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Saturday, March 4, 2023
Kansas Bill Would Reestablish Presidential Primary in the Sunflower State
Thursday, March 2, 2023
What's the Baseline for 2024 Republican Rules Changes at the State Level?
The Washington Post reported last week that the Trump campaign has been doing its due diligence of late, attempting to get a jump start on an often hidden aspect of the invisible primary: the battle over delegates. Or in this case, the battle over the state-level rules that will define the ways in which candidates will receive delegates based on primary and caucus results across the country in 2024.
While Trump running for a second term after losing a previous bid is unusual in the post-reform era, it is not out of the ordinary for a candidate and his or her campaign to flex its muscle early like this. After all, this is a candidate and a campaign that have done this before. And this is a campaign that may not be as dominant as it was four years ago, but is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was eight years ago. And tending the garden on the state level in an attempt to reap a harvest of delegates down the road is clear evidence of that.
Moreover, that touches on a theme Jeff Greenfield highlighted late last year in a piece at Politico:
But if you really want to know whether Donald Trump is ascendant or in free fall, you might do better to focus on what might seem like a recipe for narcolepsy: the Republican Party’s delegate-selection process across the 50-plus states, territories and commonwealths. Over the next year and a half, there will be no better clue to the strength and weaknesses of Trump and his competitors. Why? Well, for one thing, the way that delegates are chosen by state primaries, conventions and caucuses are far more important than a dozen debates and tens of millions of campaign dollars. And how the GOP state parties decide how their convention delegates are selected may also tell you whether these state parties are out to hobble the former president — or put him on a glide path to another nomination.
Look, as a rules person, the expectation is that FHQ is going to agree with that assessment. I do. ...in part. The rules are important, but they are just a piece of a larger matrix of variables -- polls, endorsements, fundraising, etc. -- that provide observers with a sense of the former president's strength during the 2024 invisible primary. And again, the early signs are that Trump is behind where he was in 2019 but ahead across the board on each of the above metrics compared to where he was in 2015. The Party Decides showed that endorsements matter. They demonstrate a measure of institutional support for a candidate. But if the bulk of elected officials and other elites within the Republican Party network waver in making 2024 endorsements of any candidate as they did during the 2016 cycle, then this rules tinkering in 2023 may serve as a proxy of that institutional support.
But the thing about both the Washington Post article and Greenfield's opinion piece is that they lack context. The Post reports that the Trump campaign is attempting to make inroads and Greenfield speculates that Trump-aligned and Trump-opposed forces may make rules changes to aid their specific candidate or candidates. But from where are the states starting? What moves might they make? How common -- or uncommon -- is such tinkering on the state level in the first place?
In other words, what is the baseline?
The story of where states begin 2024 starts in 2019
To the extent there was any discussion in 2019 about efforts on the Republican side to craft rules for Trump's reelection, it mostly revolved around the canceling of a handful of primaries and caucuses. But that belies the bulk of what went on behind the scenes in the 2020 Republican invisible primary. Yes, the cancelations got spun as efforts to protect Trump against a challenge. However, Trump got from Bill Weld and Joe Walsh and March Sanford the sort of challenge that President Biden will get from Marianne Williamson in 2024: a token challenge. Trump's grip on the 2020 Republican nomination was never threatened, so the cancelations were less about protecting the nomination and more about protecting his dominance in winning the nomination.
But the state-level contest cancelations were just the tip of the iceberg and that has implications for 2024.
The Trump team was unusually active in nudging state parties toward changes for 2020 that 1) made it easier for Trump to gobble up delegates as the nomination process moved through the calendar of contests and 2) made it much more difficult for multiple candidates to win delegates. Bear in mind that there were minimal changes to the 2020 rules at the national level and that trend has largely held as 2020 transitions into 2024. There have been national rules changes, but they were aimed at cleaning up small problems from the past or to accommodate a July convention. Or to add a debates committee back into the rules.
However, in 2019, there were changes made in 30 states and territories (out of 56 total). And it was not just the cancelations of a primary in South Carolina or of a preference vote at caucuses in Alaska. Take the Massachusetts example WaPo provided:
For his 2020 reelection campaign, Trump advisers Justin Clark and Bill Stepien worked for more than a year to change party rules to ensure he would not face a challenger at the nominating convention. In Massachusetts, for example, the Trump campaign changed the delegate selection plan to winner-take-all based on the primary result to prevent moderate Gov. Bill Weld (R) from being able to seat potential allies at the convention.
Now, Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Maeve Reston mischaracterized the nature of the change, but it is indicative of the moves made by Trump's reelection effort. Massachusetts Republicans retained their previous proportional manner of allocating delegates based on the results of the presidential primary in the Bay state, but upped the qualifying threshold from 5 percent in 2016 to 20 percent in 2020. That meant that for a candidate to have received any delegates, he or she would have needed to clear 20 percent of the vote statewide, the maximum qualifying threshold allowed under Republican National Committee (RNC) rules.
Furthermore, the state Republican Party in Massachusetts added a winner-take-all threshold in 2020. If a candidate cleared 50 percent of the vote statewide -- a level that a largely unopposed incumbent president should easily clear under most circumstances -- then that candidate would win all of the delegates from Massachusetts. That is not winner-take-all. Functionally, it is in a cycle with a popular incumbent. But in reality, it is the same proportional plan Massachusetts Republicans have used for years with the knobs turned toward "protect the incumbent's dominance." And those two thresholds are the keys. The qualifying threshold was set to its maximum and the winner-take-all threshold was set to its minimum (50 percent under RNC rules).
And the moves in Massachusetts were indicative of the changes other state Republican parties made for 2020. Of the 26 states in 2020 that could have a qualifying threshold -- those with some form of proportional rules -- 18 of them set it to the maximum 20 percent. Just ten states of the 31 that could have a qualifying threshold had the maximum in 2016. The 20 percent maximum was by far the modal qualifying threshold for states in the 2020 cycle.
Of course, that was just one type of tinkering that took place. Among his speculative allocation changes for 2024, Greenfield describes another:
By contrast, suppose New York Republicans are firmly in Trump’s corner. Trump might be confident he can win a significant portion of voters — but not a majority. So in a state like New York, his campaign might press to drop the 50 percent threshold and fight for a winner-take-all by plurality standard.
Well, New York Republicans already did that. The legislation that the New York State Assembly passed in 2019, codifying the delegate selection process for both state parties for 2020, shifted the Republican delegate allocation method back to winner-take-all in the Empire state for the first time since 2008. New York was not alone in adopting truly winner-take-all rules -- rules where a plurality winner statewide wins all of the delegates at stake -- for the 2020 cycle. There is a prohibition on truly winner-take-all allocation in the Republican process for states with contests before March 15, but of those states with contests after that point in 2016, just nine were truly winner-take-all. Collectively, those nine states accounted for 391 total delegates (or nearly 16 percent of the total number of delegates at stake in the process).
The number of truly winner-take-all contests in 2020 ballooned to 19 states, more than double the number of that type of contests from four years prior. And those states represented 764 delegates, almost 30 percent of the total 2550 delegates at stake in 2020.
Finally, there were other moves that were also beneficial to an incumbent president seeking to portray a certain dominance in the nomination process. The number of states that pooled their delegates, combining the separate pools of at-large and congressional district delegates, increased from 25 in 2016 to 37 in 2020. The above shift toward truly winner-take-all methods explains a lot but not all of that. The subset of states that pooled their delegates and had a winner-take-all trigger -- as was the case in the Massachusetts example above -- doubled from six in 2016 to 12 in 2020. Those contests became functionally winner-take-all no matter where they were on the calendar, whether in the winner-take-all window or before it in the prohibited zone. That is a subtle change, but a meaningful one.
And in total, all of that can be neatly filed into one category: incumbent defense, or this case, incumbent domination. Trump got that, and in the process, set the baseline from which any changes will be made for 2024.
How common is rules tinkering on the state level in the Republican process anyway?
That depends.
Rarely does a cycle go by where some state party does not make some change, however small, to its delegate selection and allocation process. Although, often it is less about delegate allocation and more about positioning contests on the primary calendar. And that is a change that is initiated not by the state party but in the state government, the state legislature to be more precise. That entails quite a bit more wrangling on a playing field that potentially involves partisan division if not partisan roadblocks.
And some of those same obstacles seep into the delegate allocation process as well. At least that is the case in states where state law defines delegate allocation stemming from a state-run presidential primary. The 10 percent qualifying threshold New Hampshire Republicans use, for example, is one defined in state law.
But on the whole, most of that is set by state parties. And more often than not, state parties are loath to change delegate allocation rules. They are averse to straying from traditional methods because it is difficult to game out the impact those possible changes will have a year or so into the future when conditions may be completely different. It is one thing to project what a shift toward winner-take-most or winner-take-all rules will have in a cycle when an incumbent president is running for renomination as Trump was in 2020. Those rules are intended to and often do help incumbents. But in a competitive cycle with some measure of uncertainty, that is a more difficult call.
As Greenfield noted, Ohio Republicans shifted toward a truly winner-take-all plan in 2016 with Governor John Kasich (R) in mind. And Kasich did win the primary in the Buckeye state six months later. The change panned out. But with a favorite son involved, there was perhaps a bit more certainty among state party decision makers in how the move would play out once primary season went live. The less a sure thing it is, the more likely it will be that the status quo delegate allocation method will persist into the next cycle.
That is an important point. If decision makers in state parties across the country cannot see a clear advantage to an allocation change one way or the other, then it is more likely that the 2020 baseline method survives into 2024. That theoretically helps Trump. ...if he is the frontrunner. But if Trump is not the frontrunner once primary season kicks off, then any shift away from the 2020 baseline -- a baseline with the knobs turned toward incumbent defense (or frontrunner defense) -- may end up helping a candidate other than the one intended.
Another factor adding to this uncertainty is how decision makers view a change playing with rank and file members of the party. If elected officials or other elites in the party are wary of endorsing one Republican candidate or another, then they may also be less willing to make an allocation change for fear that it would be viewed as helping or hurting Trump. In other words, it looks like they are putting their thumb on the scale one way or the other. That is the sort of view that augurs against change. And again, the status quo likely helps Trump (if current conditions persist).
Basically, the bottom line is this. Allocation changes are tough. They are tough to make because there is uncertainty in the impact those changes will have. It is much easier to see the potential impact of moving a primary to an early date for example. It could help a favorite son or daughter candidate. But an earlier primary or caucus definitely better insures that the state influences the course of the nomination race. If a contest falls too late -- after a presumptive nominee has emerged and clinched the nomination -- then that contest has literally no impact. Some impact, no matter how small, is better than literally zero impact. The same is true with respect to the decision to conduct a primary election or caucuses. There are definite turnout effects that come with holding a primary rather than caucuses. And greater participation in primaries typically means a more diverse -- less ideologically homogenous or extreme -- electorate.
Things are less clear with allocation rules changes.
Look at the last four cycles -- 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. In particular, take note of the doughnut graphic in the corner of each map charting the distribution of delegates by allocation type. Those are four different cycles run under different conditions and with different rules. But look at the combined share of the distribution that the hybrid and proportional with winner-take-all trigger states comprise.1 Despite the differing conditions and despite the differing rules, somewhere between 51-53 percent of the total number of delegates were allocated in one of those two hybrid fashions. The states changed some at the margins, but the percentage of delegates allocated in that manner remained virtually unchanged.
And the only reason for the spike in proportional states in 2012 was the RNC's institution of the (truly) winner-take-all ban for the first time that cycle. States overreacted in response and were more proportional than necessary under the 2012 rules. But states parties adapted over time, learning the nuances of the winner-take-all ban and moving over the 2016 and 2020 cycles toward methods that conditionally triggered a winner-take-all allocation.
What changes might state parties make for 2024?
The above exploration of the minefield that state party decision makers wade into when considering allocation rules changes is a cautionary tale. It suggests that, while there may be some changes, there are reasons to think that they will be minimal. And the Washington Post story buttresses that view. If Team Trump is having powwows with state party officials and sending envoys out to them, then that is most likely to preserve what they have in place. As of right now, the 2020 baseline rules help Trump. That could change but such a shift may not occur until after a decision on the rules has already been made (before October 1).
But just as in the legislative process, uncertainty breeds conflict. Conflict leads to indecisiveness. And indecisiveness yields to the status quo. The same is true in rules changes. Actors, therefore, are going to be more inclined to move toward certainty; changes that yield more certain impacts. Trump opponents are reportedly playing catch up on these matters and may not hit the ground running either effectively and/or quickly enough to make a dent in allocation rules changes.
But if Trump and Trump allies are looking to shore up their defenses, it may not be in the realm of delegate allocation rules. Instead, they may train their sights on the primary versus caucus decision. And there are some unique opportunities on that front. For the most part, state parties may balk at transitioning out of a state-run primary for a party-run contest of some type. The latter is funded out of state party coffers and that money may be better spent elsewhere.
Still, some states may be conflicted. Take Michigan. The WaPo story notes how the Michigan Republican Party is stuck between a rock and a hard place. And they really are. Democrats in control of state government moved the primary to a spot on the primary calendar that is sanctioned under new DNC rules but is noncompliant under RNC rules. One logical alternative is for Michigan Republicans to schedule caucuses at a compliant point on the calendar. That is a potentially messy route. But it could be done. And that smaller, more extreme electorate is likely to tip more toward Trump than to his opponents.
Likewise, there is no indication that any of the states at the end of the calendar are making any moves, not even the Republican-controlled states. And all of those June contests are noncompliant under RNC rules on timing. One alternative may be for the state parties to opt out of the late and noncompliant primaries in those states and conduct earlier caucuses. Similarly, the Trump campaign is reportedly not enamored with the possible shift to a later primary in Idaho. Seeing a pattern here? Shift to an earlier caucus. And Maryland is likely to change the date of its primary because it conflicts with Passover in 2024. If Democrats in control of state government move the contest too early (before March 15), then Old Line state Republicans would be unable to keep the winner-take-all allocation method the party adopted for 2020. And if winner-take-all allocation is that important to the party, then they, too, could opt to hold caucuses in a spot on the calendar that preserves it.
And that offers a kind of double whammy. A switch to a caucus and a preservation of (or move to) winner-take-all rules in those states. Admittedly, those are paths with a lots of twists and turns. But they are all examples of states that because of one conflict or another may be forced into those decisions. There is still some path dependency there, but the likely impacts are more certain for decision makers.
But to be able to look ahead, one needs a baseline. And as the 2024 invisible primary kicks into high gear and changes are considered in the coming months, this baseline is going to be important.
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1 In the 2008 and 2012 graphics, the hybrid and proportional with winner-take-all trigger states are rolled into one big category of states that were not truly winner-take-all nor truly proportional.
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Wednesday, March 1, 2023
Second Hawaii Committee Green Lights Super Tuesday Presidential Primary Bill
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.
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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.
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Sunday, February 26, 2023
Idaho House Passes May Presidential Primary Bill
After being moved out of committee with a Do Pass recommendation earlier in the week, HB 138 was quickly considered on the floor of the Idaho House on Friday, February 24.
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Late April Primaries Will Conflict with Passover in 2024
Baltimore officials are calling on the Maryland General Assembly to change the date of the 2024 presidential primary in the Old Line state. The April 23 date conflicts with the Passover holiday.
Such is the peril of scheduling spring primaries. But some states have shifted elections around in the past to avoid these sorts of conflicts while others have not. Maryland, in fact, made a double move during the 2016 cycle, originally proposing a one-week delay to avoid Easter in early April and then an even later push with Passover during the following week. However, Maryland was not the only state. Hawaii, Louisiana, New York and Wyoming have all scheduled around holidays in the last three cycles.
Of course, Maryland is not alone in holding a presidential primary on April 23 in 2024 as of now. Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island also have contests occupying that slot on the calendar. The Connecticut primary is also scheduled in the Passover window on April 30. Similar efforts in those states may be forthcoming. Yet, all four conducted primaries in 2016 that overlapped with the observance of Passover. And Maryland did too during that cycle. The amendment was added to the one-week delay proposal because that would have put the certification process for the primary at odds with the holiday. Election officials would have had to work during the holiday.
There is already active legislation to move the Pennsylvania primary into March, but the motivation there is merely to hold an earlier contest. One of the byproducts of that change would be that the primary in the Keystone state would avoid the holiday conflict. Another bill in New York would schedule the presidential primary in the Empire state for that same fourth Tuesday in April date, in the Passover window.
But it remains to be seen if legislation will come forward elsewhere to alter primary dates in any of the other states with conflicts.
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Saturday, February 25, 2023
Hawaii Super Tuesday Primary Bill Stymied in House Committee
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.
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Thursday, February 23, 2023
Idaho Committee Advances May Primary Bill
The panel advanced HB 138 to the House floor with a Do Pass recommendation. Bill sponsor Rep. Dustin Manwaring (R-29th, Pocatello) made the case to the committee that consolidating the stand-alone March presidential primary with the primaries for other offices in May would save the state $2.7 million. And those savings were something Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane (R) reiterated in supporting the legislation according to the Idaho Capital Sun.
“As I came into office and began working on the budget for the office, this was one of the biggest things that stood out,” McGrane told legislators Wednesday. “So we started asking the question on what is the utility of what we are trying to do? I think Rep. Manwaring framed it very well — we just haven’t seen the return on investment.”
Indeed, it was always going to be a difficult proposition to draw presidential candidates to Idaho for a March primary that often got overshadowed by other, more delegate-rich contests. But with Michigan already having vacated that second Tuesday in March date for a spot in the pre-window on the Democratic party calendar, and Hawaii potentially shifting to a primary a week earlier, Idaho stands to actually be able to draw Republican candidates in March 2024. That is especially true in light of the fact that neighboring Washington also has a primary on the same date and will be the biggest delegate prize on a surprisingly thin date so early on the calendar. There would be more delegates at stake in the Pacific and Mountain northwest than in Mississippi, the only other state currently occupying the second Tuesday in March.
But those considerations seem to have taken a back seat to the cost considerations and the likely turnout gain for the May primary even with presidential primary that may fall after the nomination has been wrapped up.
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As noted in the previous post on this bill, it still is not clear that this legislation builds back the same legal infrastructure that existed in 2011 when the presidential primary was wiped from the May primary portion of the electoral code and eliminated it altogether. The bill that created the separate presidential primary in 2012 (for the 2016 cycle) did not affect the May primary. However, that appeared to be of little concern to the State Affairs Committee on Wednesday. And it remains to be seen if that will be problematic to members on the floor of the state House.
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Rogue States Will Be the Norm as Long as the Parties Diverge on the Calendar
2024 is going to be different.
A look back to 2008
For the first time since the 2008 cycle, there will be a shake up to the beginning of the presidential primary calendar in 2024. And just as was the case fifteen years ago, it was the Democratic Party that instituted the changes.
Then as now, the DNC sought to diversify the pre-window period on its calendar, augmenting the traditional Iowa/New Hampshire start with the addition of contests in two more states. Just as was the case during 2022, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) invited state parties to pitch the panel in 2006 on why their state contest should be added to the early calendar in the upcoming primary season. Much of the focus centered on adding smaller states but also providing some balance in terms of region and demographics. And finally, part of the calculus also honed in on the idea of adding another caucus state in between Iowa and New Hampshire and another primary thereafter but before Super Tuesday.
There are more than a few parallels between those criteria and the set used in 2022 by the current-day DNCRBC. But there are some differences as well. Democrats were the out-party in 2006, and parties in the White House tend to do less tinkering. Also, Democrats may have been a bit shrewder in their choices of additions for 2008. South Carolina was already a state that had carved out a spot in the early Republican calendar over the preceding quarter of a century. And Nevada was a caucus state at the time. Both featured state parties that made the primary/caucus scheduling decisions rather than state governments. Unlike in a situation where the state government sets a primary date, a move by national Democrats to add South Carolina and/or Nevada to their early calendar for 2008 did not necessarily drag Republicans in those states into the mix.
Of course, Palmetto state Republicans already had a presidential primary that was an established part of the early Republican calendar. And Nevada Republicans joined the fun with January 2008 caucuses that skirted Republican National Committee (RNC) penalties. There was no RNC rule that required states in 2008 to bind national convention delegates based on a statewide presidential preference vote. Silver state Republicans and those in Iowa, for that matter, conducted a preference vote during precinct caucuses, but that had no direct bearing on the delegates chosen to attend the next stages of the caucus/convention process, nor ultimately those delegates who represented either state at the national convention.
But it worked. Perhaps it was dumb luck, but it worked. Nevada and South Carolina, with minimal (although not nonexistent) implementation headaches, became not just established but institutionalized parts of the early calendar in both parties' processes. And that was despite the fact that both were flip-flopped in the other party's order; South Carolina third and Nevada fourth in the Republican process and the inverse on the Democratic side.
How 2024 is different and how that increases the odds of rogue states
That is a different story than the one that has played out in the lead up to when the latest primary calendar decisions were made in 2022-23. And it is different for a number of reasons.
First, Democrats entered the review process for the 2024 rules and the primary calendar saying that no early calendar slots were guaranteed. All four (or five) were up for grabs. That meant that Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina had to make their cases before the DNCRBC just like every other interested state party. And for the first time since specific carve outs were added to the DNC rules for Iowa and New Hampshire for the 1984 cycle, Iowa, and likely New Hampshire, will have no waiver from the national party to be a part of the pre-window lineup. That necessarily creates two potential rogues states in one fell swoop.
Second, recall the background on the selection of South Carolina and Nevada in 2008. In both situations, it was state parties making the decisions on where primaries or caucuses in the Palmetto and Silver states ended up on the calendar. South Carolina obviously remains the same as it was in 2008 (with respect to the decision makers). That is part of the reason South Carolina Democrats got the nod to go first for 2024 in the Democratic process. Meanwhile, Nevada, under Democratic control in 2021, shifted from party-run caucuses to a state-run presidential primary. That move mirrors a push by the national party away from caucuses and toward state-run primaries.
But while the national party has advocated for more state-run processes in order to maximize participation, that has limited the DNC's options in terms changing its calendar without potentially creating problems for Republicans in their process. Those problems are best highlighted by the Democrats' insertion of Michigan into the pre-window, an act that puts Michigan Republicans in the crosshairs of the RNC rules. Granted, this is a two-way street. The RNC decision to stick with the traditional Iowa-New Hampshire-South Carolina-Nevada lead off has impacted Democrats. It has created potential problems in Iowa and New Hampshire with both state parties, leaning on existing state, signaling they are likely to go rogue and hold contests concurrent with the Republican in their respective states. And unless the DNC tweaks its approach to Georgia, the Peach state primary will not be a part of the pre-window at all. Georgia definitely will not go on February 13 as planned.
Another part of the 2024 picture that differs from 2008 comes from who is doing the rules tinkering. It is unusual for an in-party to so fundamentally reshape a seemingly ingrained part of the process. But what that points to is how much sway the incumbent president tends to hold over the system that will renominate him or her. Typically an incumbent is content to move forward with a nomination system that largely mimics the one that got him or her to the White House in the first place. That may produce changes from a nomination cycle to the renomination cycle, but they usually are not big changes.
But what if they were? The 2024 cycle is testing that. It is the incumbent president who is testing that. Indeed, without the input of the president on the 2024 primary calendar, the DNCRBC seemed to be heading in the direction of something that would have knocked Iowa out altogether, bumped the other three early states up a notch (maybe with some additional shuffling) and added Michigan to the end of the pre-window as a midwestern replacement for the caucuses in the Hawkeye state. President Biden had something else in mind and the DNCRCB and ultimately the full DNC fell in line.
And that has implications for both parties' calendars. More importantly, that has implications for how orderly those calendars are in coming together. Questions remain on both sides.
Finally, while all of the above seemingly points the finger squarely at the Democrats as instigators in all of this, Republicans have played a role as well. Necessity is the mother of invention and, in fact, brought the national parties together in the time after the chaos of the 2008 calendar. Both saw value in not starting the process in January (or for not allowing states other than the first four to conduct contests in February). And they informally brokered a deal. FHQ often cites that and uses the "informally brokered" language, but here is what that meant in the rules.
In the amended rules for the 2012 cycle, the RNC added language that created a specific carve out in Rule 15(b)(1) for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. In the previous cycle (2008), only New Hampshire and South Carolina had those exemptions. [Iowa and Nevada did not need them. Neither allocated any national convention delegates to the national convention in their precinct caucuses.] That aligned the Republicans with the Democratic pre-window calendar for the most part. Again, recall the South Carolina/Nevada flip-flop between the parties.
Moreover, the RNC added one other rule, Rule 15(b)(3):
If the Democratic National Committee fails to adhere to a presidential primary schedule with the dates set forth in Rule 15(b)(1) of these Rules (February 1 and first Tuesday in March), then Rule 15(b) shall revert to the Rules as adopted by the 2008 Republican National Convention.
It is not common for one party's nomination rules to cite the other party. But for 2012, the basic outline of the Republican calendar hinged on what national Democrats did. Basically, if the DNC did not adopt rules that called for a February 1 start to the calendar for the early states and a first Tuesday in March start for every other state, then the RNC would revert to the rules it used in 2008. That would have snapped back to the RNC using a calendar that allowed all but the exempt states to start in February pushing Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada into January. Yes, that happened anyway because Florida broke the rules again in 2012. But that was not a function of this brokered deal between the parties. It was because the RNC penalties were not severe enough.
However, once the RNC got their penalties right in 2016 with the addition of the super penalty, that was it. That was the high-water mark for cooperation between the parties. And the agreement held through the 2020 cycle or until the Democrats walked away for 2024.
The break was about more than just the Democrats going their own way with a fundamentally different early calendar lineup for 2024. The truth is there was not much for them to walk away from. The dialog that had developed out of that deal brokered fifteen years ago gradually declined over time. It happens. And it happened because the players involved changed. Leadership on the RNC Rules Committee changed again in 2017 and interest on the Republican side mostly died with it. There was still Republican interest in the dialog but it was no longer coming from players who were directly involved on the RNC Rules Committee.
And that lack of communication was something DNCRBC co-Chair Jim Roosevelt noted in the December meeting when the 2024 calendar plan was initially adopted by the panel. In responding to concerns from Scott Brennan, Iowa DNC and DNCRBC member, about the potential for a split between the two national parties on Iowa's calendar position leading to chaos, Roosevelt said that the Republicans were not open to coordinating this time. And that has been true for the last two cycles.
That matters. It is a part of the fuller picture. And as long as there is no (even informal) coordination on the matter between the two national parties, the more there are going to be rogue state situations like the ones that are likely to mark the 2024 cycle in Iowa, Michigan and New Hampshire (if not Georgia).
But what even is a rogue state?
If Iowa or Michigan or New Hampshire are rogue in 2024 in one party's process or another, then that is different from the calendar rogues of the recent past. Those three states are unlike Florida and Michigan in 2008 and unlike Arizona, Florida and Michigan in 2012. State actors in Arizona, Florida and Michigan made decisions to break the rules. State laws were changed ahead of 2008 to push Florida and Michigan into noncompliance, and they were not changed before 2012 to comply with the new (and later) calendar start codified in both parties' rules for that cycle.
Contrast that with the situations in Iowa, Michigan and New Hampshire for 2024. Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire and Democrats in Michigan all have the blessings of their national parties to conduct early contests next year. Their counterparts across the aisle do not. And in the case of Michigan Republicans and New Hampshire Democrats, they have no real recourse if they want to use the state-run primary. If partisans on the other side move or keep the primaries where they are under state law, they are stuck to a large degree.
That is a different kind of rogue. That is a rogue that is created by the discrepancy between the two national parties' presidential primary calendars. It forces the state parties in that situation to either take the penalties or to pay for their own party-run process (which is a penalty in its own right). But as long as the calendar divide exists -- and especially if Democrats continue to reexamine and reshuffle their early calendar lineup -- then this type of rogue state is likely to continue to cause problems on one side or the other. And that says nothing of the possibility of Republicans following suit and shuffling their early calendar in cycles to come.
As of now, there is little evidence that there is any movement from other states to go rogue in the old fashion. In West Virginia, there are bills to create a separate presidential primary and schedule it for February, out of compliance with both parties' rules. But that is it. There is no concerted effort to rush the gates and go early against the rules. However, just because there is no conventional rogue activity now, or even in this cycle, it does not mean that states will not try to exploit the calendar differences between the two national parties in the futures should they persist.
It is that sort of unraveling of the steady state informally coordinated between the national parties a decade and a half ago that should trouble decision makers on the national level.
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Tuesday, February 21, 2023
May Presidential Primary Bill Gets First Committee Hearing in Ohio House
The House version of an Ohio bill to move the Buckeye state presidential primary from March to May came before the Government Oversight Committee on Tuesday, February 21.
HB 21 sponsor, Rep. Daniel Troy (D-23rd, Willowick) introduced the measure and advocated for the date change before the panel, a committee on which three of the bill's co-sponsors sit. Troy did not break any new ground, leaning on the same arguments he has made publicly:
Candidates for all federal, state, and county offices will not have to be filing petitions for nomination to be on the November ballot, almost 11 months prior to that actual election in the preceding calendar year. Voter confusion will be minimized with a consistent date every spring (and assuredly better weather). With the redistricting process looming again, it provides more time to get all the ducks in a row before filing deadlines. It will shorten the election season and potentially allow more time for governing and less time for partisan politics.
And all of that went over well enough. It seemed. There were few tea leaves to read in this the bill's first hearing, but when the floor was opened for questions from the rest of the committee, only silence followed. Rep. Troy could only respond, "I guess that means it's a good bill."
To which committee chair, Rep. Bob Peterson (R-91st, Fayette) responded, "Unless it's a bad bill."
And that was it. Even with a bipartisan trio of co-sponsors on the 13 person committee, HB 21 likely faces an uphill climb among Republicans in control of enough of the levers of state governmental power to derail a move back on the presidential primary calendar ahead of a cycle in which the GOP will have a competitive nomination battle.
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