Showing posts with label primary bills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label primary bills. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Idaho Presidential Primary Inching Toward Move to May

Time is winding down in the 2023 Idaho legislative session, and it looks like all the pieces may come together for the presidential primary to move back to May, where it stood for much of the history of the post-reform era. 

The filing of a trailing bill last week to amend H 138 cleared the way for the original bill, intended to eliminate the stand-alone March presidential primary and merge it with the primaries for other offices in May, to move forward in the Senate. On Tuesday, March 21, H 138 came off of the purgatory 14th order calendar and was read again on the Senate floor for a second time. A third and final reading is all that stands in the way of Senate passage.

And S 1186, the amending bill to add the necessary legal infrastructure to the actually place the presidential line on the May primary ballot, cleared the Senate State Affairs Committee with a Do Pass recommendation and no dissenting votes. Both bills -- the entire package of which would end the separate March presidential primary and add it to the May general primary in Idaho -- are now ready to be considered on the floor of Idaho Senate. 

Together, the package would save the state an estimated $2.7 million (from the eliminated extra primary), but the measures would also need to pass both the state Senate and head back (in the case of H 138) to the House in this likely final week of the regular legislative session. Idaho would be just the second state to change primary dates in 2023 and the first to move to a later date on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. Louisiana shifted back a few weeks for 2024 during the 2021 session.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Ohio Bill to Move Presidential Primary to May Has Second Committee Hearing

The Ohio legislation to shift the presidential primary in the Buckeye state from March to May had a second hearing before the House Government Oversight Committee on Tuesday, March 21. 

The hearing was short and sweet. Testimony on just three bills was heard and the panel made quick work of them. That included HB 21, the bill introduced by Rep. Daniel Troy (D-23rd, Willowick) to make May the uniform primary position in Ohio regardless of election year. Troy spoke on the measure in late February, but this time, it was Gail E. Garbrandt of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials who gave testimony on behalf  her bipartisan group in support of the legislation. 

Garbrandt echoed many of the points Troy made in the February hearing, espousing the virtues of "election processes and procedures [that] are uniform, consistent, and easily understandable for our voters." But she also made the case about further reducing the burdens on taxpayers and election administrators. The March primary increases costs because the filing deadline falls during the holiday season at the end of the preceding year when overtime pay is often required in order for election officials to meet state-mandated deadlines. 

The committee once again failed to pose any questions to the lone witness, and it remains unclear whether the case has been successfully made to the committee for moving the primary in presidential years. That silence could mean a lot of things. However, it is worth acknowledging the fact that Ohio has managed to pull off primary elections every March since 1996. Proponents of the change push back on the idea of Ohio being a big draw in any of those seven cycles. And while that may be the case, it is also true that seven cycles have created a measure of consistency in the Ohio election calendar that bill supporters would interrupt in order to establish a "uniform, consistent and easily understandable" primary permanently scheduled for May in all years. That may or may not be convincing to the members of Government Oversight.

Connecticut Parties Behind Effort to Move Presidential Primary

The Connecticut Joint Committee on Governmental Administration and Elections convened on Monday, March 20 to conduct initial public hearings for a number of bills, HB 6908 among them. That legislation would shift up the date of the presidential primary in the Nutmeg state to the first Tuesday in April starting in the 2024. 

No votes were taken on the measure, but the testimony given offered insight into the motivation behind the bill. Testifying together, the chairs of the two major state parties supported the move and indicated that it was the potential for greater influence in the presidential nomination process that prompted them to cooperatively help craft the legislation. Nancy DiNardo, the Connecticut Democratic Party chair noted that the change would give the state a "stronger voice in choosing a presidential candidate" and was furthermore "proud to say this legislation is bipartisan."

Connecticut Republican Party Chair Benjamin Proto said that an earlier primary would give Connecticut "more influence within the presidential nominating system as well as to provide voters more engagement within their party and with candidates."

Nowhere in either the oral or written testimony did either mention the current primary date's conflict with Passover in 2024. Instead, the parties were motivated by potential influence rather than that conflict in moving the primary. However, the move would shift the Connecticut presidential primary out of a conflict with the tail end of Passover.

None of this is groundbreaking news. State legislators consider presidential primary bills every year (but particularly in the year before a presidential election) to move contests around. And frequently among the top stated reasons for the legislation being introduced is the quest for more influence in and resources from the presidential nomination process. Often it is a fool's errand because the states that draw that kind of influence are the (protected) earliest states and the next wave is a cluster of contests within which states -- especially smaller ones like Connecticut -- often get lost. 

However, what was noteworthy about the testimony of DiNardo specifically was that she noted that shifting the Connecticut presidential primary to early April would align the election with the primary in New York. Now, either that was a mistake or there have been conversations among Democratic state parties about coordinating a landing spot for the two neighboring states' primaries. There are efforts to move the New York primary. However, none of them target an early April date. Plus, the standard operating procedure in New York for setting the primary date is for that work to be done in the late spring (in the year before a presidential election) in consultation with the state parties in the Empire state. 

Nonetheless, this potential cooperation makes sense. But for Covid, the Connecticut and New York primaries would have coincided in two of the last three cycles. And that sort of subregional cluster of contests would potentially be a bigger draw to candidates than if either state were to go it alone. On the Republican side, an early April position would also allow both Connecticut and New York Republicans to retain their current variations of the winner-take-most rules

Of course, both efforts have to make it through the legislative process first. And the Connecticut push has only just begun. In New York, they are not even that far along. 



Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Connecticut Bill Introduced to Move Presidential Primary

A committee bill would move the Connecticut presidential primary up a few weeks on the 2024 calendar. 


Saturday, March 11, 2023

Indications Rhode Island Will Re-explore Presidential Primary Date

The Providence Journal reports that Rhode Island, too, may shift the date on which the Ocean state's presidential primary falls in 2024 because of a conflict with the Passover holiday.
Rep. Rebecca Kislak, D-Providence, has quietly raised the issue behind the scenes with the secretary of state's office and Democratic Party Leadership. She said Thursday she is "confident that over the next days or weeks" she will be able to introduce legislation to move the date.  
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"We are exploring the possibility of moving the primary," echoed state Rep. Joseph McNamara, the state Democratic chairman. House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi said Kislak had briefed him on the problem, and he was open to a legislative fix. 

Secretary of State Gregg Amore also told The Journal: "Yes. It needs legislative action."
Legislators in Maryland are already moving legislation to push the primary in the Old Line state back into May, and in a change prompted not by the Passover conflict, two bills in Pennsylvania (also in conflict with Passover) would shift the primary in the Keystone state up to mid-March. If all of those changes occur, that would leave Delaware alone on the fourth Tuesday in April in 2024, the lone remnant of a subregional mid-Atlantic/northeastern primary that has existed in one form or another since the 2012 cycle

Connecticut has also been a part of that group but because there are five Tuesdays in April in 2024, the differing language of the laws in these states matters. The states with primaries conflicting with Passover specify the fourth Tuesday in April whereas the Connecticut law sets the date of the presidential primary in the Nutmeg state for the last Tuesday of April, the 30th in 2024. That difference has not mattered until now.

In a mark of just how quiet things have been on the calendar front in 2023 (relative to previous cycles), it may be that the Passover conflict could be the impetus for most of the calendar changes in the 2024 cycle. 

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Hawaii Senate Passes Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill

The Hawaii Senate on Tuesday, March 7 passed legislation creating a presidential primary in the Aloha state and scheduling the stand-alone election for Super Tuesday.






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See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

May Presidential Primary Bill Continues Its Quick Pass Through Idaho Legislature, but...

The Idaho legislation to consolidate the stand-alone March presidential primary with the primary elections for other offices in May emerged late last week from the Senate State Affairs Committee with a Do Pass recommendation. 

With just two dissenting votes, the panel passed off H 138 to the full state Senate for consideration on the floor. But that move followed quick passage through the state House and a committee hearing on the upper chamber side that heard far more testimony against the move to consolidate the presidential primary with later contests. And both the trade-offs involved in the discussion and the battle lines drawn offer an interesting mix of factors in a state long under unified Republican control.

Part of the equation is a classic tale in the journey that some bills take to move a presidential nominating contest around on the primary calendar. Bill sponsors (and Secretary of State Phil McGrane) in this case have touted the savings that eliminating the separate presidential primary will have once merged with the primaries for state and local office in late May. Indeed, the move would strike an estimated $2.7 million from the state budget. No one providing testimony offered much to counter that reality. 

Instead, the resistance came from the Idaho state Republican Party and to the supposed infringement on its right to free association under the first amendment. To boil the session down to its essence, it was a struggle between a state party's right to determine when to hold a nominating contest and the state's obligation to foot the bill for such an election. 

That happens across the country from time to time. But what is unique here is that this is a Republican-on-Republican dispute. A majority of Republican legislators are driving a change to a process that the state Republican Party opposes. The latter wants an earlier presidential primary that does not fall after the nomination has already been decided. That is the typical draw for the frontloading of presidential primaries and caucuses. 

But interestingly, Idaho is stuck in this weird vicious cycle where the lessons of the past are forgotten and bound to be re-learned on some level. To garner attention in the presidential nomination process, the state Republican Party abandoned the May primary in 2011 in favor of earlier (Super Tuesday) caucuses. That pushed the state government -- again, under Republican control -- to eliminate the presidential primary line from the May primary ballot altogether. And those moves had implications. First, the earlier caucuses actually brought 2012 Republican candidates into the Gem state to campaign. But the caucus process also proved arduous for the state party. Financing it was one thing, but finding the requisite manpower to pull it off was another. Often, there is no substitute for a state-run process, even if that means a later date. 

But it did not end up meaning a later date. In fact, ahead of the 2016 cycle, Idaho legislators revisited the idea of a presidential primary. And the legislature opted to set aside funds for a separate, earlier election a week after Super Tuesday. That expenditure was offset by the prospect of bringing in candidates again and bringing in any financial windfall that brought for Idaho businesses in the process. Only, that windfall never came. 2016 Republicans focused on delegate-rich Michigan instead. And not only did those gains not come in 2016, but the Idaho presidential primary was even less of a draw to Democrats in 2020 on a date crowded with other, more delegate-rich contests. 

And that is why proponents of H 138 are talking up the cost savings and the potential gain in turnout in the May primary. The irony, of course, is that those turnout gains may never be realized. The state Republican Party may be forced to abandon the potentially later presidential primary to hold earlier caucuses once again. And that, in turn, may put legislators in 2027 right back where they were in 2015: considering an earlier presidential primary for the upcoming cycle. And so it continues in Idaho.


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A few other odds and ends from this hearing:
1. Former state senator and current Ada County Commission chair, Rod Beck noted in his testimony before the committee that the bill they are considering does not, in fact, do what proponents set out to do. It eliminates the separate presidential primary, but does not also build back the legal infrastructure that was in place before the presidential line was eliminated from the May primary ballot in 2012. This is something FHQ noted in the initial post on H 138. In other words, under the provisions of this bill, there will not be a presidential primary in March OR May. That is an additional nudge to the state party (or state parties) to move to caucuses for 2024.

2. As another in a long line of folks testifying on this bill noted, a late May primary also creates a logistical nightmare for the state party. The point was that a late May primary forces a caucus/convention process to select delegates into a very small window before a July national convention. That point was, perhaps, a bit exaggerated. After all, other states have begun the selection process before a late primary allocates slots to particular presidential candidates in the past. There would be ways to work around that in Idaho as well. However, that late May primary date would push Idaho much closer to the new 45 day buffer the RNC has put in place for 2024. States have to have completed their delegate allocation and selection processes before the end of May. So there is probably some wiggle room for Idaho under the scenario where the state conducts a late primary, but not a whole lot. 

3. Yet another person who offered testimony raised questions about the supposed impact a move to consolidate the primaries would have on turnout. Obviously, if the parties move to adopt a caucus procedure, then those effects will be minimal. But the point made was that Idaho has changed the process so often in the last decade plus that it is difficult to get a baseline to compare turnout to, a baseline that is not just some function of the quirks of any given presidential nomination cycle. 

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More on the committee hearing in the state Senate here and here.

Saturday, March 4, 2023

Kansas Bill Would Reestablish Presidential Primary in the Sunflower State

New legislation introduced this past week in Kansas would reestablish a presidential primary, schedule it for May and consolidate that election with the primaries for other offices.


Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Second Hawaii Committee Green Lights Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill

The lone remaining active bill to establish a presidential primary in Hawaii and schedule the election for Super Tuesday advanced from the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, March 1. 

An amended SB 1005 was quickly passed by the panel with no objections. The move now clears the way for the legislation to be considered by the full Senate.

With the House companion bill bottled up in committee, the Senate version becomes the only viable path to creating a stand-alone presidential primary for 2024 in the Aloha state, a state that has only ever known party-run delegate selection/allocation processes. 

Hawaii is the last state government under unified Democratic control with no state-run presidential primary.

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Maryland Legislative Leaders Signal Presidential Primary Change is Forthcoming

Last week, Baltimore leaders called for legislative action to resolve a conflict between the 2024 presidential primary in Maryland and the observance of Passover. This week, the leaders of the General Assembly in the Old Line state responded. 

In a joint statement House Speaker Adrienne Jones (D-10th, Baltimore) and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-46th, Baltimore City) said:
"As State leaders and as legislators, we have been intentional in our effort to pass election laws and create policies that remove barriers to voting. A primary election date that unintentionally coincides with the Passover holiday would prevent thousands of Marylanders from engaging in their fundamental right to vote. We will work with the State Board of Elections and local election officials to find a more appropriate date."
Maryland danced around spring holidays in 2016 as well, and may not be the only state with a primary at the end of April that explores a change for 2024.


Saturday, February 25, 2023

Hawaii Super Tuesday Primary Bill Stymied in House Committee

The Hawaii state House version of legislation to create a presidential primary and schedule it for Super Tuesday met a roadblock in the Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee (JHA) on Friday, February 24. 

Testimony was taken in a hearing on HB 1485, and unlike the committee discussion on the Senate companion, the House bill revealed an internal squabble among the Hawaii Democratic Party over the potential change. While the state party supports the transition from a party-run process to a state-run primary -- both the state party chair and national committeeman spoke in favor of the move in the hearing -- the Stonewall Caucus within the party objected. At issue was not the party-run to state-run change, but rather, the possible shift from a closed caucus or party-run primary process to the open primary called for in the Hawaii constitution. That constitutional provision conflicts with a stated preference for a closed process in the Hawaii Democratic Party constitution. 

But that intra-party disagreement was not what derailed HB 1485 in committee. After all, all Hawaii officials are nominated in the very same open primaries. No, instead it was a technical issue that will bottle the legislation up in committee on the House side and likely kill it. 

On the recommendation of committee chair, Rep. David Tarnas (D-8th, Hawi), JHA deferred the measure because it missed a just-passed deadline for bills to have been moved out of their initial committees. HB 1485 came to the panel with no stated appropriation, but the Hawaii Office of Elections estimated the cost to the state at $2.7 million, something that would cause it to be re-referred to the Finance Committee. That need for a secondary committee referral triggered the lateral deadline.

However, HB 1485 being blocked does not kill the effort to create a presidential primary election in Hawaii this session. It just kills the House version. The Senate companion legislation, the amended SB 1005, made it through its first committee ahead of the deadline and will move to Ways and Means where the price tag of the proposed stand-alone primary will be debated. It is that bill -- the Senate companion -- that will now become the vehicle for the Super Tuesday presidential primary effort. 

No hearing has been scheduled for SB 1005 in Senate Ways and Means as of now.