Two Bills to Move Maryland Presidential Primary Back Introduced

There are now two bills that have been introduced in the Maryland Senate to shift the dates on which the Old Line state's primaries for state and local offices will be held. The express purpose of those bills is to move state and local primaries in midterm election years from the second Tuesday after the first Monday in September because it conflicts with the federal mandate in the MOVE act. That mandate requires at least a 45 day cushion between the primary election and the general election to allow for the printing of ballots and timely distribution of them to military and overseas voters. In addition, both bills also move the state's presidential primary from the second Tuesday in February in order to comply with national party rules regarding the timing of delegate selection events.

SB 501 was introduced on February 4 by Senator Roy Dyson (D-29, Calvert, Charles & St. Mary's Counties) and would move the presidential primary from February to the first Tuesday in March -- which would coincide with the plans in fellow Potomac Primary state Virginia. The midterm year primaries would be shifted from September up to the second Tuesday in July.

And just today (February 9) at the request of President of the Senate Thomas Miller (D-27, Calvert & Prince George's Counties), SB820 was introduced (cosponsored by the Majority Leader Robert Garagiola (D-15, Montgomery County) and Minority Leader Nancy Jacobs (R-34, Cecil & Harford Counties)). The bill would move the presidential primary to the first Tuesday in April and the midterm election year primaries for statewide and local offices to the last Tuesday in June. With a House companion (HB 671) on the way and the full bipartisan support of the Senate leadership, this bill would presumably have the better chance of winning passage and making to Governor O'Malley's desk. It also lends some credence to the presidential primary date discussed in the Washington Examiner's piece over the weekend about the potential breaking up of the Potomac Primary.

Still, that first Tuesday in April date is an interesting one. FHQ would speculate that there are a couple of possible reasons for that date. First, one could guess that Maryland legislators are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle for the second consecutive cycle by hoping that a supposed March 6 Super Tuesday proves inconclusive in wrapping up the Republican nomination race. That would leave the Maryland primary in that sparsely populated area of the calendar between early March and the Pennsylvania primary in late April. In the event that happened, Maryland -- along with Mississippi and Illinois -- could prove quite consequential to the Republican race. The other idea that crosses my mind is that this could also be an effort at another regional primary. There has been some chatter about officials in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia discussing the possibility. And the first Tuesday in April is a date that Pennsylvania has used in the past -- one of the two times the commonwealth moved its presidential primary. At this point, I'm more inclined to put stock in the first option rather than the second. But we'll see. None of those other states have made any moves at the state legislative level on this front as of yet.

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Bill to Move Florida Presidential Primary to March Filed in Florida Senate

DC Bill to Move Primaries to June

"New rules threaten region's 2012 primary clout"

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Bill to Move Florida Presidential Primary to March Filed in Florida Senate

Florida Senator Arthenia Joyner (D-Tampa) filed S 860 on February 8. The bill would shift the date on which the Sunshine state's presidential primary is held from the last Tuesday in January to the first Tuesday in March. FHQ has for some time now discussed the importance of Florida in terms of what the 2012 presidential primary calendar will ultimately look like. Out of compliance in 2008 and still, by law, non-compliant for 2012, a Florida move to a later date would be the first necessary domino to fall in determining when Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina will hold their 2012 delegate selection events. Florida is not the only non-compliant state, but it is the earliest, and its presence at the end of January is keeping the beginning of the process there -- at least hypothetically -- and not in February where both of the national parties prefer the presidential primary process to begin.

The other complicating factor here is partisanship. Joyner, the minority leader in the Senate, is a Democrat and while Florida being non-compliant in the Democratic nomination process may not be all that consequential* with the nomination likely being uncontested, Republicans control the state legislature and the executive branch. The GOP in the state holds the power and with a contested nomination race in 2012 may prefer influence, albeit with penalties affecting the size of their convention delegation, over following the rules.

That said, a bill has been filed to move the state's primary to a later, compliant date, but the ball is in the Republican majority's court. The Florida legislature convenes on March 8.

*Democrats in states with unified Republican control have to, according to the DNC's delegate selection rules, make a "good faith" effort to make the necessary timing change through legislative channels to have any hope of a waiver from the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee in the event a non-compliant primary is held (Rule 20.C.7).

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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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"New rules threaten region's 2012 primary clout"

Over the weekend, Freeman Klopott penned a nice piece in the Washington Examiner on the apparent break up of the 2008 Potomoc Primary, the subregional primary the brought the primaries in Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland together (see full article below). The outcome was attractive enough that the Democratic Change Commission recommended to the Rules and Bylaws Committee that the 2012 Democratic Delegate Selection Rules include some provision that would entice state to hold similar "clustered" contests. From the looks of it, the addition of extra delegates was not enough to keep the model regional primary together for the 2012 cycle. There is still time in the legislative session, but with Virginia already close to moving its primary to March and DC considering a later primary that would coincide with those for state and local offices, it doesn't necessarily look good for the Potomac Primary in 2012.

Regional primaries are difficult to coordinate across states and especially state governments and even when they are successfully managed the initial intention is rarely met. Just ask the southern participants in the Southern Super Tuesday in 1988.

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New rules threaten region's 2012 primary clout

by Freeman Klopott, Washington Examiner

New presidential primary rules passed by the Democrat and Republican national committees are busting the bonds that made the 2008 "Potomac Primary" possible and threatening the Washington region's clout in 2012.

In 2008, Virginia, D.C. and Maryland all held their primaries on Feb. 12. It was just one week after "Super Tuesday," when 24 states voted on presidential candidates. But there were no clear front-runners for the party nominations following the Feb. 5 votes, and the Washington region became key for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Forming the Potomac Primary guaranteed the Washington region electoral pull.

"We'd like to have a regional primary again to help make sure we remain important to the candidates," said David Meadows, executive director of the D.C. Democratic Committee.

But "right now both parties have coordinated what they want to do with the primary calendar because things got out of hand in 2008, " said political scientist Josh Putnam, who tracks the primary calendar on his blog Frontloading HQ. "Now states with primaries scheduled for February are stuck having to change that."

On Feb. 1, Virginia broke ranks. Its Senate passed a bill to set the commonwealth's primary for March 6. If that's the final date, then under the new party rules Virginia's Republican Party will have to change its delegate apportionments from its winner-take-all model to one that distributes them based on the number of votes each candidate receives. If the party doesn't, Virginia risks losing half its delegates at the Republican National Convention.

Meanwhile, Ward 3 D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh has introduced a bill tentatively setting the District's primary for June 5. Gov. Martin O'Malley is "likely" to introduce s bill setting Maryland's primary for April 3, spokesman Shaun Adamec said.

That's the first day new party rules allow for winner-take-all states to vote and, Meadows said, "we're hoping D.C. will join Maryland."

Adamec said, "we'd like to have a regional primary again, and hope the other states join us in April."

Down in Virginia, though, "we didn't think about a regional primary," said Sen. Jill Vogel, R-Winchester, who introduced the March 6 bill. "We wanted to have it on the earliest day we could."

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Presidential Primary Bill Introduced in Kansas Senate

On February 7, SB 128 was introduced in the Kansas Senate. The bill addresses a section of the Sunflower state's election law that the House bill (HB 2126) canceling the 2012 presidential primary does not alter in any way. This is relevant because the earlier post concerning the House bill mentioned that the legislation seemed to eliminate the presidential primary permanently. It does not. That bill simply does not include the subsection that the Senate bill is now changing.

The Senate bill changes references to the 2012 primary to 2016; essentially delaying the 2012 presidential primary in Kansas. The primary will be held, if state-appropriated funds are available, on the first Tuesday in April unless the Kansas secretary of state identifies an alternate date on which at least five other states are holding delegate selection events. The secretary of state has to inform the governor and other state officials of the certification of an alternate on or before November 1 of the year preceding the presidential election.

[FHQ will go ahead and pencil Kansas in on our 2016 presidential primary calendar. Kidding, sort of.]

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Virginia House Unanimously Passes Bill to Move Presidential Primary to March

The Virginia House of Delegates today passed HB 1843 in a 99-0 vote to move the state's presidential primary from the second Tuesday in February to the first Tuesday in March. The House has followed the Senate's lead from last week in passing a similar bill. Both bills have to work their way through the opposite chamber now -- something that is seemingly a formality given the support each bill has received in its respective chamber -- before one heads off to Governor Bob McDonnell for his signature.

SB 1246 has been received by the House and has been referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections there. The legislature is in session until February 26 so the move of the primary should be wrapped up, at least on the legislative end, by then.

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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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"Bill would return California's 2012 presidential primary to June"

The article from Mark Barabak that appeared in Sunday's LA Times covers some old ground for those who have been reading FHQ since the beginning of the year (see full article below). However, that said, he does provide a great rundown of some of the financial constraints that are facing some states in terms of the implementation of their 2012 presidential nominating contests. If the national parties are getting any assistance in their effort to push back the start time of primary season, it is the fact that states with both separate and early presidential primaries and later primaries for state and local offices (that are nonetheless still within the national parties' window) are tempted to hold both sets of primaries concurrently -- and later -- as a means of saving money.

As has been the case in the post-reform era, though, there are two types of states: those with in-window primaries for state and local offices and those with primaries that fall after the window has closed. The former group has the "luxury" in this cycle of potentially saving some money by eliminating their separate presidential primaries and moving them back in line with the other primary elections in the state. Again, that is potentially helping the national parties to get some states to comply with their delegate selection rules for 2012 (see Arkansas, California, New Jersey).

The latter group, on the other hand, faces quite a different landscape as compared to past cycles when frontloading was unfettered or at least allowed given certain parameters. As those states had already incurred the start up costs associated with the separate primary, they were much freer to float their contests -- usually to earlier dates -- than states with concurrent primaries. But those states face a dilemma in the 2012 cycle. They still have the freedom to move around (or to flaunt party rules by going earlier than is allowed), but they don't have the ability to move back and hold all their primaries at once since their primaries for state and local offices are outside of the backend of the window for presidential primaries.

Yes, those states could move their primaries for state and local offices to earlier dates as well. And we do see some momentum behind that idea (see DC). Again, the parties are benefiting from a confluence of forces. Very late primaries for state and local offices are also under attack this cycle. The MOVE act has forced or will force late primary states to move so that the primary process can be completed and ballots printed and mail to military and other voters abroad in time for the general election. This opens the door to a potential double move that could shrink some states' budget deficits. Those states with early presidential primaries and late (out-of-window) primaries for state and local offices would move both primaries to the same date that is a midpoint between the two and allows those states to kill two birds with one stone. To this point, Washington, DC is the only "state" examining this option, but as legislative sessions drag on and budget discussions continue, it is an idea that could gain some momentum.

...and reshape the 2012 presidential primary calendar in ways that have not been witnessed in the post-reform era.

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Bill would return California's 2012 presidential primary to June

by Mark Z. Barabak, LA Times

For years, Sacramento lawmakers worked to give California voters a bigger say in national politics by scheduling the state's presidential primary as early as they could.

The series of moves culminated in 2008 with a Feb. 5 vote, the earliest in state history. But now a legislative effort is underway to move the California primary back where it started — to June, on the last day of the 2012 nominating season — as a way to save tens of millions of dollars. "That's a lot of money," said the bill's sponsor, Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Cupertino), "at a time when every penny counts."

His measure is set for its first committee hearing next month.

If the bill is passed and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, who has not taken a position, California would join other cash-strapped states that have decided to forgo the added cost — and any added attention from presidential candidates and the political press corps — by ceding their early spot on the calendar.

In Washington state, officials are talking about canceling their primary, a non-binding "beauty contest" that does not determine the awarding of delegates. "Our [budget] cuts are hurting the poor, hurting kids, really damaging education," said Secretary of State Sam Reed. The estimated savings: $10 million.

Other states canceling their primaries, pushing back the date or weighing those options include Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Montana, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Virginia.

Their moves reverse a decades-old trend of states stampeding to the front of the calendar in hopes of grabbing a bit of the attention and revenue showered on the two leadoff states, Iowa and New Hampshire. For many, including California, that meant holding two primaries: an early one for president and a later one for other offices, boosting their costs.

The front-loading may have reached its climax in 2008, when more than 20 states — California and New York among them — voted on the single biggest day of primary balloting ever held.

"The whole idea of moving forward looked good," said Josh Putnam, a political scientist at Davidson College in North Carolina who tracks 2012 scheduling on his website, Frontloading HQ. "But then everyone had the same idea, and states ended up getting lost in the shuffle."

Hoping to introduce some order and extend the primary season, the two major parties have set rules allowing just four states to vote next February: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. States that jump the queue would be punished by losing delegates to the party's nominating conventions.

As it stands, Florida, which broke the rules to vote early in 2008, is again scheduled to hold a Jan. 31 primary, which would place it ahead of the four officially sanctioned states. If Florida doesn't budge, the balloting could move earlier into January, as Iowa and the others leap ahead to preserve their status.

Even if Florida lawmakers reschedule their vote, New Hampshire may advance its proposed Feb. 14 primary to keep a seven-day window ahead of Nevada. If that happens, it would probably push Iowa to move up into January.

With the Republican field still taking shape, it is too early to predict the consequences of all the shuffling, but experience suggests that caution should be a guide.

Given the heavy front-loading, many anticipated that the 2008 nominations would be decided no later than early February. The Republican race was, in fact, over fairly swiftly. But Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton battled all the way to June in the longest, most contentious primary fight in generations.

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Alternate Bill to Cancel Presidential Primary Proposed in Washington State

In Washington state today, Rep. Christopher Hurst (D) introduced a bill (HB 1860) to tie whether the state has a presidential primary to the two parties collectively utilizing the system as a means of allocating all of their national convention delegates. If, as has been the custom in the state during recent presidential election cycles, the Republicans split the allocation of their delegates between both the primary and a caucus and the Democrats shun the primary in support of a caucus, the presidential primary in the state would be cancelled during that cycle. This has the effect of avoiding the sunset provision that is included in both SB 5119 and HB 1324. Instead, it makes the expenditure of funds for the primary dependent upon the parties both adopting the primary as the sole method of delegate allocation.

The bill also gives the parties the option of together agreeing upon and notifying the secretary of state of an alternate (and presumably earlier) date for the primary. It is currently set for the fourth Tuesday in May.

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Virginia House Bill to Move Presidential Primary on Cusp of Tuesday Vote

It looks like the Virginia legislature put in some time over the weekend to beat the Tuesday cross-over deadline -- when bills must be finished in one chamber to be considered in the opposite chamber. The House of Delegates is on pace to finish up work on HB 1843 -- the bill to move the commonwealth's presidential primary from the second Tuesday in February to the first Tuesday in March -- with an up or down vote tomorrow after Sunday's first constitutional reading and the second reading today.

The bill is now engrossed as a substitute and will more than likely beat tomorrow's deadline with a vote to send it to the Senate.

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