Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill Introduced in Utah

With the 2019 Utah state legislative session in its waning days, legislation has been introduced to schedule the newly funded presidential primary in the Beehive state for Super Tuesday.

State Senator Curtis Bramble (R-16th, Utah/Wasatch) has filed SB 242. The bill would not only schedule the presidential primary funded during the 2017 session for the first Tuesday in March, but would make some other technical corrections to the presidential primary code that has remained as part of the Utah statutes.

Mainly, those corrections consist of a couple of matters with respect the timing of the presidential primary. First, it strikes the outdated language referring to the contest as the Western States Presidential Primary, an artifact from the early 2000s when the presidential primary was first created. But second and more importantly, the legislation also removes a clause -- "the the legislature makes the appropriation" -- that makes the the default funding mechanism conditional on the legislature. Of course, the legislature retains the ability to end those appropriations, but now it is a given rather than requiring the legislature to take the proactive step of adding the funding.

The legislative session ends on March 14, so this one will have to move quickly.



Related:
2/25/19: Legislation Would Push Reestablished Utah Presidential Primary to Super Tuesday

3/11/19 (a): Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill Unanimously Passes Senate Committee Stage in Utah

3/11/19 (b): Utah Senate Passes Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill


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Colorado Democrats Signal Super Tuesday Presidential Primary in Draft Delegate Selection Plan

The public release late last week of the Colorado Democratic Party draft delegate selection plan contained at least some indication that the newly reestablished presidential primary in the Centennial state will fall on Super Tuesday.

Indeed, that is the earliest date on which the Colorado governor in consultation with the secretary of state can set the date. But the pair have until September 1, 2019 under the new law to set the date for a Tuesday between the first and third Tuesdays of the March. That gives them a bit of discretion in choosing the most advantageous spot on the calendar for the Colorado primary. And that window is going to be jam-packed with contests. As of now, the first Tuesday in March -- Super Tuesday -- is the most delegate-rich date on the calendar, followed by the second Tuesday in March (if Washington finalizes a move to that date), and that is followed by the third most delegate-rich date on the third Tuesday in March.

That is the range in which Colorado can settle. And there are a number of different paths that can be taken. Again, the state Democratic Party and the secretary of state are assuming a March 3 date for the primary. That would not only be the earliest date allowed by the national parties for states other than the carve-out states to hold primaries and caucuses, but would be the earliest under Colorado law that the date could be set. But that is a date devoid of regional partners (unless one considers the behemoth contest further west in California). Utah, too, could end up on Super Tuesday. Other western partners -- Idaho and likely Washington -- would coincide with a Colorado primary a week later and neighbor Arizona has its primary on the third week in March.

Regardless, the governor and secretary of state have until September 1 to make that decision. All we have from Colorado Democrats and the secretary are assumptions -- signals -- that the primary in the Centennial state will fall on that date. However, the date remains an unknown and Colorado something of a wildcard on the 2020 presidential primary calendar.

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Funding for the Idaho Presidential Primary "Slipped Through the Cracks"

Just when it looked like both Idaho parties would use the presidential primary election in 2020...


...came this news from Betsy Z. Russell at the Idaho Press:

Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney forgot to budget for the 2020 presidential primary, creating an unpleasant $2 million surprise for legislative budget writers who set his office’s budget on Wednesday. 

The Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee had already set all but 4 percent of the state’s general fund budget for next year, working through it agency by agency over the past month, when Denney’s came up with a $2 million hole in it.

This is atypical. Usually if there is a funding issue with a presidential primary, it something that is initiated by the secretary of state or state legislature to save funds in a given state. Washington state, for example canceled its presidential primary during the 2012 cycle to cut back on expenditures and states like Alabama, California and New Jersey consolidated separate presidential primaries in the same cycle with the same intent.

But forgetting the appropriation entirely is a different matter. That is a new one to FHQ. But in Secretary Denney's defense, he is right that the appropriation for the 2016 primary was included in a parallel bill to the legislation to reestablish the presidential primary in the Gem state and not in the funding package. If one starts a new legislative year with the items in the appropriation package the session before, then something funded outside the main appropriations bill can potentially get lost in the shuffle.

Still...


What is at least somewhat noteworthy about all of this is that Idaho Democrats came to the conclusion last summer to utilize the primary in lieu of caucuses during the 2020 cycle and have already made plans -- via their draft delegate selection plan -- to do just that.

This will likely get worked out, but it is not a snafu that is all that common.

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Washington State House Passes March Presidential Primary Bill

In a roughly party-line vote, the Washington state House on Monday passed legislation to move the presidential primary in the Evergreen state from the fourth Tuesday in May to the second Tuesday in March.

SB 5273 passed the House by a 54-42 vote that saw just one Democrat from the chamber majority join House Republicans. This Democrats-for/Republicans-against pattern mirrored not only the vote at the committee stage in the House, but also the previous floor vote in Senate.

And the battle lines were the same. Republicans more sympathetic to Secretary of State Kim Wyman's (R) bill balked at the Democratic version throughout the legislative process for barring unaffiliated voters from participating in the primary and for making public which ballot voters choose. In fact, several Republican-sponsored amendments were raised on the House floor to reverse both changes to the primary law. One struck much of the language from the Senate-passed Democratic version of the bill and insert provisions from a Republican version left languishing in committee in both the state House and Senate. Two others were more narrow in scope, attempting to remove the data-gathering portion and allowing unaffiliated voters to participate through a separate mail ballot. A final Republican amendment took a different tack. It simply pushed the conflict items aside and addressed the primary date change alone.

None passed muster with a majority of the House, clearing the way for an up-or-down vote on the bill that came out of committee.

Since the version that passed the House is identical the Senate-passed version, the bill is done in the legislative branch and now heads off to Governor Jay Inslee (D) for his consideration.

And the governor may now have at least some interest in an earlier Washington primary (even if it follows Super Tuesday by a week).


Related:
Washington State Legislation Would Again Try to Move Presidential Primary to March

An Update on March Presidential Primary Bills in Washington: One Bill Through Committee

Washington Senate Passes Democratic March Presidential Primary Bill

Senate-Passed Washington Presidential Primary Bill Passes House Committee Stage on Party Line Vote

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New March Presidential Primary Bill Flies Through Arkansas Senate Committee

Rather than continue to amend his original bill, state Senator Trent Garner (R-27th, El Dorado) filed a new version of his legislation to shift up the date of the Arkansas presidential primary from May to the first Tuesday in March.

SB 445 was introduced on Tuesday, February 26 and the impetus behind the measure was to start with a clean slate and make some technical corrections to standardize the Arkansas election code. The new bill also moves the preferential primary from late May to the first Tuesday in March, but it makes the change permanent (something that was not the case in 2015 when the primary in the Natural state was similarly shifted but only temporarily). The legislation would permanently schedule the Arkansas consolidated primary for March in presidential election years and May in gubernatorial (midterm) years, while also allowing for school board elections to take place in either spot or during the November general election.

Garner in introducing the bill to the Senate State Agencies and Government Affairs Committee during a hearing on Thursday, February 28 made all the typical arguments for an earlier primary, focusing mainly on the potential attention the move to Super Tuesday would facilitate in the state and closed by saying that Governor Asa Hutchinson supported the shift. While there was some discussion among the committee members on the bill, most of it followed similar lines and was favorable. A representative for county clerks and elections administrators raised some red flags about the constant back and forth nature of the timing of Arkansas primaries in presidential years over time, but did not oppose the move.

After a brief hearing, the committee, on a voice vote with minimal dissent, signed off on the bill with a do pass recommendation. The measure now heads to the state Senate for consideration of the full chamber.


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Related:
2/6/19: Out of Arkansas, An Apparent Challenge to the New Hampshire Primary

2/11/19: Arkansas Lawmaker Signals a Scaling Back of Presidential Primary Legislation

2/16/19: Amendment to Arkansas Bill Eyes March for Presidential Primary Move

3/9/19: Arkansas Senate Makes Quick Work of March Presidential Primary Bill

3/13/19: Arkansas House Committee Advances March Presidential Primary Bill

3/19/19: On to the Governor: Super Tuesday Bill Passes Arkansas House

3/25/19: Arkansas Presidential Primary to Super Tuesday

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Puerto Rico Democrats Eye March Presidential Primary Shift

In a nice #InvisiblePrimary piece about the role Puerto Rico might play in the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination process, Marc Caputo had a line that could have been lost in the shuffle if one was not paying close attention:

Adding to Puerto Rico’s political value, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is backing a plan to move the 2020 primary from early June to one of the final two weekends in March.

That is the sort of action that usually grabs FHQ's attention. And rusty though my Spanish may be, there is no bill currently before the Puerto Rico Assembly that would shift the date of the presidential primary on the island. I have checked.

So FHQ reached out to Caputo to see if there was any more light he could shed on the matter. While there is no bill with any language to change the June primary date to March for Democrats in the territory, Caputo shared with FHQ that there is a bill that may be used as a vehicle for pushing that change. S 1026, a still-active bill introduced in June 2018 by Senator Miguel Romero Lugo (PR-District I, San Juan), currently calls for a renaming of the presidential primary act and the addition of a requirement for presidential candidates to release five years of tax returns to appear on the primary ballot. The tentative plan is to amend that bill and tack on the Democratic presidential primary date change.

The current statute treats the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries differently.¹ The Republican primary essentially defaults to the first Sunday in March while the Democratic primary follows three months later on the first Sunday in June. In some ways the set up is similar to the primary scheduling in South Carolina where the two parties' primaries are typically on separate days. But in the Palmetto state those two contests have tended to be only a week apart in years in which both parties have active nomination races.

Three months between contests in Puerto Rico is a bit different. But with this potential change -- if the bill above is amended -- the later Democratic primary would be nudged up the calendar into March, the same month as the Republican primary, albeit not on the same date. That would push another 51 pledged delegates into what is shaping up to the be the busiest month on the primary calendar.


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¹ The statute setting the date of the presidential primary in the Puerto Rico is as follows:

§ 1324. Primary date  

The presidential primary of the Republican Party will be held on the last Sunday of the month of February of the year in which the presidential elections in the United States are to be held, as long as it does not precede or coincide with the celebration of the presidential primary of the State of New Hampshire. If there is such a conflict, the presidential primary will be held on the first Sunday of March. The Democratic Party presidential primary will be held on the first Sunday of June, that same year. In case of opting for a political party affiliated by the alternative of Assembly arranged in sec. 1350 of this title, it will be celebrated on these dates.

[Emphasis is FHQ's]


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When and if the Puerto Rico bill in question is amended with a provision to change the date of the primary there, FHQ will add it to the 2020 presidential primary calendar.

Hat tip to @heyitsfoxyyyy for bringing the Caputo piece to FHQ's attention.


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Ohio Bill Would Move Buckeye State Presidential Primary to May

Legislation introduced this week would shift the presidential primary in Ohio from the second Tuesday after the first Monday in March to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in May.

There have been other bills floating around during the 2019 state legislative sessions across the country, but none of them have so far called for a later new date for the 2020 cycle. This Ohio bill -- HB 101 -- changes that.

But the reasoning behind the effort differs somewhat from the states-moving-back scenario FHQ described last fall and earlier in 2019. There, the focus was on what Republican-controlled legislatures might do with 2020 presidential primary scheduling during 2019:

Contrast that with the Republican-controlled state governments across the country. Their motivation is different. Protect the president? Then move back (and see the state party shift to a winner-take-all allocation method). Hurt the Democrats? Then move back and shift an important constituency concentrated in a particular region. Think about that SEC primary coalition from 2016. That could break up and push the votes of a valuable Democratic voting bloc -- African American -- to later in the calendar. That might affect some candidates more than others.

Typically partisan actors on the state level leave well enough alone if their party controls the presidency. The motivation is just different for parties occupying the White House.  And there has been more inaction than action in 2019 across the country in states whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans.

But this Ohio bill fits the pattern outlined above: a proposed backward shift and a Republican-dominated legislature.

Yet, there is a catch. This bill is not a Republican vehicle for broader calendar mischief. Instead, it is a Democratic-sponsored bill with an entirely different motivation; an administrative one. Ohio primaries are in May unless it is during a presidential election year. In presidential years, everything moves up to March. Rep. Jack Cera (D-96th, Bellaire) and his seven Democratic co-sponsors offered the bill because those March presidential primaries, according to Cera via BuzzFeed, "are an unfair burden on local elections administrators and candidates who have a narrower window to prepare for the next election."

Election administration is a common counter to any presidential primary maneuvering, and this case is no different. But it is a harder case to make in light of the fact that Ohio has had a March presidential primary since the 1996 cycle. Two fewer months of preparation for elections administrators and candidates is not nothing, but it is a practice that one could argue has become institutionalized in presidential years over the last two plus decades. This would be another matter entirely if the Ohio presidential primary was on a different date than the primaries for other offices. That would entail additional preparations and costs associated with one more election. But Ohio primaries are consolidated.

And 2020 is not a cycle like 2012 when, because of unresolved redistricting issues in the Buckeye state, the presidential primary was moved from March to May, then from May to March before it was moved from March to June and the back to March again (with May again at one time considered a potential landing spot). That was a burden to elections officials and candidates during 2011. Ohio having another March primary in 2020 does not meet the level of that sort of burden.

Reasoning aside, this bill may not be high on the agenda of Republicans in control of the levers of power in Ohio state government. And no matter what Ohio legislators opt to do, both the March date and the targeted May date have regional partners. Michigan is scheduled to have a primary on March 10 and Indiana will hold a May 5 primary.


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Ohio has a history with first Tuesday after the first Monday in May presidential primary dates. The state conducted primaries in that position in both 1984 and 1988.


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This Ohio bill will be added to the 2020 FHQ Presidential Primary Calendar.


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Related:
7/9/19: Ohio Republicans Chart Subtle Calendar Move to Preserve Winner-Take-All Allocation

7/18/19: Ohio Budget Bill with Presidential Primary Move Passes the Legislature


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Legislation Would Push Reestablished Utah Presidential Primary to Super Tuesday

Legislation is in the works in Utah to set the date of the newly (re)funded presidential primary in Utah for Super Tuesday 2020.

Senator Curtis Bramble (R-16th, Utah/Wasatch), the floor sponsor of the House legislation two years ago that appropriated money for a 2020 presidential primary, is back to complete the task that was in 2017 left for the 2019 legislature to consider: where on the calendar to schedule the event. While Bramble is seeking to align the newly constituted presidential primary with other delegate selection events in at least 10 states, UtahPolicy.com reports that elections officials in the Beehive state are advocating for a later March or even April date. There is more open space on the 2020 calendar in April and the primary would not conflict with the state legislative session.

Utah is no stranger to Super Tuesday. The state held a Friday-after-Super-Tuesday primary in 2000 alongside neighbors Colorado and Wyoming and moved the rest of the way up to Super Tuesday in 2004. The primary remained there as part of the de facto national primary that formed and took place on February 5, 2008. Technically that February date carried over to the 2012 cycle, but the legislature added an option to consolidate the presidential primary with the late June primary for other offices.

Both the February and June options are now included in the state's statute creating a Western States Presidential Primary, but are only in effect if the legislature appropriates money to conduct the election. And it should be noted that both dates are currently non-compliant with national party rules. The February date is too early (and would fall the day after the caucuses in Iowa in 2020) and the June date is too late. That along with the lack of state legislative appropriation for a primary factored into the decisions by the state parties in 2015 to abandon primaries in favor of caucuses for the 2016 cycle.

2020 will be different for Utah. The primary option was funded in 2017, but no date was set then. Bramble's forthcoming legislation will begin those deliberations. But a Super Tuesday date would align the Utah primary with potentially the newly reestablished Colorado primary.


A tip of the cap to Bryan Schott at UtahPolicy.com for sharing the news of Utah bill with FHQ.


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Related:
3/7/19: Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill Introduced in Utah

3/11/19 (a): Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill Unanimously Passes Senate Committee Stage in Utah

3/11/19 (b): Utah Senate Passes Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill


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Super Tuesday 2020 Adds Minnesota

It was confirmed Friday that Minnesota will conduct its newly reestablished presidential primary on March 3, 2020, Super Tuesday.

The confirmation comes just a week before a statutory deadline by which the two major parties were to have either jointly agreed to an alternative date or settled on the default first Tuesday in March position. The parties opted again for the latter, bringing Minnesota's primary in line with contests in at least nine other states.

Crowding in to that earliest date allowed by the national parties has implications as Minnesota Public Radio reported:

Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota DFL Party, said he’s not dwelling on whether Minnesota will get lost in the crowd. 

“It’s certainly a risk we take, maybe potentially getting overshadowed,” Martin said. “But it’s the only date that really works for us in terms of the schedule we need to be able to have our state convention in June and be able to do all the other business of the party.”

But Minnesota is no stranger to Super Tuesday. The caucuses in the state have been on Super Tuesday in every cycle since 1996 with just one exception.¹ And that has meant being aligned with the likes of California and New York among others in 2000 and those same two heavy hitters and nearly half the states in the country in 2008. On the one hand there is lost in the shuffle, but on the other for small to medium-sized states, is giving voters a choice (or that is often the refrain from date-setting decision-makers).

In the end, Minnesota winds up right where it was in 2016: on Super Tuesday. And while there was no movement of the date, there has been movement with respect to the mode of delegate allocation. The state has been one of several to make the leap from 2016 caucuses to 2020 primary.


Related: 
2/15/15: Minnesota Parties Jointly Agree on Compliant March 1 Caucuses

2/13/19: #InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Klobuchar, Minnesota and the Primary Calendar



The finalization of the Minnesota presidential primary date is reflected on the FHQ 2020 Presidential Primary Calendar.

Tip of the cap to Mike Taphorn for passing news of the confirmation on to FHQ.


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¹ In the transition from a window in which the national parties allowed February contests to one after 2008 when only March or later was within the rules, Minnesota in 2012 held February caucuses before Super Tuesday. But those caucuses were non-binding on the Republican side in a competitive contest and on the Democratic side where there was no challenge to President Obama, Minnesota Democrats got a waiver from the DNC to hold February contests but release the results in March.


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#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Is Bernie Sanders a Democrat Under the 2020 Democratic Rules?

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the movements during the day that was...

The answer is yes.

But since Sanders has now thrown his hat in the 2020 Democratic ring, since the rules have changed a bit since 2016, and since this keeps coming up on the areas of social media still relitigating the 2016 Democratic primary (and with greater frequency on Sander 2020, day one), FHQ will weigh in on the matter.

But FHQ will weigh in with the goal of ultimately posing another, perhaps, more important question.

However, before that, let's first lay out what both the 2020 Democratic Delegate Selection Rules (Rule 13.K.1) and the Call for the 2020 Democratic National Convention (Section VI) say about who the party views as an eligible candidate for its nomination.

Both offer discretion to the DNC chair to determine who is a "bona fide Democrat" and an overlapping definition of what that means. Basically, a Democrat in the eyes of the Democratic National Committee is someone "whose record of public service, accomplishment, public writings and/or public statements affirmatively demonstrates that the candidate is faithful to the interests, welfare, and success of the Democratic Party of the United States."

The Call also adds that a candidate must affirm in writing that they are a member of the Democratic Party (something that does not require registration with the party), will accept the party's nomination, and run and serve as a member of the party.

[The candidate affirmation form can be found in Appendix E of the Call.]

All of this is the same basic framework Sanders and the DNC agreed to during the 2016 cycle. But it has now been formally added to the nomination rules of the party. If Sanders qualified in 2016, then he will qualify for 2020.

One member of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee placed some emphasis on the timing of the affirmation; that it is to happen upon the public announcement of candidacy. That is a fair point, but it raises a different question: Have any of the announced candidates followed this newly codified protocol and signed the affirmation form?

The answer is no. Sanders may be under the spotlight, but he is not the only candidate who has to submit the form. And none have done so as of yet because the DNC has yet to distribute the forms to the various announced campaigns. That will happen at a meeting the DNC has set up for next week.

But the initial question should be put to rest. Sanders is a Democrat under the new rules.


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Elsewhere in the invisible primary...

1. #StaffPrimary: Sanders adds a campaign manager.

2. #MoneyPrimary: The Vermont senator also had a productive first 24 hours on the fundraising front.

3. #EndorsementPrimary: And although the fundraising was a bigger signal, Sanders was able to point to a handful of meaningful endorsements on day one. Patrick Leahy was among them. The senior Vermont senator brings Sanders Senate endorsement total to one, the same number he had in all of the 2016 cycle. [Note: Sanders already had the support of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).] While that continues the trend of primarily home state support for the announced candidates, it is not the show of force a candidate returning for round two might otherwise want in an attempt at unifying the party behind him.

4. Gov. Baker (R-MA) is not yet ready to line up behind Weld 2020.

5. Delaney keeps plugging away in Iowa, opening a field office in Waterloo.

6. Sure, Biden leads in a South Carolina poll (and one in New Hampshire too), but at what point do we stop saying either 1) this is a reflection of name recognition and/or 2) state polls are largely reflecting national polls at this point? Not yet.


Has FHQ missed something you feel should be included? Drop us a line or a comment and we'll make room for it.


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