Pair of Pre-filed Bills Propose Moving Oklahoma Presidential Primary Back to March

The Oklahoma legislature does not convene until next month, but there are already several bills that have been pre-filed which would affect the date on which the Sooner state holds its presidential primary in 2012. Republican lawmakers in both the state House (Gary Banz) and Senate (David Holt) have pre-filed bills in their respective chambers to be introduced on the opening day of the session to move the state's presidential primary from the first Tuesday in February to the first Tuesday in March. The bills (HB 1614 and SB 808) also cede control over setting the date of the presidential primary to the State Board of Elections in the event that one or more states bordering Oklahoma have moved the dates of their presidential primaries in an effort to set up a regional primary.

Oklahoma is the first unified Republican-controlled state government to have a bill(s) pre-filed or introduced that would pull a primary currently in violation of national party rules back in to compliance (on the issue of timing). This is significant because, as we've speculated around here, Republican-controlled governments would be more likely to consider staying put if early and in violation of the rules and just taking the party penalties instead of moving back. It is still early to tell if there is anything to that hypothesis.

A third bill (HB 1057) would shift the financial burden of funding the presidential primary from the state to the state parties. Control of the date setting of the contest would also change hands from the state government to the state parties as well. There is no definite change proposed, then, but the parties could opt to move the date if they so chose.

[I apologize in advance for all the RTF links for these bills. There is no good way of linking to the status of bills in the Oklahoma legislature and this is the only way of accessing the bill text.]

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"States weigh later dates for 2012 presidential primaries"

Josh Goodman at Stateline.org has a nice synopsis of where things are in the effort to shift the 2012 presidential primary calendar back. [see full article below]

One note that I'd add, in addition to Mayer's fabulous quotation*, is that states have moved back in the past, but never before has that movement been mandated by a change in both parties' rules. The parties allowed February contests and watched states move up and take advantage of that in period of 1996-2008. But now the national parties are requiring states to move back. That is what is new about this cycle. And the big question that remains is if the states are actually going to play along.

*"The surges forward are a lot more substantial than the retreats." Too true.

--

States weigh later dates for 2012 presidential primaries

by Josh Goodman, Stateline staff writer

Ahead of the last presidential election in 2008, Arkansas lawmakers had an idea. Why not move up the date of the state’s presidential primary from May to early February? Arkansas was tired of being an afterthought on the campaign trail, not weighing in on Democratic and Republican candidates until other states had already decided the races. This time, Arkansas was going to have influence.

There turned out to be just one problem: Everyone else had the same idea.

Arkansas voted with more than 20 states on Super Tuesday, including California and New York. With so much competition for the candidates’ attention, Arkansas wound up feeling left out again. John McCain and Barack Obama didn’t even campaign in the state, conceding it to Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton.

“It didn’t do anything,” Arkansas state Representative Jon Woods says of the date change, which actually resulted in the state holding two primary elections — one for president and another for other offices. “All it did was cost our state money.” A couple of years ago, Woods sponsored a bill to return the primary to its old date — the third Tuesday in May — for 2012. Both houses of the legislature approved it unanimously. Arkansas’ experiment with an early primary is over.

In jumping toward the front of the presidential calendar in 2008, Arkansas was doing what states have been doing for decades now: holding their contests as early as possible. States want to gain power over the process, but more importantly, they want candidates to visit them and visit often. It’s a chance to make an impression with, and perhaps win promises from, the future occupant of the White House.

In moving backward for 2012, however, Arkansas may have been setting a new trend. That’s because several factors — from strained state budgets to new Republican National Committee rules — are converging to prod states to schedule presidential primaries later in the year.

For now, the calendar remains uncertain. What’s clear, though, is that state legislators are prepared to give the conventional wisdom that earlier primaries are better its most serious challenge in years.

The push to frontload

The modern presidential nominating process, in which candidates must compete in primaries throughout the country to have a chance to win, dates to 1972. After that, it only took a few election cycles for states to realize that the ones voting first had the biggest say in the nomination. By 1988, the push to “frontload” had begun in earnest.

Almost immediately, political scientists began complaining that the primary schedule was becoming perilously compressed. If too many states vote too early, they argued, only the best-funded candidates can compete. Candidates can effectively wrap up nominations in a matter of weeks, before the press and the public have time to scrutinize them. Then, states with primaries and caucuses later in the spring don’t matter. “A lot of states are not just less influential, but have no effective voice in the process,” says William Mayer, a Northeastern University political scientist who co-authored a book on frontloading.

Both the national Democratic and Republican parties have tried to impose some order on the process. But the parties don’t set the dates of primaries. State legislators do — because it’s the states who actually administer the elections, along with local governments.

Legislators’ foremost concern has been maximizing the influence of their own states. Even those who agree with the political scientists about the problems with a frontloaded calendar don’t want their own state to be the one left behind.

The results are dramatic. In 1976, on the Democratic side, the Iowa caucuses were in January and the New Hampshire primary was in February. Four more states voted in March and three more in April, with the other 20 primary states scattered later into the spring.

In 2008, six states voted in January. They included Florida and Michigan, which moved up their primaries in violation of Democratic Party rules. By the end of February, voters in nearly three dozen states had already cast their ballots in primaries or caucuses on both the Democratic and Republican side.

Moving back

Given that history, it’s striking that so many states now are talking about moving their 2012 contests in the opposite direction. Besides Arkansas, Illinois already has moved its primary from February back to its traditional date in March. Montana Republicans have canceled their February caucus and instead plan to use the state’s June primary to pick their delegates. Florida is talking about moving its vote from January to April. Bills introduced by key committee chairs in California and Virginia also would push their states back.

Saving money is a key consideration. For some states, moving up the presidential primary meant paying for the cost of an additional statewide election. They went on to hold their regular primaries to choose candidates for Congress, the state legislature and local offices later.

Paul Fong, who chairs the California Assembly’s Elections and Redistricting Committee, says his bill to consolidate the presidential primary back into the state’s regular June primary would save as much as $80 million. In Washington State, the Democratic governor and Republican secretary of state both want to save money by cancelling their state’s February presidential primary entirely. That move would leave the selection of delegates to party-funded caucuses.

Redistricting, the states’ once-a-decade job of redrawing political boundaries, also could pose a problem for early primaries in some states if legal challenges or political stalemates delay the process. In Ohio, the presidential primary is currently scheduled for March 2012. At the same time, voters will choose candidates for lower offices whose boundaries are set to change. Secretary of State Jon Husted has wondered whether his state will complete legislative and congressional redistricting in time to hold its primary.

In Illinois, not wanting to rush was a factor in the state’s decision to move its primary back. Under the earlier schedule, the filing deadline fell in early November of the preceding year. That forced candidates for even the most minor offices to decide exceptionally early whether they wanted to run. It also forced campaigns into the dead of winter.

The unifying theme across all these states is that legislators are questioning whether voting early was worth the trouble. It’s not just a small state like Arkansas that felt ignored in the super-packed primary schedule of 2008. Some Californians felt that way, too. “It didn’t do anything by moving it up,” Fong says.

Watching Florida

The great irony of 2008, of course, was that the primary battle between Clinton and Obama dragged on well past the clump of January and February primaries. The most front-loaded presidential calendar in American history coincided with the most prolonged battle for a party’s nomination in decades.

While few political observers expect another drawn-out primary battle like that one anytime soon, the national parties are nudging states to vote later into the season. Both the Republicans and Democrats have rules that forbid states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada from voting before March. The Republicans — who are likely to be more relevant this cycle since most observers presume Obama will be the Democratic nominee — plan to penalize states that go too early by stripping them of half their delegates.

Still, it’s not clear how many states will be rushing to push their primaries back. For now, Florida is still scheduled to vote on January 31, 2012.

If Florida legislators don’t change their date, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada likely would bump ahead of them in January. After that, other states could take that as license to flout the Republican National Committee and stick it out in February. “Everything hinges on whether Florida decides to move back,” says Josh Putnam, a political scientist who tracks the calendar at blog called Frontloading HQ. “It only takes one state to unravel the whole process.”

Even if the schedule does become substantially less compressed for 2012, that might not mean much for 2016, 2020 and beyond. After 1988’s front-loaded calendar, some states also moved primaries back in 1992. But the long-term trend remained unaltered. “The surges forward,” Mayer says, “are a lot more substantial than the retreats.”

Still, for some states the calendar calculus appears to have changed in a lasting way. That’s true in Arkansas, where no one sounds particularly interested in a future race to the front. “Making us a player or contender,” Woods says, “just isn’t in the cards.”

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Frontloading in Idaho. ...sort of

There is one late add to our list of frontloading/primary movement for the week that just concluded. A bill (HB 14) was introduced in the Idaho House by Secretary of State Tim Hurst to make some "technical corrections" to an election law passed during the legislature's previous session in 2009. Among those corrections was a provision that would move the state's primary -- including presidential primary -- from the fourth Tuesday in May to the third Tuesday in May.

Technically, this could be considered frontloading because of the shift forward on the calendar, but it misses the other key element to the frontloading phenomenon that has occurred in the post-McGovern-Fraser reform era. There is a move ahead on the calendar, but there is no addition to the compression at the beginning of the process. The intent here also is not to carve out a particularly advantageous position on the calendar. Idaho would go from sharing a date with Arkansas, Kentucky and Washington to sharing a date with Nebraska and Oregon. And if history is any guide, both of those dates will likely fall after the point at which the two parties' nominees have been decided. [Yes, there are exceptions to this recent history.]

Thanks to Richard Winger at Ballot Access News for passing this news along to FHQ.

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2012 Presidential Primary Movement: The Week in Review (Jan. 17-23)

Compared to the previous week, this last week was slow on the presidential primary movement front. That said, what do we now know?

• The only new bill to move (or cancel) a presidential primary this past week was a House companion bill to the Washington Senate bill that was proposed a week ago. At a public hearing for the Senate bill, state Republican Party chair, Luke Esser, spoke against the plan, one endorsed by Democratic governor, Christine Gregoire, and Republican secretary of state, Sam Reed.
• The real news was the roller coaster in Arizona. First, there was talk of the Arizona Republican Party possibly opting to "move" their primary to February. Of course, it is already scheduled for the fourth Tuesday in February. Then it was revealed that the resolution the party was to vote on at their meeting this weekend would only ask Governor Jan Brewer to use her proclamation power to move the primary. And then, to top it all off, what was originally reported to have been a possible unanimous vote in favor of the resolution (Resolution #12) turned into the measure failing to pass at all on Saturday. The state still has a February primary, so either the legislature will have to act or Brewer will have to use her privilege to shift the presidential primary to a later date.As has been mentioned in this space several times, there are currently 18 states with presidential primaries scheduled for February 2012. That would put those 18 states in violation of both parties' delegate selection rules for 2012.
• As has been mentioned in this space several times, there are currently 18 states with presidential primaries scheduled for February 2012. That would put those 18 states in violation of both parties' delegate selection rules for 2012.
• Of those 18 primary states, 13 of them (California, Connecticut, Missouri, New York, Arizona, Georgia, Delaware, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia) have convened their 2011 state legislative sessions.
• Of those 13 states, 3 (California, New Jersey and Virginia) have bills that have been introduced and are active within the state legislature to move their contests' dates. Both California and New Jersey have bills that would eliminate an early and separate presidential primaries and position those events with the other primaries for state and local offices. That would mean June presidential primaries for both states if those bills pass and are signed into law.
• One additional early state from the 2008 cycle, Washington, has proposed temporarily (for the 2012 cycle) canceling the state's presidential primary. That primary is currently scheduled for the fourth Tuesday in May according to the law. However, that same law allows the secretary of state to propose a different date and the state parties can propose their own alternative. If either or both propose(s) a different date a bipartisan committee (made up of party members and state government officials), by a two-thirds vote, has to approve the change.
• Utah (one of the aforementioned 18 states) convenes its legislative session this week. Oklahoma (February), Alabama (March), Florida (March) and Louisiana (April) get down to work later in the year.
• For this next week, then, the 14 early states in conflict with the national parties' rules will be the ones to watch. That includes the 13 mentioned above and Utah.
  

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Romney Takes New Hampshire GOP Straw Poll

Former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, won Saturday's straw poll of New Hampshire Republicans by a more than three to one margin over his next closest competitor, Texas representative, Ron Paul. In a crowded field of candidates, Romney emerged with 35% of the vote (273 total votes cast of the 493 members in attendance -- 55% turnout) and won despite Tea Party-aligned state party chair candidate, Jack Kimball, winning that race. In other words, even with some Tea Party atmosphere to the proceedings, Romney -- not necessarily a favorite of the movement that grew from the grassroots up following President Obama's victory in the 2008 election -- won and did so by a margin that largely reflects what polls of the early primary state have shown.

Mitt Romney: 35%

Ron Paul: 11%

Tim Pawlenty: 8%

Sarah Palin: 7%

Michelle Bachmann: 5%

Jim DeMint: 5%

Herman Cain: 4%

Chris Christie: 3%

Rick Santorum: 3%

Mitch Daniels: 3%

Newt Gingrich: 3%

Mike Huckabee: 3%

Mike Pence: 3%

Rudy Giuliani: 2%

Judd Gregg: 2%

Gary Johnson: 2%

Other: 2%

Donald Trump: 1%

Haley Barbour: 1%

Jon Huntsman: ~1% 0*

John Thune: ~1% 0*

There isn't much to read into this other than the Romney-Tea Party angle discussed above. The fact that 220 members opted to sit on the sidelines is noteworthy, but may only indicate that it is still a little too early.

*I just got a nice email from James Pindell, the political director from WMUR, the station which held the straw poll vote. Jon Huntsman and John Thune not only got less than 1% of the straw poll vote, they each got 0 votes. That correction has been made in the results above.

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Lazy and Non-binding Saturday in Arizona and New Hampshire

2012 is on the agenda at two Republican state party meetings today. Both Arizona and New Hampshire are set to elect new state party chairpersons and both state parties are acting with an eye toward 2012.

Arizona:

Obviously, FHQ has already spent some space in the last day or so discussing what has turned out to be a non-binding resolution by Republicans in the Grand Canyon state. The resolution would call on Republican governor, Jan Brewer, to use her proclamation power to schedule an early presidential primary for 2012. Former governor, Janet Napolitano, used the same executive power in both 2004 and 2008 to move the state's primary to the earliest date allowed by the two parties (the first Tuesday in February). But Arizona Republicans are asking a bit more of their governor this time around (assuming the resolution passes and that seems likely). If followed, Arizona's delegation to the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa would be halved.

Brewer would be smart just to leave well enough alone and try to blame the state legislature for inaction. The state's presidential primary is already set -- according to state election law -- for the fourth Tuesday in February. Blame the lack of movement on a do-nothing legislature. The only question that would come out of this is whether the governor has the power to move the primary date back. The law granting the governor the power to move the primary date does not specify, though it implies, that the objective is to move the primary to an earlier and more advantageous date rather than a later and compliant date.

The only thing that will come out of today's vote in Phoenix is that there is some desire among Arizona Republicans to have a meaningful primary election regardless of RNC rules.

New Hampshire:

In the Granite state today, the state Republican Party is meeting in Derry to select a new chairperson, but is also holding a straw poll of the approximately 500 state party members in attendance. FHQ quipped the other day that this wasn't going to tell us much because it won't come close to approximating what will happen in the actual primary; one that is open to independents who obviously won't be at the Republican meeting today.

But here's the thing: It isn't an altogether meaningless exercise. First of all, that battle for Republican chair is one that pits an establishment candidate, Juliana Bergeron, against a Tea Party-backed choice, Jack Kimball. Who comes out on top there speaks to the direction of the state party. Secondly, with polls of the state consistently showing Mitt Romney as the leading choice among primary voters in the nation's first primary state, the odds-setting concerns how well the former Massachusetts governor will do in the straw poll.

Those two things don't necessarily jibe all that well. Romney is not a favorite of the Tea Party (and vice versa), and if they flex their muscle in the vote for New Hampshire state party chair, that doesn't necessarily bode well for his chances of a strong showing in the straw poll. Let's state that a bit differently. If Kimball wins the chair race, Romney is very likely to come in under the level of support he has had in polls of the state in the straw poll.

That's what should be looked at coming out of today anyway.

...with a mind toward the fact that independents aren't participating and will be in next year's primary.

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Much Ado About Nothing in Arizona Tomorrow

At least we're starting to get a clearer picture of what's actually happening within the Arizona Republican Party now. The resolution that is set to be voted on at the party's state meeting in Phoenix tomorrow is nothing more than a call for Republican governor, Jan Brewer, to use the proclamation power the state legislature granted the governor in the 1990s to position the Grand Canyon state's presidential primary in a more advantageous (read earlier and more influential) place on the calendar relative to other states.

In other words, this resolution, if passed, is in no way binding on the frontloading/primary movement calculus in Arizona for 2012. Here's a suggestion: do nothing. The primary is already scheduled in February (on the fourth Tuesday of the month). My gut tells me that some earlier February 2008 states will actually comply with the national parties' rules and cluster on the first Tuesday in March. That leaves a calendar similar to what existed in 2004: the exempt states followed by a handful of early February states, a relative lull with a contest or two on the remaining weeks of February and then a modified but less compressed Super Tuesday during the first week in March.

That lull period would be where Arizona would be positioned if the state government did absolutely nothing. Considering those earlier states would be states that would not only lose half their delegates -- given RNC rules -- but also be subjected to proportional allocation of delegates, it is close to a sure thing that the nomination would not be wrapped up, officially or not, before that point. Arizona could have an impact by doing nothing at all.

Spare us the non-binding resolution.

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More on the Arizona GOP's Potential "Move" This Weekend

Late last night it was reported that the Arizona Republican Party is set to approve a resolution at its meeting in Phoenix this weekend to keep its 2012 presidential primary in February. As we mentioned, though, this is interesting considering it would only take doing nothing in the state legislature to accomplish this. State election law in Arizona already accounts for a primary on the fourth Tuesday in February. The governor, furthermore, can use her proclamation power to move the primary even further up on the calendar to a more competitive date. And since Jan Brewer is still a Republican, this would not seem like too much of a roadblock. [CNN at least reports that Brewer has the final say, but that seems to render meaningless the potential move by the Arizona GOP this weekend.]

Why go the state party resolution route then?

That is the main question and it still not entirely clear to me, but it could have some significant implications at least for Democrats in Arizona if it comes to pass.

If the Arizona Republican Party passes this resolution this weekend, it likely means there will be no action from the legislature on changing the election laws regarding primary timing or who can participate. That lack of action on primary timing means that Democrats will be stuck with the February primary date which would be in violation of the DNC's rules on delegate selection. The alternative for Arizona Democrats is to foot the bill for a caucus (most likely) that will be scheduled at a time that fits the Democratic Party's rules (some time on or after the first Tuesday in March).

Needless to say, this potential move has far-reaching implications not only for the shape the overall primary calendar will have, but for the Democrats in Arizona as well.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this post I made mention of Erin McPike's post last night that highlighted an attendant resolution that will also be voted on at the Arizona Republicans' meeting tomorrow. Though it wasn't clear in her piece, I said that the other resolution would close the 2012 presidential primary to all but registered Republicans. This second resolution is all the more curious in that circumstance because the presidential primaries are already closed to all but those registered with a party. Thanks to Richard Winger from Ballot Access News for the clarification. The intent of the subsequent resolution is to impact the primaries for offices other than the presidency. It is a completely separate issue as a result.

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It only takes one state to unravel the process: Arizona GOP Mulls Violating RNC Rules

Erin McPike at RealClearPolitics:

The Arizona Republican Party is preparing to pass a resolution Saturday that would bump its primary date to February, when traditional early states like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now, Nevada, will hold their nominating contests. The move could touch off a scramble for the early states to go even earlier.

This is an interesting move considering that Arizona law already positions the Grand Canyon state's presidential primary in the month of February and gives the governor (Jan Brewer - R) the option of issuing a proclamation to move the primary up even further to place the state's voters in a position to have an influence if the late February date is not early enough.

To me, this seems superfluous, but what do I know? It should be noted that Arizona Republicans have a history of this. The party held an early 1988 caucus in August of 1986. And apparently Arizona Republicans are willing to take the 50% delegation penalty to have some influence in 2012 as well.

Your move Florida Republicans. Oh, and Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina might want to be ready, too.

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Tim Pawlenty: Book Sales, Low; Google Searches, Up ...Briefly

But hey, Chris Christie is surprisingly and consistently heavily searched (compared to some of the other top tier Republicans*). Maybe there is something (else) to being asked on a regular basis whether you're running for president.

Former Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, is off to a slow start selling books, but his rounds on the pre-presidential campaign memoir circuit have people searching for him at a higher rate on Google.

...for a little bit anyway.

*No, Sarah Palin is not included. Her search volume always dwarfs all the other candidates'.

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