Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Floor Amendments Strip Out April Presidential Primary Provision from Texas House Bill
Friday, May 20, 2011
Time Running Out, House & Senate at Odds on Texas Primary Decision
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, R-Plano, said both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate "are vehemently opposed to a primary in April." Among the concerns is that any runoffs would not receive much attention as they would be held in late June.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Texas House Committee Report with April Presidential Primary Provision is Posted
Saturday, May 14, 2011
A Follow Up on the April Presidential Primary in Texas: Signals from the Republican Party of Texas
As has been mentioned in the last two Chairman's Updates for March and April, the RPT has been closely following the progress of SB 100, specifically as it applies to the date of the Texas Primary Election. To give some background - the federal MOVE Act has been crafted to give our overseas military a greater amount of time to receive and cast their vote by mail. For our state to comply with the MOVE Act, there are changes mandated to the election calendar that lengthen the period of time between filing for office and election day. In the case of Texas, our best solution is to move the primary date back into April with a runoff date in June. In addition to changes mandated by the MOVE Act, the Republican National Committee has passed rules which penalize states which hold their primary elections before April and do not apportion their delegates in direct proportion to the popular vote. Texas is such a state. Thus, should Texas keep its primary date on the first Tuesday in March, those rules would potentially take away half of the Texas delegation strength to the Republican National Convention in 2012.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Texas Inches Closer to an April Presidential Primary. ...or does it?
Thursday, April 14, 2011
A Follow Up on the Later Texas Primary
Monday, April 4, 2011
Will Texas Move Its Presidential Primary Back?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
On Gingrich's Presidential Nomination System Comments
"I'm a fan of [the saying] 'if things aren't broke, don't fix em', and I believe the system that we have right now.... I think the system works reasonably well."
".... In the opening weeks, you've been in the Midwest, you've been in the Northeast, and you've been in the South, and now -- with adding Nevada -- you've been in the West in the very first weeks, at an affordable pace for unknown candidates.
For somebody like Governor Pawlenty or Senator Thune, who are just starting out, or Senator Santorum.
If you don't have the scale of money that some candidates have, this is an enormously open and equal opportunity model to allow talent to emerge."
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The Impact of 2010 State Governmental Elections on Frontloading: Part Two
That leaves those 18 states currently in violation (see map below) of the national parties' delegate selection rules firmly within the crosshairs. Each has to move back to a later, compliant date or they face the delegation-reducing sanctions both parties are employing. [For the time being, I'll shunt my thoughts on the effectiveness of those sanctions to the side.]
Those 18 states are either the states most likely to move into compliance or the most likely to thumb their noses at the national party rules in an attempt to influence the nominations. And that brings us full circle. Democratic-controlled state governments (of those 18 states) would tend to fall into the former group while Republican-controlled state governments would be more likely to tempt fate and stick it out despite the looming spectre of sanctions. Two Democratic-controlled states (Arkansas and Illinois) in the last legislative session moved to later dates and a third, California (a newly unified Democratic state government), has a proposal to move its primary back to a later date on the 2012 presidential primary calendar.
You can begin to see the possible impact here as highlighted by the map above (especially when combined with the partisan maps from part one). The unified state governments would hypothetically be more likely to see some action if they were under Democratic control than if they were under Republican control (seeking greater influence over the nomination) or in the midst of divided control (unable to move into compliance with either national party's delegate selection rules). In other words, there is not only a line between unified and divided state governments, but between states with unified Democratic control and unified Republican control. States like California are more likely to move back, but are unified Republican states like Florida or Georgia more or less likely to move back than states like New York or Missouri with divided government? That will be something for those of us watching to keep our eye on.
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Wednesday, January 5, 2011
The Impact of 2010 State Governmental Elections on Frontloading: Part One
Friday, November 19, 2010
Bill Introduced in Texas House to Move 2012 Presidential Primary from March to February
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
On Republican "Sticks" and Democratic "Carrots"
Any Republican delegate-selection event held before the first day of April shall be penalized: The result cannot be, as many Republicans prefer, a winner-take-all allocation of delegates. March events "shall provide for the allocation of delegates on a proportional basis." This means only that someof the delegates must be allocated proportional to the total vote.
Because Democrats are severe democrats, they have no winner-take-all events, so they do not have this stick with which to discipline disobedient states. Instead, they brandish -- they are, after all, liberals -- a carrot: States will be offered bonus delegates for moving their nominating events deeper into the nominating season, and for clustering their contests with those of neighboring states.
Monday, September 27, 2010
A short history of presidential primaries meets reality.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
RNC Finalizes Primary Schedule Rules for 2012
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Dates for 2012 Contests in Exempt States (via Democrats)
The new schedule is as follows:
- Iowa holds the first-in-the-nation caucus on January 14.
- New Hampshire holds the first-in-the-nation primary on January 22.
- Nevada conducts a caucus between Iowa and New Hampshire on Saturday, January 19.
- South Carolina holds a primary 1 week after the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, January 29
The regular window will open for all other states on the first Tuesday in February -- February 5, 2008.
- Iowa: February 6
- New Hampshire: February 14
- Nevada: February 18
- South Carolina: February 28
- Everyone else: March 6 or after
Monday, July 12, 2010
Thoughts following the 2nd Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting
Friday, July 9, 2010
Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting in DC Today and Tomorrow
Setting the 2012 calendar: There’s another meeting to watch today -- this one in D.C. At 1:00 pm ET, DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meets, and it’s expected that they’ll vote on dates for the pre-window states (IA, NH, SC, NV) and reducing the influence of superdelegates.