Georgia in 2012: Back to March?

First Florida and now Georgia.

Regional policy diffusion is the name of the game and in the lead up to 2012, it looks as if the backloading of presidential primaries may be an idea that is spreading. Of course, a bill being introduced is far different than it becoming law, but there is currently an active bill in both chambers of the legislature in Florida and now one in Georgia that would shift the 2012 presidential primaries in each to later dates not earlier ones.

There's a reason that I mentioned the distinction between bill introduction and a bill becoming a law, though. Sure, Florida and Georgia are following the lead of Arkansas -- which has already moved back -- but the circumstances are different in Arkansas than in Florida/Georgia. In the Natural state, the move to February in 2008 was a costly one. It meant having to fund an all new election for the presidential race (one separated from the May primaries for state and local offices). And that cost was just too high when Arkansas legislators looked back on it. Arkansas has done this before; moving up in 1988 to coincide with the other southern states and moving back to May in 1992.

The situation in Florida and Georgia, though, is quite different. Both states have essentially institutionalized a separate presidential primary. First, it is difficult to comply with national party rules on presidential delegate selection when your other primaries are in July (Georgia) and August/September (Florida). It forces both states to hold a separate presidential primary unless the state government opts to move the primaries for state and local offices. But with that Florida and Georgia have a bit more freedom to move that presidential primary having established the contest as a free-standing event.

So the Sunshine and Peach states are home free and can shift back to later dates in 2012, right? Well, they could if the majority of the state legislature was in a favor of the move. But that isn't the case in either state. HB 848 in Georgia and the two bills in Florida (House and Senate) are bills sponsored and introduced by Democrats (Rep. Billy Mitchell in Georgia) in Republican-controlled legislatures (not to mention governments considering both states have Republican governors) and partisanship is likely to stand in the way of these moves. With the Republican nomination at stake in 2012, Republican legislators are going to be much less inclined to shift their state back and into potential irrelevance on the matter unless required to by the national party.

And thus far in the positioning for 2012 (or at least in terms of the current bills that propose primary movement before 2012), that has been the mark of legislative efforts: They are being proposed by a member(s) of the out-party.

• In Florida and Georgia, Democrats are pushing backward shifts of presidential primaries in Republican-dominated states.
• In North Carolina, the situation is reversed (times two). A group of Republicans are sponsoring a bill to move the Tarheel state's primary up to the first Tuesday in February in a Democratic legislature. The story in Oregon is the same.
• In New Jersey, a Republican has called for an Arkansas-like repeal of the separate presidential primary that would place the contest on the same June date as the state's other primaries. But the bill there is a hold over from the 2008 session.
  

I've pretty much dismissed any of these moves taking place during this legislative cycle; the conditions just aren't right. And that likely won't change until the national parties force the states' hands or these bills gain some measure of bipartisan support.

UPDATE: Mitchell's bill in Georgia is apparently in response to a resolution adopted at the Democratic convention last August that closes the window in which non-exempt states can hold delegate selection events to points during or after the first Tuesday in March. [The Georgia General Assembly won't address the issue until 201o anyway because today -- April 3 -- is the final day of the Assembly's session.] This sets up a conflict if the Republicans don't follow suit and eliminate February contests as well. The Democratic Party's task of getting states into compliance with that March call would be complicated in Republican-controlled states by the fact that those Republicans may have no desire to move unless compelled to by the national party. I'm assuming this idea will be discussed at some point during the Democratic Change Commission's meetings because it is a problem in February (2008) states like Arizona*, Florida, Georgia and Utah, where the state government is controlled by Republicans, or in Alabama (governor), California (governor), Connecticut (governor), Louisiana (governor), Michigan (Senate), Missouri (House and Senate), Oklahoma (House and Senate), Tennessee (House and Senate) and Virginia (House), where some portion of the government is Republican-controlled. That's an extensive list of states where partisanship could prove preventative to presidential primary date shifts that could bring a state into compliance with just one party's rules.

The Democratic Change Commission does have some wiggle room on this. The resolution that created the body states:

"...and that in making its recommendations, the Commission consider any revision of the Rules of the Republican Party of the United States adopted by the 2008 Republican National Convention regarding the scheduling and sequence of presidential nominating events."

Some of this, then, rests with the as yet unfilled Temporary Delegate Selection Committee that is charged with a similar task to the DCC's for the GOP. But if that group only offers up minimal alterations, the DCC will have to seriously consider dropping the "no February contests" portion of that resolution. And the commission can change that. That ability to change the rules mid-cycle is what has separated the Democrats from Republicans in that regard in past cycles.

*In Arizona, the governor -- currently a Republican -- can set the date of the presidential primary by proclamation if the set late February date is deemed to be too late to have an impact on the nomination process.

A big shout out to Matt from DemConWatch for the heads up on the bill.


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...and I don't know that this is what the folks at Political Junkie had in mind.

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Championship Round]

Ron Paul vs. Jim DeMint. Ron Paul vs. Jim DeMint? Well, Newt Gingrich's warning that a third party might rise in 2012 if the GOP doesn't right its ship seems to have come true. Somehow I don't think he meant within the current GOP structure.

And now that this tournament is almost complete, I can just see GOP caucus and convention participants from a year ago shaking their heads right now saying, "See, this is what happened to us last year. We got hijacked!" And they did, but McCain already had the nomination clinched. Speaking of using caucus rules to your advantage, I wonder if the GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee will address some of those caucus concerns when the group's ranks are filled and meetings begin? It was arguably a bigger (though quieter) problem on the GOP side than it was for the Democrats. [Clinton supporters may object.]

Head over and vote now. Ron Paul has already opened up a significant lead. Final results will be revealed on Tuesday.


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It's funny that campaign finance came up here yesterday; the same day that a bipartisan group of senators and representatives announced a new piece of legislation to provide public financing of congressional elections.

For starters the system being proposed by Senators Durbin (IL-D) and Specter (PA-R) and Representatives Jones (NC-R), Larson (CT-D) and Pingree (ME-D) does not address presidential campaign finance at all. Yes, after Obama became the first presidential candidate to opt out of the federal matching funds system in the general election, that leaves a pretty big elephant (er, uh donkey?) in the room. Still this legislation is notable because it severely cuts back the cap on individual contributions for congressional candidates wanting to qualify for federal funding.

How does one qualify, you might ask?
In the House, for a candidate to receive access to $900,000, he or she must raise at least $50,000 dollars from 1500 contributors ($33/contributor) in amounts no greater than $100. 40% of that $900,000 can be spent in the primary campaign while the remainder is left for the general election.

In the Senate, things are slightly different because of the greater disparity in terms of numbers of constituents per senator. Senators can collect $1.25 million plus $250,000 for each of his or her state's congressional disticts by raising money (Again, in amounts no greater than $100.) from 2000 contributors and an additional 500 others from each congressional district. In this case, one-third of the federal money could be used in the primary campaign with the remainder left for the general election campaign.

Additional money can be raised in amounts up to $100 from home state residents and matched at a 4:1 rate by the government.

This is a novel idea (one that has been tried at the state level), but there are obviously some questions that would arise should this be attempted at the national level.

1. If the balance constitutionally is between free speech and potential undue influence of money, does a $100 limit contributions not overprotect against the latter at the expense of the former? This would be a major issue in any challenge to this legislation if it were to become law. But to even get to that point it will likely have to survive the journey through two chambers packed with incumbents that would be lukewarm to the idea on average.

2. The constitutional questions are answered to some extent by the voluntary nature of the system. If it were a requirement that all candidates for congress adhere to these rules, the shouts of opposition would be much louder. But honestly, who is opting into this system if it isn't required?

3. What happens to the money in the event that a candidate runs unopposed in either (or both) the primary or general election? Is that money automatically forfeited or can primary money be carried over to the general election? (This one comes with an assist from occasional commenter, Greg.)

4. Timing. The timing of this announcement isn't the best. But you can't wait on the economy to turn around when reform is at stake necessarily. Still, more taxpayer money to politicians isn't something very many people/voters want to hear about at the moment. There's a reason fewer and fewer people check that $3 box on their tax forms every year.

This will be an interesting test case to follow because the other shoe is really going to drop when and if this process or something similar is extended in some way, shape or form to the financing of presidential campaigns.

UPDATE: Politico has more on the newly dubbed Fair Elections Now Act.


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It may be indicative of the anti-climatic nature of the contest, it may be that I was busy, or it may be that I forgot, but here are the third round results for NPR's Political March Madness. I'll say this: Ron Paul may be coasting to victory in this thing (Hey, organization matters!), but there is some serious South Carolina power represented in the Final Four. Both Jim DeMint and Mark Sanford claim one of those spots. Something tells me the selection committee would try to have these two face off to avoid the "splitting the early South Carolina primary vote" problem. But who could have seen this Final Four coming?

The championship pairing will be revealed on Friday, April 3.


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If a Tedisco win meant the beginning of a Republican comeback nationally and a Murphy win meant the nation is on-board with the Obama administration, what does a 65 vote margin with 610 of 610 precincts reporting (and a few thousand absentee ballots to be counted) mean?

[Click for Election Results via The Saratogian]

There's only one answer to that: elections are fun!

UPDATE: As per Jack, via The Saratoagian, it's now down to a 25 vote Murphy edge in NY-20.

[Click to Enlarge]

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[Click Map to Enlarge]

FHQ has been quiet on this one, which is unusual for an elections site. But special elections are nice. For elections nerds like myself, they are a welcome respite from the dark period between regularly scheduled elections. However, it is difficult to apply lessons learned from past special elections to any new one that comes along simply because the circumstances from one special election to the next (or from a general election to a special election) vary so widely.

The congressional special elections in the winter and spring of 2008 were nice in that all of them were conservative districts that broke toward the Democrats. There was something of a trend that could be parsed from that; a trend that culminated with Obama winning the White House and Democrats increasing their majorities in Congress. But it's easy to read too much into these specials. For one thing, they aren't always successfully nationalized. Often they hinge on state or local quirks. Scott Murphy is attempting to nationalize the NY-20 special by linking Jim Tedisco to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. And Tedisco, for his part, is running away from national Republicans despite leaning on NRCC money. In the context of decreasing poll numbers, that's never really a good sign.

Can we extrapolate anything from those poll numbers, though? Given that there have only been six polls* conducted (three of them partisan), there isn't a whole lot of information out there. What those polls do tell us is that the trend has been toward Murphy. He has gained 8 points from poll to poll in the Siena sequence of polls and has a lead that is right around the margin of error to slightly above it.

But drawing anything anymore substantive than that from those numbers is a fool's errand. [Just look back to the Georgia Senate runoff for one such example.] Specials always come down to turnout. And with this race being so closely scrutinized on the national level, polling could either energize Republicans (in a Republican-leaning district) to head out to their nearest polling station or it could, given the current trend and the potential perception of reality, keep them away. For Democrats, it is a question of whether they are still as motivated as they were in November when Obama won the district by three points and incumbent Democratic congresswoman (turned senator), Kirsten Gillibrand, took over three-fifths of the vote.

But, does the tide wash a little further up the beach or has it already begun receding? That's what the media will be talking about tonight when the polls close at 9pm, but in special elections it is rarely that black and white. The results will do a better job of telling us whether Murphy was able to successfully nationalize this race.

*You'll have to back out to Pollster's front page to see the information on the sixth poll; the third one conducted by the DCCC.


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John McCain sure thinks so. And that isn't that much of a stretch. [Truth be told, that isn't a stretch at all.]

But as Jay Cost said yesterday over at the HorseRaceBlog, it really isn't as simple as Obama opting out broke the system. The seeds for this were sewn all the way back in 1980 when John Connally shunned the public financing system to go-it-alone in his bid for the Republican nomination. Of course, his $11 million raised (just more than $28 million in 2009 dollars) earned one whole delegate, but the idea was out there. Candidates for office, especially the presidency, could out-raised the matching funds cap, not have to adhere to state spending caps (during the primaries) and be much better off because of it.

Now, Connally's tremendous failure was an example that certainly caused many a presidential campaign pause, but by 1996 the system had (really) outgrown its usefulness. A self-financed candidate like Steve Forbes could enter the fray and make waves without any real political experience. That his efforts and the competition from others in the Republican field that year put Dole at a major disadvantage once the Kansas senator wrapped up the nomination was a lesson to future candidates on both sides of the aisle. In other words, if your gauge is pointing to E at the end of the primary phase and your opponent's (especially an incumbent) is not, then your bid for the White House is going to be that much tougher.

And that lesson was extended to the general election campaign last fall. No candidate can put him or herself behind such a financial eight ball and hope to wind up in the Oval Office.

H/t: John Pitney over at Epic Journey for the Cost link. Good stuff.


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Florida in 2012: A Companion Bill

File this one under things I should have checked for when I was updating the 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar last week. What I missed was the fact that there is a companion bill to HB 759 in the Florida State Senate.

Now, here's the thing about HB 759 and the Senate version, S 2304: They are sponsored and being pushed by Democrats in a Republican-dominated legislature. Rep. Kevin Rader filed the House version in early February, but the Senate version was not filed by Sen. Arthenia Joyner (the minority whip) until the end of February. While both bills call for a return to the second Tuesday in March date the Sunshine state used for presidential primaries between 1976 and 2004, that outcome isn't likely during this session unless and until the Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee makes a recommendation to the full RNC that would potentially put Florida's current (last Tuesday in January) position in violation of those rules.

In other words, there is no urgency to the matter at the moment (...from either party's perspective). The Democrats just want to get something done while the issue is still somewhat salient. And the Republicans are just taking a wait and see approach.


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Round three voting is now underway in NPR's Political March Madness (link above). And if round two is indicative (a significant increase over the first round's paltry number of upsets), the third round should be pretty unpredictable. I think it is safe to say that this thing has been hijacked in a way that Diebold could even appreciate.

But a Ron Paul-Barack Obama general election should be a fun one.

NPR does seem to be trying to combat this hijacking to some extent. There's a quick turnaround on round three voting. Results will be out on Wednesday April 1. [Then again, they have to fit this in before the real tournament ends next Monday.]


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Looks like Obama's pick (a wise one it was) to win it all in college basketball has advanced to the Final Four.


I have to make some effort to put a political spin on things, but I am an alum. Well, this is the only team he actually played a pick-up game with on the campaign trail last spring.


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