DC Bill to Move Primaries to June

Early last week, we discussed the possibility that Washington, DC would shift both the district's presidential primary back and its primaries for other offices up on the calendar for 2012 elections. The next day (February 1) Councilwoman Mary Cheh introduced B19-90 which accomplishes just that. The legislation moves both sets of primaries to the first Tuesday after the second Monday in June (In 2012, that's June 12.); as opposed to the June or July possibilities mentioned before the bill was introduced. The presidential primary would move back from the second Tuesday in January and the primaries for local offices up from the first Tuesday after the second Monday in September.

Yeah, that's right, from January to June. The council moved the presidential primary from May to January for the 2004 cycle and moved the primary to February to coincide with Maryland and Virginia on the second Tuesday in February in 2008. And either there was a sunset provision on the move to February for 2008 that is not apparent in the resulting law or the current legislation incorrectly identifies the date of the presidential primary as the second Tuesday in January. Well, that or there was an effort during the 2009-2010 council session to move the primary from February back to January with no one noticing. FHQ is guessing sunset.

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Kentucky isn't the only state to consider an August presidential primary during the 2012 cycle

Yesterday, FHQ detailed the bill passed by the Kentucky Senate to shift the commonwealth's presidential primary from May to August. But the Bluegrass state is not the only state to have proposed a bill that would move a presidential primary to August for the 2012 cycle. Two years ago, the Arkansas legislature, almost simultaneous with the passage of the bill that eliminated the state's separate presidential primary (moving it back to May), proposed a bill that would have moved the Natural state's primary to the third week in August.

The reasoning behind the move(s) may have been different in both cases, but the idea of a later (out-of-window) presidential primary is apparently not a new one.

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Kentucky Moving to August?

I'm not sure how this one ran so far beneath my radar, but it does make for an interesting discussion on a Monday morning on a couple of levels.

First of all, a bill (SB 4) was introduced and passed in the Kentucky Senate in January proposing a move of the Bluegrass state's primary -- both the presidential primary and those for state and local offices -- from the first Tuesday after the third Monday in May to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in August. The stated intent of the bill is to free up the legislature to focus on their work -- at least the controversial work -- without fear of being challenged in a primary by an opponent who entered the race because of a vote on a contentious piece of legislation. The filing deadline is in January for the May primary and many Kentucky legislators apparently wait until after the filing deadline and know who, if anyone, they will be facing off against in May before addressing potentially divisive legislation. And with the legislative session ending in March, the overall efficiency of activity in the legislature can be negatively affected.

But moving the primary back is an interesting way of dealing with this problem. The simpler solution, it seems, would be to shift the filing deadline back to a point that occurs prior to the start of the legislative session instead of trying to incur the wrath of the national parties with a presidential primary date that is in violation of both parties' rules; not for being too early, but for being too late. An August Kentucky primary would occur in 2012 on August 7, according to the provisions of this bill, just less than three weeks before the opening of the Republican National Convention on August 27.

Is this even doable given the national party rules on the window of time in which primaries and caucuses can be held? Well, there are a couple of ways of looking at that. The first concerns the parameters of the window rule and the other revolves around the structural and political constraints internal and external to Kentucky.

The main question that Richard Winger raises at Ballot Access News is one that came up here at FHQ last week in our discussion of the potential bill to move the District of Columbia primary elections -- including the presidential primary possibly -- to July. Namely, why has the back end of the window not been adjusted since 2004 as the national conventions have crept into September, later than the traditional end of July (for the party out of the White House) and the end of August (for the party in the White House)? This is a valid point. I'll grant the argument that the parties need some time to shift from the primary phase to the general election phase of the presidential election and that there may be some logistical concerns that need to be addressed in that intervening period between the close of primary season and the conventions that formally nominate presidential candidates. What is not clear to me is that the burden on the parties has in any way changed since 2004. In other words, has it become more burdensome to accomplish those logistical tasks in the period from the second week in June to the beginning of the conventions -- now in late August instead of late July?

There is no evidence that I could muster that would point to the necessity of essentially an extra month to accomplish those matters. One could highlight the Florida and Michigan problems from the 2008 cycle on the Democratic side or the issues Mike Huckabee had about the caucus results (and challenges to primary and caucus results and subsequent delegate disputes more generally) in Washington in 2008 on the Republican side. Those are, however, issues that were dealt with either before the end of the primary process (The Rules and Bylaws Committee met the weekend before the last round of contests to deal with Florida and Michigan.) or in the regular course of the primary/caucus winnowing of candidates (The voters spoke and made McCain the nominee and any argument from Huckabee as to the Arizona senator's legitimacy as the party's nominee because of what had happened in Washington moot.). But that doesn't change the fact that there are challenges (see the 2012 Democratic Delegate Selection Rules, section 20 for a look at the number of ways things can be challenged and the amount of time it could take to deal with them) and other logistical issues that arise and need to be taken care of during the period between the end of the primary process and before the beginning of the conventions.

But that period does not probably need to be as long as it was in 2008. There's nothing to suggest that it there is any greater frequency of issues which in turn necessitates an extra month for this period. Why not shift the back end of the window back to correspond with the backward shift the conventions have now taken?

But that doesn't really address the potential Kentucky move. It merely suggests that the national parties want some time between the end of the nominating contests and the conventions. Would the three weeks between the proposed August Kentucky primary in 2012 and the Republican convention be enough time? To Kentucky, probably. It is unlikely that there would be issues with the results. One candidate likely would have consolidated enough delegates by that point that Kentucky would not be decisive in the nomination and a court challenge by another candidate would be frivolous at best.

That point about court challenges (or any other problems) underlines why the national parties would have an issue with such a small window of time between the end of contests and a convention. Sure, even the national parties would view that scenario as far-fetched, but even they plan for worst-case scenarios. And even if that worst-case scenario did not happen, the parties have a vested interest in putting as much space between the primary phase of the competition and the general election phase as possible. First of all, if the primary process has been divisive, another contest simply serves as a means of reopening that wound when the party would rather be focusing on unifying the party ahead of its convention. Absent divisiveness, one could also foresee a situation where the parties would not want such a late contest. Let's look at the 2008 Republican nomination race for an illustration of this, but assume there was an August Kentucky primary during that cycle. McCain had wrapped up the nomination as of the first week in March. However, the thing that marked that final stretch of contests on the Republican side was not how Romney and Huckabee -- two candidates who had withdrawn from the race -- were doing, but how much support Ron Paul continued to get into the June contests. Of the final nine contests for the Republican nomination, Paul received double digit support (an average of 17%) in five. Even if Paul wasn't a serious contender for the nomination, that is a significant protest vote; one that no party would want less than three weeks before a convention.

Again, the parties want a transitional period between the two phases of the campaign, but there is nothing that would point toward a need for that period to be expanded or that the back end of the window should not be adjusted due to convention creep. But neither party would want a late contest like what Kentucky is proposing.

--

That first area of discussion ended up with a point about the external pressures Kentucky is getting (or will potentially get if this bill becomes law) from the national parties, but that is only one piece of the structural/political puzzle this primary date shift makes up. What other considerations are involved?

At first glance, the Kentucky bill seems like a more institutionally crafty way of doing what HB 1057 in Oklahoma seeks to accomplish: forcing the state parties to take on funding of presidential nominating contests. If the presidential primary is too late, the state parties will have to pick up the bill for a contest of a rules-compliant date. More insidiously, that would be a means of more than likely forcing a caucus with far less participation, but more party control (see Meinke et al. 2006). In a scenario where Kentucky had an open or semi-open primary that would make more sense. It would be a means of closing off the process and limiting who could participate. But Kentucky's primaries are already closed.

There has also been some more widespread discussion this cycle among other states about costs savings and the presidential primaries -- moving a separate presidential primary back in line with those for state and local offices (see California, New Jersey) or eliminating presidential primaries altogether (see Kansas, Washington). That is not the case in Kentucky. There is nothing to be gained financially for the state from such a move. Removing the presidential line from the ballot decreases the burden little if any since the presidential primary and those primaries for state and local offices are held concurrently as is.

While the above structural constraints -- outside of the national party rules -- may serve as no hinderance to the movement of this bill through the Kentucky legislature, the political roadblocks are much greater. First of all, this bill was proposed in and passed by the Republican-controlled state Senate and though I don't know for sure -- the Kentucky legislature's web site was less than forthcoming about who voted for and against this bill -- I suspect that the 21-14 vote to pass it was largely along party lines. The Republicans have a 22-15 advantage in the Senate with one independent. The state House and beyond that chamber, the governor's mansion, are controlled by Democrats, Democrats who are likely to get some pressure from the DNC to ignore or vote down this legislation. The Democratic Delegate Selection Rules for 2012 (section 20.C.7) call for Democrats in states in situations such as these to take "all provable and positive steps" to keep the state's Democratic delegate selection compliant with the rules. If the House doesn't do that, Governor Beshear likely will.

But why enter this scenario in the first place? Why not just shift the filing deadline back? That's a much easier route. [Yes, there are implications for an earlier filing deadline, but they have to be less onerous than those taken on in the event that Kentucky's presidential primary is moved back and out of compliance with the national party rules.]

Hat tip to Richard Winger over at Ballot Access News for sending this Kentucky information my way.

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On Overseas Military Voting and September Primaries: Epilogue/Prologue

Earlier this week President Obama signed into law the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act. FHQ has commented on this piece of legislation a few times already (see here, here and here), but it never hurts to reiterate the highlights. The main product of this bill (now law) is that states with primaries set too close to the general election (less than 45 days before) are now faced with having to accommodate military personnel and others overseas. That has the effect of either forcing states to shift their primaries to earlier dates in order to comply or to submit a waiver request.

Now that MOVE has been signed into law, the real work will begin. There are over a dozen states that that are affected. And it is more than just September primary states (see first link above for September primary states affected) that are affected. Obviously primary election certification takes time (see Florida 2000 in the presidential election for an extraordinary example) and that makes some August primary states like Colorado and Washington vulnerable to this new law as well. Of course, with more states affected comes a variety of responses to what is required.

They range from the conciliatory...

"You can’t print a ballot until you know who won,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who is urging his state’s lawmakers to shift the Sept. 14 primary by at least a month. “And you can’t print ballots in five seconds. It takes several days to print a ballot. Then you have to put them in the mail."

"Old habits die hard and a September primary certainly is our tradition,” [Vermont Secretary of State, Deb] Markowitz said. “I strongly believe that if we made a change to August, politicians would adapt, voters would adapt."

...to the resistant:

“Our system of allowing people to delay voting until closer to Election Day is better in terms of making an informed choice,” [Washington state election official Katie] Blinn said.

“Things just don’t get going here until September,” said [Wisconsin Board of Elections spokesman, Reid] Magney.

Washington and other states may have a good argument for a waiver based on the fact that they accept and count overseas ballots a few weeks after the actual election date. The Evergreen state may have to expand that some. But the guidelines behind which states are granted waivers is still undecided. The folks running the Federal Voting Assistance Program will work in consultation with the US Attorney General's office to decide which states, if any, will be allowed an exemption. The vacation argument from Wisconsin is a valid one, but is a bit thin consider many of these same states have presidential primaries in the dead of winter when weather may be preventing voters from getting to the polls.

Most states, however, will likely do what Nevada did (independent of this law change) earlier this year: move their late summer and fall primaries to earlier dates.

Hat tip to Ballot Access News for the link to the reactions story.


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September (State and Local) Primaries Are Now a Step Closer to Disappearing

Senate Bill 1390 is now out of conference and has been passed by the House according to Ballot Access News. As FHQ discussed yesterday, this is the bill that requires all absentee ballots be printed and mailed off to military personnel overseas at least 45 days prior to the general election. This has the unintended effect of forcing states that hold midterm primaries in September to shift those elections to earlier dates. [Here is the complete list of states affected and a broader discussion of the implications.]

Below is a timeline of action taken yesterday in the House on the bill from the clerk of the House. They were treating the differences in the Senate bill coming out of conference as changes to the original House bill (HR 2647).

11:15 A.M. -

Amendment offered by Ms. Slaughter.

Upon the adoption of the conference report the House shall be considered to have adopted the concurrent resolution ( H. Con. Res. 196) making corrections in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 2647.

11:46 A.M. -

On agreeing to the Slaughter amendment Agreed to by voice vote.

On ordering the previous question on the amendment Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: 237 - 187 (Roll no. 764).

11:53 A.M. -

UNFINISHED BUSINESS - The Chair announced that the unfinished business was the question of adoption of motions to suspend the rules which had been debated earlier and on which further proceedings had been postponed.

H. Res. 808:

providing for consideration of the conference report to accompany the bill ( H.R. 2647) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2010 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, to provide special pays and allowances to certain members of the Armed Forces, expand concurrent receipt of military retirement and VA disability benefits to disabled military retirees, and for other purposes

On agreeing to the resolution Agreed to by recorded vote: 234 - 188 (Roll no. 765).

Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.

12:19 P.M. -

DEBATE - The House proceeded with one hour of debate on the conference report to accompany H.R. 2647.

1:30 P.M. -

POSTPONED PROCEEDING - Pursuant to the rule, the House postponed further proceedings on the conference report to accompany H.R. 2647 until later in the legislative day.

H.R. 2647:

to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2010 for military activities of the Department of Defense, to prescribe military personnel strengths for fiscal year 2010, and for other purposes

The previous question was ordered pursuant to the rule.

3:23 P.M. -

On agreeing to the conference report Agreed to by recorded vote: 281 - 146 (Roll no. 770).

Motions to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.

3:24 P.M. -

Considered as unfinished business.

H. Con. Res. 196:

making corrections in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 2647

Pursuant to the provisions of H. Res. 808, H. Con. Res. 196 is considered passed House.

H.R. 2647:

to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2010 for military activities of the Department of Defense, to prescribe military personnel strengths for fiscal year 2010, and for other purposes

Yeah, that's a lot of legislative process to take in. The key is the enrollment part. That tells us that the bill has passed and the "unfinished business" is basically that the enrollment of the bill has to take place first before the bill is presented to the president.


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Remember that Defense Authorization Bill That Could Affect the Timing of Primaries?

Remember that Defense Authorization Bill That Could Affect the Timing of Primaries?

Yeah, this bill.* Well, it looks as if S1390 will be voted on in conference today. The Senate version contains the provision that would require states to mail out absentee ballots at least 45 days prior to the general election (... a move that would cause September primary states -- not presidential primaries -- to be shifted to earlier dates to comply). The House bill for defense authorization did not contain this provision, so the conference vote will determine whether it is included.

Tracking...

Hat tip to Ballot Access News for the link.

*The original bill discussed was S1415, but the 45 day rules outlined in that bill seem to have been added into S1390.


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Defense Authorization Bill Amendment Could Affect Primary Timing

No, not presidential primaries (...at least not directly).

Yesterday the New York Times ran an article about the trouble an amendment buried in this year's defense authorization bill is causing on the state level in New York. Now, this isn't unusual. National legislation, due to our federalist system, often has ramifications on the state and local level. However, this is a defense bill. Yes, that can affect funding for bases and through other means in the states, but this is about elections, specifically primary elections. Where's the connection?

Actually, New York senator, Chuck Schumer, added the amendment that could affect his home state and any other state with a primary election within 45 days of the general election.* The whole point of the amendment is to give military personnel outside of the country ample opportunity to vote, but it could end up causing some headaches for state legislatures and secretaries of state/boards of election in many September primary states.

In 2010, that list is comprised of:

Delaware
Hawaii
Maryland
Massachusetts
Minnesota
New Hampshire
New York
Rhode Island
Vermont
Wisconsin

[Hmmm, all blue states and enough electoral votes to get you a third of the way to 270.]

Well, what's the big deal? Move the primaries to earlier dates, get the ballots printed and mailed out and be done with it, right? Ideally yes, but this is politics. It's never that easy.

A small move back into, say, August would mean that the elections would fall at a time when people are trying to fit vacations in before the schools start or just because the summer is coming to a close. That is the argument the Douglas Kellner, the co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections is making anyway. Honestly though, that is pretty weak. If August is so bad, then why are fourteen states holding their primaries or runoffs during the month (see above list link)? I understand the normative issues behind making it appear as if you are doing things that are supporting higher voter turnout, but even this Times article started off with the line, "It is hard enough to get New York voters to the polls for any September primary." As such, the Board of Elections just appears as if it is stalling.

But let's continue with that charade for a moment. Let's assume that vacationing and the "pressure put on the county boards of election" together are a big enough deal to eliminate August as an option in New York (and maybe even some other September states). What then? What are the options? The Times suggested a return to the June date the state's primary was held on until 1974. What are the pros and cons around a move to June?

The issue then is that such a large move potentially affects the calculus in the state legislature, where this change would have to be initiated and pushed through. Why? Well, the folks in the New York legislature all face primary elections every two years as well. The move could affect their fortunes. Antsy elections officials and antsy legislators. That isn't a recipe for change. Of course, neither is the fact that New York's state assembly has been a touch dysfunctional this session.

Another issue with a move to June is that the economy now comes into the picture. Matt from DemConWatch and I were discussing this in an email exchange earlier, and he speculated that this [a move to June] could put pressure on some of the September primary states to hold their presidential primaries and state and local primaries on the same date.

And it could from an economic standpoint. The whole reason some of the May and June presidential primary states have not frontloaded is because they hold all their primary contests at one time. That gives states with late primaries for state and local offices a huge advantage. Their primaries for those offices were after the end of the presidential primary window earlier on in the post-reform era, so they had to have separate contests. They were forced to fund that extra election (presidential primary) or move the other election up (and we see what a potential issue that can be). In the period between 1976 and 1996, in fact, I've found that those September primary (for state and local offices) states are seven times more likely to frontload their presidential primaries than those states where all the primaries are held concurrently. Once the election cycles through 2008 are included the effect decreases; those split primary states are only twice as likely to frontload once the hyper-frontloaded elections since 1996 are accounted for.

What does that have to do with the economy? Well, if the economy is still in poor shape heading into next year, then there may be some in these late primary states who call for the presidential primary and primaries for state and local offices to be held together as a cost-saving measure. "We're already talking about moving the other primaries, why not discuss the presidential one too?" But I just don't see that happening.

Let's look at that list of September primary states, but this time with their 2008 presidential primary dates and I'll show you why:

Delaware (2/5)
Hawaii (2/19)
Maryland (2/12)
Massachusetts (2/5)
Minnesota (2/5 - caucus)
New Hampshire (1/8)
New York (2/5)
Rhode Island (3/4)
Vermont (3/4)
Wisconsin (2/19)

With the exception of maybe Rhode Island and Vermont, I just don't see any motivation for those states to move their presidential primaries back to June. Rhode Island couldn't make February 5 work prior to 2008 and used to have a late presidential primary (prior to 1984) and Vermont held beauty contests and caucuses until 1992. Those two may be motivated to move, but few others are going to give up their early status unless forced to do so. And if both parties institute a "nothing before March except Iowa and New Hampshire (and maybe Nevada and South Carolina)" policy ahead of 2012, some of these states may be forced to reconsider their positions in the presidential primary calendar. But with decisions on the rules for 2012 coming after the point at which a state legislative decision to come into compliance with this bill (should it become law), I just don't see it happening.

As always, though, it will be fun to track.

*Well, that isn't entirely true. That's the way it reads in the Times article, though. The truth of the matter is that New York's September 14, 2010 primary election is outside that 45 day barrier in the provision. However, the issue isn't necessarily the timing as much as it is holding the primary so that the general election ballots can be printed and mailed off to those in the Armed Services prior to the 45 day barrier. The New York primary is seven weeks before the November 2 election and four days likely wouldn't be enough time to get those tasks done.

Hat tip to Matt at DemConWatch for the link to the New York Times piece.


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