor the full RNC consideration today were all that contentious. In both meetings where the changes were considered -- and ultimately passed -- there were just a handful of dissenting votes.
In other words, there was some consensus within the RNC membership behind the changes that the Rules subcommittee devised and submitted for consideration at this winter meeting.
--
FHQ will certainly have a more robust analysis about the exact changes made in the coming week(s), but for now some reactions to, well, the reactions to these alterations.
A few of the talking points emerging in reaction to the changes are nothing new. They tend to fall in at least a couple of categories. On the one hand, there is skepticism that it will ever work in their intended fashion; in this case, to rein in not only a chaotic calendar formation process, but to tweak the overall nomination process. On the other, there are comments about the national parties fighting the last war; mistakenly making changes to account for problems from the last cycle.
I don't know. Those observations certainly aren't wrong, but in both cases, miss the all-too-important nuance. The "last war" line strikes me as off base in the narrow context of the relationship between the national parties and the states (whether state parties and/or state governments).1 Of course the national parties are fighting the last war when they assemble to devise a delegate selection plan for an upcoming presidential nomination cycle. They move forward with the uncertainty-addled information they have. This is, and has been since the 1972 cycle, an iterative and sequential process. The national parties make rules and the states (and candidates) react to those rules -- some in compliance, but some, and usually only a handful, not. Wash, rinse repeat.
Only, it really is not that simple. There is no way of testing these rules changes ahead of their implementation. The only laboratory is either the experience from previous cycles or the combination of the invisible primary and primary season for the next cycle in real time. A national party does not know and often cannot (adequately) rectify midstream (see Florida and Michigan in 2008) problems that may come up along the way. That is the sequential part of the process. The national parties have to have their rules in place so that the states can react to them, to plan for the upcoming election. Only, some states don't play by the rules, or haven't in a select set of cases over the 2008 and 2012 cycles.
And that is where the probably-warranted skepticism comes in to play. State actors may behave seemingly rationally; moving a primary up and out of compliance with national party rules under the assumption that delegate sanctions will not be enforced. That line of reasoning was used numerous times in 2012 during the formation of the Republican presidential primary calendar. But for the second consecutive cycle, the RNC actually did enforce its penalties. And this is where the national parties have become more sophisticated in their responses to rogue activity. The combination of enforcement and an incremental closing of loopholes that states have exploited in the past have made it harder to states to misbehave.
FHQ spent a lot of time in 2011 and 2012 talking about the work both parties had done to coordinate the basic structure of a presidential primary calendar. We spent still more time talking about the fact that a lack of meaningful and coordinated penalties. One of the missed opportunities in 2012 was the fact that both parties had seen the ineffectiveness of the 50% delegate reduction penalty on states. It worked for most, but some were willing to take that type of hit to their delegation in order to impact the nomination process.
States may not be similarly willing to take a much deeper cut at their delegations in 2016. Nine (in the case of small states) or twelve (for big states) total delegates is a significant reduction. But you know what is missing from a lot of the reaction pieces penned in the wake of the RNC rules changes? The Democratic Party.
Oh, sure, there are certainly some light comparative mentions -- usually having to do with the respective fields of candidates and she who must not be named -- but nothing that comes close to identifying the impact the DNC's eventual delegate selection rules will have on whether the RNC will be successful in its endeavor. On the surface, that's a strange concept. It almost sounds like the DNC would be helping the RNC. [That would never happen!] But that isn't the case. This is more a matter of shared interests -- common nuisances -- among the two national parties. If the DNC ups its penalties, for example, it would go a long way toward determining whether the RNC will get the type of primary calendar it is angling for.
But if you want potential unintended consequences, look to the potential for cross-party differences over some of the Rule 20-based changes the RNC just made. These are the rules pushing up the end of the primary process. Now sure, the RNC made allowances for waivers for Democratically-controlled states that may not be able to comply with those rules (depending on what the DNC does).
That's not all of the unintended consequences either, but FHQ will save that for another time.
The bottom line for now is that the national parties are doing exactly what one would expect them to do. While they are still susceptible to rogue states, the national parties have gotten more sophisticated in their responses to them. The traditionally-exploited loopholes have largely been closed. Want rogue states in 2016? Look at the usual suspects FHQ has been mentioning for months. It won't be Florida. It'll be Arizona, Michigan, Missouri and North Carolina.
And start looking to the end of the calendar too. We may see some creative rogue states in 2016. The reactions the curbs on late May and early June contests may provide for some unconventional "rogue" activity.
--
1 In the broader context of the overarching delegate selection process, there may be something to this. Again FHQ is reminded of John Sununu's comments on this at the National Association of Secretaries of State meeting in January 2013. I'm paraphrasing here, but he mentioned that national parties often tread this line of managing or controlling the delegate selection process. He said that when parties attempt to control the process rather than manage it, they often get themselves into some form of trouble. Whether what the RNC has done this week falls into the control or manage category likely is in the eye of the beholder.
In other words, there was some consensus within the RNC membership behind the changes that the Rules subcommittee devised and submitted for consideration at this winter meeting.
--
FHQ will certainly have a more robust analysis about the exact changes made in the coming week(s), but for now some reactions to, well, the reactions to these alterations.
A few of the talking points emerging in reaction to the changes are nothing new. They tend to fall in at least a couple of categories. On the one hand, there is skepticism that it will ever work in their intended fashion; in this case, to rein in not only a chaotic calendar formation process, but to tweak the overall nomination process. On the other, there are comments about the national parties fighting the last war; mistakenly making changes to account for problems from the last cycle.
I don't know. Those observations certainly aren't wrong, but in both cases, miss the all-too-important nuance. The "last war" line strikes me as off base in the narrow context of the relationship between the national parties and the states (whether state parties and/or state governments).1 Of course the national parties are fighting the last war when they assemble to devise a delegate selection plan for an upcoming presidential nomination cycle. They move forward with the uncertainty-addled information they have. This is, and has been since the 1972 cycle, an iterative and sequential process. The national parties make rules and the states (and candidates) react to those rules -- some in compliance, but some, and usually only a handful, not. Wash, rinse repeat.
Only, it really is not that simple. There is no way of testing these rules changes ahead of their implementation. The only laboratory is either the experience from previous cycles or the combination of the invisible primary and primary season for the next cycle in real time. A national party does not know and often cannot (adequately) rectify midstream (see Florida and Michigan in 2008) problems that may come up along the way. That is the sequential part of the process. The national parties have to have their rules in place so that the states can react to them, to plan for the upcoming election. Only, some states don't play by the rules, or haven't in a select set of cases over the 2008 and 2012 cycles.
And that is where the probably-warranted skepticism comes in to play. State actors may behave seemingly rationally; moving a primary up and out of compliance with national party rules under the assumption that delegate sanctions will not be enforced. That line of reasoning was used numerous times in 2012 during the formation of the Republican presidential primary calendar. But for the second consecutive cycle, the RNC actually did enforce its penalties. And this is where the national parties have become more sophisticated in their responses to rogue activity. The combination of enforcement and an incremental closing of loopholes that states have exploited in the past have made it harder to states to misbehave.
FHQ spent a lot of time in 2011 and 2012 talking about the work both parties had done to coordinate the basic structure of a presidential primary calendar. We spent still more time talking about the fact that a lack of meaningful and coordinated penalties. One of the missed opportunities in 2012 was the fact that both parties had seen the ineffectiveness of the 50% delegate reduction penalty on states. It worked for most, but some were willing to take that type of hit to their delegation in order to impact the nomination process.
States may not be similarly willing to take a much deeper cut at their delegations in 2016. Nine (in the case of small states) or twelve (for big states) total delegates is a significant reduction. But you know what is missing from a lot of the reaction pieces penned in the wake of the RNC rules changes? The Democratic Party.
Oh, sure, there are certainly some light comparative mentions -- usually having to do with the respective fields of candidates and she who must not be named -- but nothing that comes close to identifying the impact the DNC's eventual delegate selection rules will have on whether the RNC will be successful in its endeavor. On the surface, that's a strange concept. It almost sounds like the DNC would be helping the RNC. [That would never happen!] But that isn't the case. This is more a matter of shared interests -- common nuisances -- among the two national parties. If the DNC ups its penalties, for example, it would go a long way toward determining whether the RNC will get the type of primary calendar it is angling for.
But if you want potential unintended consequences, look to the potential for cross-party differences over some of the Rule 20-based changes the RNC just made. These are the rules pushing up the end of the primary process. Now sure, the RNC made allowances for waivers for Democratically-controlled states that may not be able to comply with those rules (depending on what the DNC does).
That's not all of the unintended consequences either, but FHQ will save that for another time.
The bottom line for now is that the national parties are doing exactly what one would expect them to do. While they are still susceptible to rogue states, the national parties have gotten more sophisticated in their responses to them. The traditionally-exploited loopholes have largely been closed. Want rogue states in 2016? Look at the usual suspects FHQ has been mentioning for months. It won't be Florida. It'll be Arizona, Michigan, Missouri and North Carolina.
And start looking to the end of the calendar too. We may see some creative rogue states in 2016. The reactions the curbs on late May and early June contests may provide for some unconventional "rogue" activity.
--
1 In the broader context of the overarching delegate selection process, there may be something to this. Again FHQ is reminded of John Sununu's comments on this at the National Association of Secretaries of State meeting in January 2013. I'm paraphrasing here, but he mentioned that national parties often tread this line of managing or controlling the delegate selection process. He said that when parties attempt to control the process rather than manage it, they often get themselves into some form of trouble. Whether what the RNC has done this week falls into the control or manage category likely is in the eye of the beholder.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Round Up on RNC Rules Committee Meeting
There weren't any surprises at the RNC Rules Committee meeting in DC this afternoon. Here are a few takes on the proposed 2016 delegate selection rules changes, post-meeting:
Zeke Miller at Time says the rules moves are all about the money.
WaPo's Reid Wilson and USA Today's Susan Page talk calendar compression.
Benjy Sarlin over at MSNBC frames the changes as an attempt to reduce the odds of a divisive primary.
FHQ will weigh in when we have had a chance to see the actual language of the changes. In the meantime, the package of revisions that passed the Rules Committee on a near-unanimous voice vote today heads off for consideration in the full RNC tomorrow. To pass, the series of changes will require a three-quarters vote. That is a pretty high bar, but the Rules Committee vote signals pretty close to a consensus on the changes. The committee reports will be made to the full RNC a little after 11am tomorrow morning.
Zeke Miller at Time says the rules moves are all about the money.
WaPo's Reid Wilson and USA Today's Susan Page talk calendar compression.
Benjy Sarlin over at MSNBC frames the changes as an attempt to reduce the odds of a divisive primary.
FHQ will weigh in when we have had a chance to see the actual language of the changes. In the meantime, the package of revisions that passed the Rules Committee on a near-unanimous voice vote today heads off for consideration in the full RNC tomorrow. To pass, the series of changes will require a three-quarters vote. That is a pretty high bar, but the Rules Committee vote signals pretty close to a consensus on the changes. The committee reports will be made to the full RNC a little after 11am tomorrow morning.
The RNC Already Increased Penalties on Potential Rogue Primary States
There is a lot of chatter this morning about what the RNC will be up to these next couple of days in Washington, DC. One thing neither the Rules Committee nor the full RNC will do -- despite the bulk of reports today -- is to increase the penalties on states that move their delegate selection contests ahead of the March 1 threshold or state parties that do not allocate delegates in accordance with the rules laid out by the national party.
Why?
Mainly, the RNC will not be upping the penalties because it has already done so. Some seem to have conveniently forgotten the struggle over the rules in the Rules Committee meetings in the week leading up to the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. Perhaps the increased penalties got lost in the shuffle of Rule 40 changes that had Ron Paul delegates up in arms during the actual convention.
But the point is, the Bennett rule -- named for former Ohio GOP chair, Bob Bennett who devised the penalty -- had already been added, stripping rogue state delegations down to nine delegates (12 including the automatic delegates) for holding primaries or caucuses too early. The rules coming out of Tampa also included a 50% penalty on states that did not follow proportionality requirement. None of that is new. None of that will be new after the RNC winter meeting concludes.
What will potentially be new is:
1) The proportionality requirement will see some changes. The rules package will reduce the window of the proportionality requirement from all of March to just the first two weeks of March. Additionally, the language of the rule (described in Rule 16(c)2) will be ever so slightly altered. As it is now the word "may" appears, suggesting that states allocated delegates in a proportional manner before March 15. The new rule will, as was the case in 2012, mandate this with the word "shall". All that is doing is insuring that there is an actual proportionality requirement for the 50% penalty already described in Rule 17 to apply to.
2) The super penalty described in the Bennett rule will be tightened up to close a loophole that a very small number of small states could have exploited. FHQ has covered those discrepancies for nearly a year.
There are some other matters -- particularly Rule 20 -- that may be noteworthy during the Rules Committee meeting today. But that rule has nothing to do with penalties. It is something that will from the RNC perspective help lay the groundwork for an earlier convention. Everything else will be about tightening up the language for the penalties that are already there.
Why?
Mainly, the RNC will not be upping the penalties because it has already done so. Some seem to have conveniently forgotten the struggle over the rules in the Rules Committee meetings in the week leading up to the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. Perhaps the increased penalties got lost in the shuffle of Rule 40 changes that had Ron Paul delegates up in arms during the actual convention.
But the point is, the Bennett rule -- named for former Ohio GOP chair, Bob Bennett who devised the penalty -- had already been added, stripping rogue state delegations down to nine delegates (12 including the automatic delegates) for holding primaries or caucuses too early. The rules coming out of Tampa also included a 50% penalty on states that did not follow proportionality requirement. None of that is new. None of that will be new after the RNC winter meeting concludes.
What will potentially be new is:
1) The proportionality requirement will see some changes. The rules package will reduce the window of the proportionality requirement from all of March to just the first two weeks of March. Additionally, the language of the rule (described in Rule 16(c)2) will be ever so slightly altered. As it is now the word "may" appears, suggesting that states allocated delegates in a proportional manner before March 15. The new rule will, as was the case in 2012, mandate this with the word "shall". All that is doing is insuring that there is an actual proportionality requirement for the 50% penalty already described in Rule 17 to apply to.
2) The super penalty described in the Bennett rule will be tightened up to close a loophole that a very small number of small states could have exploited. FHQ has covered those discrepancies for nearly a year.
There are some other matters -- particularly Rule 20 -- that may be noteworthy during the Rules Committee meeting today. But that rule has nothing to do with penalties. It is something that will from the RNC perspective help lay the groundwork for an earlier convention. Everything else will be about tightening up the language for the penalties that are already there.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Morton Blackwell on RNC Rules Subcommittee Proposals for 2016
Virginia Republican National Committeeman, Morton Blackwell, has posted over at RedState an open letter to RNC Chair, Reince Priebus, concerning the forthcoming Rules subcommittee proposals tweaking the 2016 delegate selection rules. The prevailing sentiment is opposition to the changes. Yet, even that is nuanced.
Some of it takes the form of a suggestion box entry. There is a call for clearer language in Rule 16(a)(1) where there appears to be an allowance on the part of the RNC for either proportional or winner-take-all allocation rules (regardless of timing). That is perhaps not completely consistent with the restrictions on winner-take-all allocation laid out later in Rule 16 and penalized in Rule 17.1
Other points -- like the one on the width of the proportionality window -- show some resistance, but not outright defiance. The impact of an all-proportional March versus a half-proportional March (March 15 cutoff) is indeterminate. It may or may not slow down or speed up the pace with which the ultimate nominee accrues delegates. Much of that depends on the dynamics of the race -- who is still in the race, what the terrain is (what the sequence of events is).
The fact the tone is this way on these proposed rules changes may be a function of either the scale of the change or the fact that the issues in the proposed changes have been discussed and find some consensus within the Rules Committee and/or the RNC.
The new wrinkle, and where the discussion in the Rules Committee gathering at the RNC winter meeting this week in DC is likely to be interesting,2 is the change proposed to Rule 20. Peter Hamby brought this up in his rundown of the proposed changes a few weeks back. This is the rule that accounts for the certification of the election/selection of delegates.
The reason that this is somewhat contentious is that this is the potential provision that would allow state Republican central committees to select delegates in states with late primaries that may conflict with the logistical requirement of having delegates in place 35 days before the convention. In other words, this is something that is necessary in order to lay the groundwork for a late June or early July convention. [FHQ has more on this here (in the discussion of providing incentive to late primary states to move up).]
Blackwell views this as an overreach of the RNC, infringing on a state's ability to select delegates to the convention as it sees fit. Whether this is eventually a contentious discussion at the meeting remains to be seen. Much will depend on the calculus of RNC members present and voting on the change. Will they see Blackwell's way or will they value the earlier convention that Chairman Priebus and others with the party want?
--
1 Mr. Blackwell also points out the inconsistency regarding automatic delegates in Rule 17 that FHQ described here.
2 FHQ does not necessarily mean heated or controversial here. Rather, it may take some time to unpack and explain everything on the proposed rules change in the context of the meeting.
Some of it takes the form of a suggestion box entry. There is a call for clearer language in Rule 16(a)(1) where there appears to be an allowance on the part of the RNC for either proportional or winner-take-all allocation rules (regardless of timing). That is perhaps not completely consistent with the restrictions on winner-take-all allocation laid out later in Rule 16 and penalized in Rule 17.1
Other points -- like the one on the width of the proportionality window -- show some resistance, but not outright defiance. The impact of an all-proportional March versus a half-proportional March (March 15 cutoff) is indeterminate. It may or may not slow down or speed up the pace with which the ultimate nominee accrues delegates. Much of that depends on the dynamics of the race -- who is still in the race, what the terrain is (what the sequence of events is).
The fact the tone is this way on these proposed rules changes may be a function of either the scale of the change or the fact that the issues in the proposed changes have been discussed and find some consensus within the Rules Committee and/or the RNC.
The new wrinkle, and where the discussion in the Rules Committee gathering at the RNC winter meeting this week in DC is likely to be interesting,2 is the change proposed to Rule 20. Peter Hamby brought this up in his rundown of the proposed changes a few weeks back. This is the rule that accounts for the certification of the election/selection of delegates.
The reason that this is somewhat contentious is that this is the potential provision that would allow state Republican central committees to select delegates in states with late primaries that may conflict with the logistical requirement of having delegates in place 35 days before the convention. In other words, this is something that is necessary in order to lay the groundwork for a late June or early July convention. [FHQ has more on this here (in the discussion of providing incentive to late primary states to move up).]
Blackwell views this as an overreach of the RNC, infringing on a state's ability to select delegates to the convention as it sees fit. Whether this is eventually a contentious discussion at the meeting remains to be seen. Much will depend on the calculus of RNC members present and voting on the change. Will they see Blackwell's way or will they value the earlier convention that Chairman Priebus and others with the party want?
--
1 Mr. Blackwell also points out the inconsistency regarding automatic delegates in Rule 17 that FHQ described here.
2 FHQ does not necessarily mean heated or controversial here. Rather, it may take some time to unpack and explain everything on the proposed rules change in the context of the meeting.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
For RNC Members, A Rules Contradiction That Would Affect Them in 2016
The Republican National Committee is on the eve today of another annual winter confab. This meeting will likely see the Rules Committee take up and consider -- if not vote on and send to the full RNC -- a series of tweaks to the 2016 delegate selection rules that came out of the party's Tampa convention in August 2012. This will not be the first time the Rules Committee and then the full RNC has revised those rules.1 However, this time around, the changes are likely to be more substantial both in terms of quality and quantity. That is a function of the alterations coming out of a special rules subcommittee that was tasked last August -- at the summer meeting -- with reexamining the process by which the Republican Party nominates its presidential candidates; the delegate selection portion anyway.
One seemingly minor change that is likely to be included in the full series of proposed rules changes concerns the convention voting rights of the automatic delegates. Recall that the automatic delegates are the three members of the RNC from each state: the state party chair, the national committeeman and national committeewoman. In most but not all cases, these delegates are free to select any candidate of their choosing. They are an unbound part of the state delegation to the national convention.
That said, there has been some discussion as to how these automatic delegates should be treated at the convention should the state they represent violate the delegate selection rules on timing. In 2012, the rules the Republican Party utilized removed the voting privileges of the RNC members/automatic delegates from states in violation of those rules (Rule 16.e.1). On its surface, then, the penalty was supposed to strike at a group of people -- those RNC members involved in state party politics -- in a position within the national party to presumably deter state-level moves that would bring a state into violation of the rules. This obviously is something that is easier said in rule-making than done in practice. Regardless, the stick was put in place.
The effectiveness of such a penalty is not entirely clear, but it can be quite difficult for a state party chair or national committeeman/committeewoman to prevent a state legislature and governor -- potentially of a different party -- from acting in a manner consistent with the Republican National Committee delegate selection rules. Still, that language persists in the rules that will govern the 2016 Republican presidential nomination process.
Rule 17.f.1 (the same exact language as Rule 16.e.1 in 2012):
(f) If a state or state Republican Party is determined to be in violation:
(1) No member of the Republican National Committee from the offending state shall be permitted to serve as a delegate or alternate delegate to the national convention.
Yet, that seems to be undermined by the language describing the new super penalty earlier in Rule 17. Here's the relevant portion of Rule 17.
Rule 17.a (emphasis FHQ's):
If any state or state Republican Party violates Rule No. 16(c)(1) of The Rules of the Republican Party with regard to a primary, caucus, convention or other process to elect, select, allocate, or bind delegates and alternate delegates to the national convention by conducting its process prior to the last Tuesday in February, the number of delegates to the national convention shall be reduced to nine (9) plus the members of the Republican National Committee from that state...
Now, regular readers will be acquainted with what may be perceived as an annoying practice: FHQ's insistence on saying that the super penalty reduces a state delegation to nine delegates plus the three automatic delegates should a state violate the nomination rules. That is a function of the above language. Yet, that language in Rule 17.a is contradicted by the two-part rule fully described in Rule 17.f.1-2.
The RNC members -- the three automatic delegates from each state -- have convention voting rights in one section of the rule but not the other. The RNC is aware of this issue, but it remains to be seen what the ultimate remedy will be. The penalty stripping RNC members from violating states of their convention votes is one that has passed muster with the group in the past, but given the out -- and given the reality that RNC members may have very little sway in how the timing of their state's primary, for instance, is decided -- the RNC may also opt to retain the voting privileges of their membership at the expense of other delegates from the a violating state's delegation.
Again, it is not clear what proposed changes the RNC rules subcommittee will bring to the Rules Committee on this issue and a number of others, but details will emerge as the RNC convenes tomorrow.
--
1 There was a cosmetic change to Rule 16.a.2 at the 2013 spring meeting that clarified the procedure for dealing with potential rogue delegates and their votes at the national convention.
One seemingly minor change that is likely to be included in the full series of proposed rules changes concerns the convention voting rights of the automatic delegates. Recall that the automatic delegates are the three members of the RNC from each state: the state party chair, the national committeeman and national committeewoman. In most but not all cases, these delegates are free to select any candidate of their choosing. They are an unbound part of the state delegation to the national convention.
That said, there has been some discussion as to how these automatic delegates should be treated at the convention should the state they represent violate the delegate selection rules on timing. In 2012, the rules the Republican Party utilized removed the voting privileges of the RNC members/automatic delegates from states in violation of those rules (Rule 16.e.1). On its surface, then, the penalty was supposed to strike at a group of people -- those RNC members involved in state party politics -- in a position within the national party to presumably deter state-level moves that would bring a state into violation of the rules. This obviously is something that is easier said in rule-making than done in practice. Regardless, the stick was put in place.
The effectiveness of such a penalty is not entirely clear, but it can be quite difficult for a state party chair or national committeeman/committeewoman to prevent a state legislature and governor -- potentially of a different party -- from acting in a manner consistent with the Republican National Committee delegate selection rules. Still, that language persists in the rules that will govern the 2016 Republican presidential nomination process.
Rule 17.f.1 (the same exact language as Rule 16.e.1 in 2012):
(f) If a state or state Republican Party is determined to be in violation:
(1) No member of the Republican National Committee from the offending state shall be permitted to serve as a delegate or alternate delegate to the national convention.
Yet, that seems to be undermined by the language describing the new super penalty earlier in Rule 17. Here's the relevant portion of Rule 17.
Rule 17.a (emphasis FHQ's):
If any state or state Republican Party violates Rule No. 16(c)(1) of The Rules of the Republican Party with regard to a primary, caucus, convention or other process to elect, select, allocate, or bind delegates and alternate delegates to the national convention by conducting its process prior to the last Tuesday in February, the number of delegates to the national convention shall be reduced to nine (9) plus the members of the Republican National Committee from that state...
Now, regular readers will be acquainted with what may be perceived as an annoying practice: FHQ's insistence on saying that the super penalty reduces a state delegation to nine delegates plus the three automatic delegates should a state violate the nomination rules. That is a function of the above language. Yet, that language in Rule 17.a is contradicted by the two-part rule fully described in Rule 17.f.1-2.
The RNC members -- the three automatic delegates from each state -- have convention voting rights in one section of the rule but not the other. The RNC is aware of this issue, but it remains to be seen what the ultimate remedy will be. The penalty stripping RNC members from violating states of their convention votes is one that has passed muster with the group in the past, but given the out -- and given the reality that RNC members may have very little sway in how the timing of their state's primary, for instance, is decided -- the RNC may also opt to retain the voting privileges of their membership at the expense of other delegates from the a violating state's delegation.
Again, it is not clear what proposed changes the RNC rules subcommittee will bring to the Rules Committee on this issue and a number of others, but details will emerge as the RNC convenes tomorrow.
--
1 There was a cosmetic change to Rule 16.a.2 at the 2013 spring meeting that clarified the procedure for dealing with potential rogue delegates and their votes at the national convention.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Unclear What Shape Final RNC Super Penalty May Take
With the 2014 RNC Winter Meeting looming toward the end of the month, and some consideration, if not vote, on a new set of rules proposals likely to occur, it appears as if the intricacies have not been fully settled on. There is no doubt in FHQ's mind that whatever rules the RNC subcommittee comes up with in regard to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination debates will grab all or most of the headlines. But there will be other rules or rules changes that come out of the RNC meeting that will warrant some discussion as well.
One of those rules is the new super penalty the RNC passed in Tampa in August 2012. Recall that the Republican National Convention implemented for 2016 a stricter penalty (Rule 17) for states willing to violate the timing rules (Rule 16) by scheduling their delegate selection events earlier than the first Tuesday in March. Instead of stripping a state of half its delegation as was the case in 2012 and before, the RNC would reduce a rogue state delegation to just nine delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates). The intent is to shrink the potential power of any rogue state down to something smaller than what any of the four carve-out states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- would have to offer in terms of their individual number of delegates. That, in turn, keeps the candidates away and focused on the carve-outs.
…theoretically.
However, as FHQ noted once that super penalty came to light in January 2013, there was a loophole for a select few small states. The more draconian penalty would actually have been severe for big states, but less than the 50% penalty those same states would have been subject to in 2012 and before. The new proposals includes a provision to correct that discrepancy.
But it isn't clear what exactly this fix is.
As was originally reported by Peter Hamby last month, the RNC subcommittee remedy was to penalize rogue states by knocking them down to nine delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates) or one third of their originally apportioned delegates, whichever is number is smaller. That one third provision was the remedy to the original super penalty intended to target those smaller loophole states.
Yet, in Saturday's New Hampshire Union Leader, Garry Rayno describes a slightly different penalty for those very same smaller states. Instead of being left with one third of their delegates, smaller rogue states with fewer than 30 apportioned delegates (originally, pre-penalty) would be stripped of all but six delegates (presumably plus the three party/automatic delegates). That is not a huge difference, but that is a different penalty than the one Hamby detailed in December.
Let's look a state or two under both plans (Hamby and Rayno descriptions) and the original super penalty. In 2012, there were 17 states and five territories with 30 or fewer delegates. Given that 30 delegate threshold in Rayno's description there are two groups of states to examine. States in the 25-30 delegate range and those with 24 or fewer delegates in their delegations.
One of those rules is the new super penalty the RNC passed in Tampa in August 2012. Recall that the Republican National Convention implemented for 2016 a stricter penalty (Rule 17) for states willing to violate the timing rules (Rule 16) by scheduling their delegate selection events earlier than the first Tuesday in March. Instead of stripping a state of half its delegation as was the case in 2012 and before, the RNC would reduce a rogue state delegation to just nine delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates). The intent is to shrink the potential power of any rogue state down to something smaller than what any of the four carve-out states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- would have to offer in terms of their individual number of delegates. That, in turn, keeps the candidates away and focused on the carve-outs.
…theoretically.
However, as FHQ noted once that super penalty came to light in January 2013, there was a loophole for a select few small states. The more draconian penalty would actually have been severe for big states, but less than the 50% penalty those same states would have been subject to in 2012 and before. The new proposals includes a provision to correct that discrepancy.
But it isn't clear what exactly this fix is.
As was originally reported by Peter Hamby last month, the RNC subcommittee remedy was to penalize rogue states by knocking them down to nine delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates) or one third of their originally apportioned delegates, whichever is number is smaller. That one third provision was the remedy to the original super penalty intended to target those smaller loophole states.
Yet, in Saturday's New Hampshire Union Leader, Garry Rayno describes a slightly different penalty for those very same smaller states. Instead of being left with one third of their delegates, smaller rogue states with fewer than 30 apportioned delegates (originally, pre-penalty) would be stripped of all but six delegates (presumably plus the three party/automatic delegates). That is not a huge difference, but that is a different penalty than the one Hamby detailed in December.
Let's look a state or two under both plans (Hamby and Rayno descriptions) and the original super penalty. In 2012, there were 17 states and five territories with 30 or fewer delegates. Given that 30 delegate threshold in Rayno's description there are two groups of states to examine. States in the 25-30 delegate range and those with 24 or fewer delegates in their delegations.
- State in the 25-30 delegate range: Wyoming (28 delegates in 2012)
Let's assume that Wyoming opts to hold (what will now have to be binding) precinct caucuses in February 2016. That would run afoul of the new RNC rules.
Original super penalty reduction: 9 delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates); 12 total. That is a 57% reduction.
Hamby super penalty reduction: 9 delegates or one third of original delegation (9.33 delegates), whichever is smaller. Most of the rounding rules for 2016 indicate that fractions would be rounded down. That would leave Wyoming with 9 delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates); 12 total. That's a 57% reduction.
Rayno super penalty reduction: 6 delegates (presumably plus the three party/automatic delegates); 9 total. That's a 68% reduction.
- State with 24 or fewer delegates: Maine (24 delegates in 2012)
Let's assume that Maine opts to hold (what will now have to be binding) precinct caucuses in February 2016. That would run afoul of the new RNC rules.
Original super penalty reduction: 9 delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates); 12 total. That is a 50% reduction.
Hamby super penalty reduction: 9 delegates or one third of original delegation (8 delegates), whichever is smaller. That would leave Maine with 8 delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates); 11 total. That's a 54% reduction.
Rayno super penalty reduction: 6 delegates (presumably plus the three party/automatic delegates); 9 total. That is a 62% reduction.
- State with 24 or fewer delegates: Delaware (17 delegates in 2012) -- Smallest state/non-territory delegation
Let's assume that Delaware opts to hold a primary in February 2016. That would run afoul of the new RNC rules.
Original super penalty reduction: 9 delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates) [NOTE: less than 50% reduction]; 12 total. That is just a 29% reduction.
Hamby super penalty reduction: 9 delegates or one third of original delegation (5.67 delegates), whichever is smaller. Most of the rounding rules for 2016 indicate that fractions would be rounded down. That would leave Delaware with 5 delegates (plus the three party/automatic delegates); 8 total. That is a 53% reduction.
Rayno super penalty reduction: 6 delegates (presumably plus the three party/automatic delegates); 9 total. That is a 47% reduction.
In all cases, the penalty decreases as the size of a state's delegation decreases. But the proposal Hamby described sees a very slight decrease as a delegation gets smaller as compared to the original conception of the super penalty or the version Rayno reported. Understandably, the corrections are more severe than the original, but the Rayno version reduces a delegation more than the one Hamby described in December. For all states (not including those territories with just 9 delegates) with fewer than 30 delegates, the Hamby-described penalty is roughly 55% of the delegation (with a range of 53-57%). On the other hand the Rayno version is more severe on the "bigger" small delegation states. The reductions on states with fewer than 30 delegates range anywhere from 47-68%.
Now, these are very subtle differences. A handful of delegates here and there makes a difference in terms of what the weight of the ultimate penalty is on an individual state. None of these states were chosen at random either. All three have at various points in the post-reform era tested the resolve of the national parties by moving in on the turf of the carve-out states (generally New Hampshire). The RNC, then, would have some incentive to close any loophole that might entice any or all of those states to jump up the calendar into, say, February.
But how to do that is the question. Pick your poison.
The main remaining question is whether this will be enough of a deterrent to prevent states, small and big alike, from encroaching on the turf of the carve-out states. That is a question that will have to wait until 2015 for an answer. In the meantime, the RNC will have to settle on what its small state super penalty will be.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Another Take on the RNC's Efforts to Alter the Presidential Nomination Rules for 2016
S.V. Date has a nice synopsis up over at NPR today about what's different about the RNC work to reign in the 2016 presidential delegate selection rules relative to 2012. What is particularly worth reading is the discussion of the prospective penalties as compared to the penalties that were. The short version: In 2012, there was just one 50% penalty that could be levied once against states -- whether they violated the timing rule or the proportionality rule. In 2016 there will be a couple of sanctions; one for each type of violation.
The problem with the short version is that it glosses over a lot of the nuance.
The main issue with Date's account is that it hinges on a flawed understanding of the history of the rules the Republican National Committee has used in its delegate selection process. This flaw led to many missing out on the true essence of the proportionality rule the RNC added for the 2012 cycle. And it looks like it is going to carry over into 2016 in some cases.
Here's the line that stuck in FHQ's craw (emphasis mine):
In other words, the RNC provided no mandates -- no guidance -- to the states on the issue of delegate allocation. It was up to the states. That is just how it was for any state that held a delegate selection event on or after April 1, 2012. States were certainly allowed to allocate delegates in a winner-take-all fashion after that point on the calendar, but there was no rush by states with contests beyond that point to do so. The majority of states took the road of least resistance: they left their delegate allocation alone. The only newly added winner-take-all states to the back end of the 2012 calendar were the ones that moved beyond April 1 to protect the winner-take-all allocation they had utilized in the past (see Maryland and Wisconsin).
The point here is to point out this faulty view of the history of these rules. The Republican nomination process has never been a bastion of rampant winner-take-all rules. If anything was or has been rampant, it has been states having the freedom to choose their methods of allocation. There were curbs -- or attempts at curbs -- on that freedom for the first time on the Republican side in 2012. With a new super penalty added to the mix in 2016, there are hopes within the RNC that they have gotten things right this time.
As the party's general counsel, John Ryder, said, "I think this strikes a good balance."
--
FHQ will have more on this story later.
The problem with the short version is that it glosses over a lot of the nuance.
The main issue with Date's account is that it hinges on a flawed understanding of the history of the rules the Republican National Committee has used in its delegate selection process. This flaw led to many missing out on the true essence of the proportionality rule the RNC added for the 2012 cycle. And it looks like it is going to carry over into 2016 in some cases.
Here's the line that stuck in FHQ's craw (emphasis mine):
"If this thinking sounds familiar, it should. The RNC tried to accomplish similar goals heading into 2012. The four early states were given the month of February. Other states could start holding contests on March 1 if they allocated delegates proportionally, and on April 1 if they awarded all the delegates to the top vote-getter. A state that violated either rule faced a 50-percent loss of delegates."There was a proportionality requirement in 2012, but this makes it sound as if there was something of a winner-take-all requirement as well. There was not. The point of the April 1 threshold in 2012 was that states that chose to hold contests on or after that point on the calendar could allocate their delegates to candidates in any RNC-sanctioned method; not just winner-take-all. That was consistent with how the party had viewed delegate allocation at any point the calendar in years prior. The national party viewed that as a decision that was completely at the discretion of the states -- parties or governments.
In other words, the RNC provided no mandates -- no guidance -- to the states on the issue of delegate allocation. It was up to the states. That is just how it was for any state that held a delegate selection event on or after April 1, 2012. States were certainly allowed to allocate delegates in a winner-take-all fashion after that point on the calendar, but there was no rush by states with contests beyond that point to do so. The majority of states took the road of least resistance: they left their delegate allocation alone. The only newly added winner-take-all states to the back end of the 2012 calendar were the ones that moved beyond April 1 to protect the winner-take-all allocation they had utilized in the past (see Maryland and Wisconsin).
The point here is to point out this faulty view of the history of these rules. The Republican nomination process has never been a bastion of rampant winner-take-all rules. If anything was or has been rampant, it has been states having the freedom to choose their methods of allocation. There were curbs -- or attempts at curbs -- on that freedom for the first time on the Republican side in 2012. With a new super penalty added to the mix in 2016, there are hopes within the RNC that they have gotten things right this time.
As the party's general counsel, John Ryder, said, "I think this strikes a good balance."
--
FHQ will have more on this story later.
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