Nevada Republicans Set Caucuses for February 23

GOP presidential caucus date is Feb. 23.

— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) August 29, 2015

The Nevada Republican Party has been targeting this date for much of the year, but in a Saturday, August 29 meeting, the party formalized the date of its 2016 caucuses (and other rules).

The Tuesday, February 23 date will fall just three days after the Saturday, February 20 Republican primary in South Carolina as well as the Democratic caucuses in Nevada.

NOTE: The party also voted to retain its proportional delegate allocation rules. FHQ will dig into and discuss those separately.

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Tip of the cap to Jon Ralston for sharing this information with FHQ.

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Never a Dull Moment in Nevada

FHQ is going to flag this typically great story from Jon Ralston on the not-so behind the scenes maneuvering ahead of leadership elections at the county level within the Nevada Republican Party. It is a nice extension to the story of the recently failed attempt in the Silver state to switch from a caucus/convention system to a primary.

Then as now, it is a story of 2016 possibilities with 2020 implications. Which is to say, this is a political battle with both short and long term incentives for state and national interests. There in the desert, Nevada has an early spot on the presidential primary calendar, but is also a battleground state in the fall. All that creates a matrix of cross-cutting incentives.

And throw in the candidates too.

In this one case, all of those interests are pulling in different directions (or parts of them are anyway). Consider that the Rand Paul campaign and those aligned with it in Nevada are attempting to advantage the Kentucky senator in the Silver state caucuses in 2016. This is not a mystery. It is inside baseball, but it is not really happening behind the scenes. And lest FHQ be accused of pointing fingers at the Paul campaign, note that this is not the first instance in political history in which self interest has played a role. It isn't even the first example in presidential nomination politics, believe it or not. The post-reform era began after all with the recommendations of the McGovern-Fraser Commission. The first nominee on the Democratic side after those reforms were instituted for the 1972 cycle was George McGovern; the same McGovern from the aforementioned commission. The Paul campaign is not doing anything that other candidates would not do.

However, they are doing it in Nevada. And the last thing that Nevada needs -- if it wants to protect that early calendar position in the future -- is more uncertainty, more chaos or more dissension in the Nevada Republican delegation. Think about this for a moment. The national parties are either indifferent to or like having Iowa and New Hampshire first because after having occupied the first two spots on the primary calendar for nearly half a century, the national parties know what they have in those states more or less.

They have a reasonable idea about how Iowa and New Hampshire will affect the process. That isn't the case in Nevada. Well, actually it is, but for all the wrong reasons. The only certainty in the Nevada (Republican) caucuses is uncertainty. After two cycles in the spotlight of the early calendar, Nevada is batting 1.000 in creating headaches for the Republican National Committee. And since the RNC-backed effort to switch to a presidential primary in the Silver state fell through and the Paul campaign is already working to help Paul out in the state, that intra-party rift and those headaches may return for round three in 2016. Again, if the only certainty is a headache, then it makes it likely that the headache symptoms will be dealt with in the future.

Of course, Democrats nationally and in Nevada do not mind seeing any of this. But it may only be Nevada Democrats that end up paying a price. One factor that bolsters the protected statuses of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina is that political actors of either partisan stripe are of one mind when it comes to first in the nation/South privilege: Keep it at all costs (even if it means agreeing with the other party). Nevada Democrats should enjoy the ride now. By maintaining the caucuses for 2016, it makes it less likely Nevada will be continue to be first in the West in 2020. Another flawed Republican caucus there makes it much more likely that the RNC dumps the Silver state. Not having an early Nevada Republican caucus undercuts Nevada Democrats' case for keeping theirs (not completely, mind you, but it would make Nevada unique among the carve-out states). The national parties want certainty and if Republicans tap another western states, national Democrats will want to cede any potential organizational advantage in that state.

It is all about certainty and the Nevada experiment has provided all the wrong kind.

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Are Early States Losing Clout?

The usually sensible and always thorough Steve Peoples with the Associated Press missed the mark, FHQ thinks, in his weekend dispatch from New Hampshire.

The premise: Early states may be losing clout in the 2016 Republican presidential nomination process because of the rise of super PACs (and their money) and changes to the Republican calendar/rules.

I don't know that FHQ can quite accept that. I can see the point. It makes sense, but I don't know that it is true. But the social scientist in me has a problem with the basic premise. The social scientist in me sees a research question and understandably asks for what data there is. What can we observe?

First the premise. The whole argument here is that 2016 will feature a compressed calendar (with a lot of primaries and caucuses in March) and a new avenue through which campaigns and their allies can receive and spend money that was not fully available four years ago at this time (super PACs). That apparently equals candidates, their campaigns and their allies looking beyond the very earliest states to spend their time and money.

Maybe.

But if we're talking about an influx of new resources through new channels, it seems that we would also be talking about a bigger pie. Does a bigger pie -- a larger pot of resources -- mean that Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are losing something, clout or otherwise?¹ It could also mean that other states are gaining something due to the new conditions in the 2016 cycle. If we're talking about an increase in the pot relative to 2012, then it is not really the same zero-sum game anymore. Just because March contest states are gaining doesn't mean that the carve-out states are losing. The two are not mutually exclusive in a changed environment.

Yet, I get it. A lot of Peoples' story is futurecasting. It is speculating on what will or may happen in 2016. But that is not a testable premise really. Sure, we can guess. We can speculate. But if we look at candidate behavior now or what they have been up to since January 1 through now, it still looks an awful lot like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina followed by everyone else when we look at candidate visits. The carve-outs lead the pack among the prospective (or announced) Republicans. Behind them are the other typical haunts for Republican presidential candidates: California, Texas, Florida, New York and Washington, DC. No, not all of those are red states or early states, but they are all stops that frequently pop up on the itinerary of anyone on the fundraising circuit.

One more thing and I'll let this one rest. It should not come as a surprise that campaign aides and veteran political operatives are cautioning us of the impending chaotic slugfest to come in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. Those are precisely the folks who stand to gain the most from the race stretching out well into March if not beyond. And even if that does not happen, they can at least bide their time nurturing the illusion that this will go on and on and on...

As FHQ mentioned late in the 2012 Republican race, these things are over sooner rather than later. There is a point when even individuals who can afford to keep a candidate afloat decide that the effort is futile, that pouring more money into a cause that cannot win but might breed more chaos heading into a national convention is just not worth it.

Will we hit that point during or after Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina? I don't know. But I do know that, despite how things look now, those contests will winnow the field of Republicans vying for the party's presidential nomination. That's what the carve-outs are: winnowing contests. They will still be that in 2016 when all this talk of lost clout will be just that.

Talk.

[NOTE: Peoples' story also mentions that June 3 is the last date on which primaries and caucuses can be held in the Republican presidential nomination process. I don't know the origin of that information, but the RNC rules -- Rule 16(c)(1) -- specify that that cutoff is the second Saturday in June. That would be Saturday, June 11, 2016.]

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¹ Poor Nevada is just a redheaded stepchild in all of this from the looks of it. There are, I guess, consequences on the Republican side for reluctantly adding the Silver state caucuses (because the DNC already had), and then the state Republican Party having issues in their first two attempts at caucuses in the spotlight in 2008 and 2012.

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Vermont Tries a Different Tack in Challenging New Hampshire's First in the Nation Status

With legislation to move the Vermont presidential primary up to coincide with the New Hampshire primary stuck in neutral, a couple of Democratic legislators in the Green Mountain state are taking an alternate approach. Last week, Rep. David Deen (D-136th, Putney) and Rep. Michael Mrowicki (D-138th, Putney) introduced Joint (House) Resolution 11. The measure is a scaled back version of the previously filed bills in the state House and Senate. Instead of giving the power to set the date of the primary to the Vermont secretary of state, the proposed resolution would request that the office of the secretary of state study the feasibility of shifting into an earlier New Hampshire-aligned presidential primary election.

If the resolution is passed, the secretary of state's office would, again, be requested to complete the study before December 15, 2015. If the study takes that long -- completion in mid-December -- that would give the state a very small window in which to prepare for an earlier than usual primary for the 2016 cycle. And that depends on the Secretary of State Jim Condos actually going along with the plan. He was skeptical of the move to encroach on New Hampshire's first in the nation turf after the state Senate bill became public and said as much in the original committee hearing for the bill back in February.

The resolution/study route is not a unique one when it comes to presidential primary positioning. Indiana attempted to do something similar with its later (May) primary during its 2009 legislative session.

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Democrats Pushing Challenge to New Hampshire Primary in Vermont House

Identical legislation to the Vermont state Senate bill proposing to schedule the presidential primary in the Green Mountain state for the same date as the New Hampshire primary has now been introduced in the Vermont state House.

Like S76, the House version -- H 239 -- calls for the Vermont secretary of state to schedule the presidential primary for the same date as the first in the nation presidential primary in New Hampshire. What is different on the House side is who filed the legislation. Instead of being pushed by a Progressive Party legislator (a party loosely aligned with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)), the House bill was introduced and co-sponsored by four majority party Democrats. Neither the bill's sponsor Rep. Sam Young (D-121st, Orleans-Caledonia), nor the three co-sponsors (Rep. Jim Condon (D-69th, Chittenden), Jim Masland (D-82nd, Windsor-Orange) and George W. Till (D-143rd, Chittenden)) are among the Democratic leadership in the House, but all four sit on the House Ways and Means Committee. That means there is no one sponsor to directly shepherd the bill through the Government Operations Committee (to which it has been referred). However, since the House Ways and Means Committee primarily deals with revenue coming into the state, it would seem clear that the rationale behind the bill is much the same as that espoused by the Senate version's author: to provide the state with an economic shot in the arm.

Regardless of who is promoting the bill, challenging New Hampshire's status, as FHQ has pointed out, is easier said than done. All that has changed is that there is a second version attempting to pull this off.

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If Primary Season Began Today: A Note on the 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar

There is a method to how FHQ assembles its 2016 presidential primary calendar that bears repeating now that the process is getting into the thick of primary/caucuses movement (or at least to the point in the cycle when most of said movement is typically witnessed). That method boils down to a simple question:

If primary season began today, where would the various primaries and caucuses fall on the calendar? 

To answer that, let's first think about another couple of related (if not redundant) questions. What do we know? What information do we have? FHQ answers these questions first before it sets a preliminary calendar. And what we know at this point is what state laws or state party bylaws tell us. In the vast majority of primary states, state law clearly lays out a date on which a presidential primary election is to be conducted (using state funds). The exceptions are the carve-out primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina along with a handful of other states that have options layered into state law that provide (or were created to provide some scheduling flexibility).¹

Caucuses are slightly different. State parties set the dates of the caucuses/convention process and often that is not something that is codified in the state party bylaws. In fact, those states where a date is codified well in advance of a presidential election year are the exceptions. Hawaii Republicans, for instance, set a date in their party bylaws. Colorado and Minnesota have caucus processes that are guided by state law insofar as the dates are concerned.

Currently on FHQ's calendar, there are 35 states with known primary dates. But that is not the extent of our knowledge on the matter. We also know that...

• Colorado parties have a choice between the first Tuesday in February and the first Tuesday in March for their precinct caucuses.
• Minnesota parties have to agree on a date for Democratic and Republican precinct caucuses in 2016 by the end of February 2015. If they cannot come to an agreement, the caucuses will be conducted on the first Tuesday in February. 
• The carve-out states are protected by the national party delegate selection rules. The DNC has set specific dates for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, but the RNC lets the process play out between those four states (and others). The RNC, however, does protect the carve-outs. And in 2016 that protection is more robust. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina have a month before the next earliest contest in which to schedule their primaries or caucuses. If New York law is not changed, then the carve-out states would have a window of a month before February 2 -- when the New York primary is scheduled -- to set the dates of their contests. The other part of that protection is that the national parties have more severe penalties they can use in 2016. The DNC gives its Rules and Bylaws Committee the power to increase the baseline 50% delegate penalty and the RNC rules would strip rogue states of all but 9 or 12 delegates depending on the delegation size. 
• New Hampshire will want to be before every state but Iowa.
• Iowa will want to be first.
• South Carolina will want to be ahead of all southern states by at least a week (more likely ten days if the parties in the Palmetto state stick with Saturday primaries).
• North Carolina is a problem right now. The primary in the Tarheel state is tethered to South Carolina's. The state law passed in 2013 calls for the North Carolina primary to be the Tuesday after the South Carolina primary (if the South Carolina primary is before March 15. It will be.).  If South Carolina plans to keep a Saturday primary, the Tuesday after that -- and thus when the North Carolina primary would be scheduled -- would violate that seven day buffer the South Carolina parties like (but is not called for in law). 
• New York moved for 2012 from February to April, but came to February back when the law expired at the end of 2012. 
• Michigan has signaled that it will move out of the end of February.

FHQ also assumes that Colorado, Minnesota and Utah -- states with options -- will choose the later and rules-compliant dates available to them and that New York will repeat its move back to a later date in 2016.

What that means is that the states that are on the calendar from March-June have contests scheduled for 2016. The dates are set in stone unless they are changed. That is why the currently convening state legislatures are important to the calendar formation process.

But...

[...and this is a significantly big BUT...]

The carve-out states plus North Carolina currently have no specified dates. Given what we know from above, though, we can make educated guesses about where they would end up on the calendar. The first domino to fall would either be South Carolina or Nevada. South Carolina would be more problematic because of how the North Carolina primary is anchored to its primary. South Carolina would not, for instance, opt for a Saturday, February 27 primary and allow a North Carolina (and other southern states already schedule there) to hold contest just three days later on March 1. South Carolina would at the very least draw North Carolina into the penalized portion of the calendar (i.e.: February), so that the potential penalty would pressure the North Carolina state government into making a change to the law (or barring that, force the state parties to conduct caucuses to avoid penalty).

FHQ has South Carolina on Saturday, February 13, but that could just as easily be a week later on February 20. [We have made the editorial decision to hold off on such a move until after Michigan moves its primary. ...if Michigan moves its primary.]

There will be some interesting cross-party jockeying between South Carolina and Nevada as well. The DNC rules put Nevada first among the two (third overall on the calendar), but South Carolina Republicans have, by custom, gone in that third position on the Republican calendar. The point is that South Carolina and Nevada represent four contests, not two. That's four contests -- different potential dates for each party in both states -- that have to get squeezed into that month-wide window the RNC rules provide.

FHQ currently places a unified Nevada set of caucuses ahead of a unified set of South Carolina primaries (until more information is known later in 2015).

Iowa and New Hampshire will ideally (from their perspectives) settle on dates earlier than the others once the dust has settled on all of the above.

Right now that means, speculatively...
Monday, January 18: Iowa
Tuesday, January 26: New Hampshire
Saturday, February 6: Nevada
Saturday, February 13: South Carolina
Tuesday, February 16: North Carolina

All of that is speculative. Repeat: SPECULATIVE. Given what we know, though, that is a reasonable guess about where those contests would end up.

...today. That's the huge caveat.

Much will change between now and when Iowa and New Hampshire settle on dates for 2016 later this fall. As information changes, so will the calendar.

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¹ And even then, New Hampshire is a state that has options. State law calls for a March primary or allows the secretary of state the discretion to set the date if the presidential primary in the state is not the first primary on the calendar. South Carolina state law only guides the funding of the presidential primary in the Palmetto state. The state parties select the date or dates on which the primaries will be held.


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Under Fire Again, Will Iowa Caucuses Remain First?

That's the question that Scott Conroy poses and explores in a deep dive over at Real Clear Politics:

The main criticisms of the caucuses have remained essentially the same over the last 37 years: the process is undemocratic (the majority of voters do not participate in it); it is inequitable for otherwise strong candidates who do not benefit from the parochial advantages inherent in Iowa’s electorate; and the rules and procedures surrounding the contest are arcane to just about anyone who’s not directly involved in the cottage industry that springs up every four years in a state where a would-be commander in chief who draws 20 people to the local Pizza Ranch is deemed to have staged a successful event. 

 ...

With a contested presidential campaign cycle looming for both parties in 2016, the preeminence of Iowa is facing a series of new challenges, however -- particularly on the Republican side. 

And while there may well be changes to some aspects of the process this time around, the caucuses appear all but certain to again kick off a presidential campaign..."

This is a fantastic read, but backloads the best reason for why Iowa will retain its first in the nation status in 2016: the national party delegate selection rules. It really is that simple.

Collectively, the rules now further entrench Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- the carve-out states -- at the beginning of the queue. Mind you, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has yet to take up the issue of the rules that will govern the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination process. However, the fact that the RBC did not commission a group -- as it usually does every four years -- to reexamine prior rules and recommend changes is telling. In other words, don't expect much of a change from the 2012 Democratic delegate selection rules. There may be some alterations, but those changes will not include any significant tweaking to rules that specifically define earlier positions for the four aforementioned states.¹ The buffer each is given between its contest and the point at which the window opens for other non-exempt state contests (first Tuesday in March, presumably) may change, then, but little else.

Conroy mentions the changes to the Republican rules for 2016, but seemingly overstates the extent to which future changes between now and next summer may affect Iowa (or the other three carve-out states) in the next round of presidential nominations. As of now, the four carve-out states under the new RNC rules have a window of time a full month ahead of the next earliest delegate selection event to schedule their nominating contests. Since Missouri failed to move its presidential primary to a later date during the recently adjourned 2013 state legislative session, the Show Me state's February 2, 2016 primary is the next earliest contest. That gives the carve-out states -- including Iowa -- even more scheduling power than the 2012 rules. The previous iteration carved out February for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina without accounting for the potential for non-carve-out states to push into that window of time.

Now, Conroy does bring up the new binding mechanism that will now affect all states with no further loopholes for caucuses (like Iowa has exploited during the last two cycles) and the possibility of additional rules changes before the rules have to be finalized in the summer of 2014.² That is an important point. The binding rule will add a new layer to the Iowa process, but even if Hawkeye state Republicans do not comply, the RNC has provided itself with some cover at the convention with the new Rule 16.A.1 to record delegate votes in a way that reflects the results at the statewide level (in Iowa's case, the precinct caucuses).

As for future changes, well, removing Iowa or any of the other carve-outs from their respective perches will be very difficult task. Look no further than the deliberations over the rules at the RNC spring meeting in April. Any change has to pass with a 50% vote in the Rules Committee and 75% vote among the full RNC membership to be instituted. That is a high bar. And when there is no near consensus behind an idea like stripping the carve-out states of their positions, it becomes even higher. Yes, the Growth and Opportunity Project report seemingly threatened caucuses, but that is something much easier recommended than actually placed in the rules and implemented.

That would very likely take some help (Read: similar action) from the DNC to work. And while the discussion around the 2012 Democratic delegate selection rules did include a round where some best practices for caucuses were discussed, requiring primaries as a means of allocating delegates was never discussed.

The current and future 2016 rules will very (VERY) likely continue to protect Iowa and the other three carve-out states, and that is why they aren't going anywhere.

...regardless of (the shrinking likelihood) of a threat from a rogue state(s). The other stuff is just fodder.

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¹ Here's is that specific passage from Rule 11.A:

Provided, however, that the Iowa precinct caucuses may be held no earlier than 29 days before the first Tuesday in March; that the New Hampshire primary may be held no earlier than 21 days before the first Tuesday in March; that the Nevada first-tier caucuses may be held no earlier than 17 days before the first Tuesday in March; and that the South Carolina primary may be held no earlier than 7 days before the first Tuesday in March.

² Of course, it should be noted that the RNC did not newly codify that new binding rule at its spring meeting in Los Angeles. The RNC reaffirmed that rule then. It was originally passed at the national convention in Tampa. There was an amendment to change Rule 16.A.1, but it did not pass the Rules Committee.

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