Showing posts with label 2023 state legislative session. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2023 state legislative session. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Are the Two South Carolinians Hurting DeSantis in the Palmetto State?

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...
  • Haven't had a chance to check out the latest deep dive on the proposed Michigan Republican hybrid primary-caucus plan to allocate delegates in 2024? Go check it out. But coming later at FHQ Plus, Michigan Republicans may not have the only pre-Super Tuesday (but compliant) contest on March 2. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
...
Some folks in the DeSantis orbit are, according to Shelby Talcott at Semafor, griping about the impact the crowded field is having on the Florida governor. In particular, the focus appears to be on the injurious effect the two South Carolinians in the race -- former Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott -- are having on DeSantis in the Palmetto state. 

But assertions that Haley and Scott are only in the race in pursuit of a spot on the ticket with Trump or a  slot in a hypothetical Trump cabinet aside, is the pair hurting DeSantis now or likely to in the future in the first-in-the-South primary state? 

Talcott hints at the answer being yes in her piece, citing current Real Clear Politics averages of polls of the race in South Carolina. The former president checks in just above 40 percent, DeSantis is about half that and both Haley and Scott are hovering just over ten percent. If one combines DeSantis, Haley and Scott support, then yes, the conglomerate (presumably headed by DeSantis) is competitive with if not slightly ahead of Trump in the state. 

Yet, would Haley's and/or Scott's South Carolina support go to DeSantis if either or both were suddenly on the sidelines? There is some evidence outside of mere speculation that it would be. An April survey of Palmetto state Republicans from National Public Affairs, for example, showed that Haley's and Scott's support was more correlated with DeSantis than Trump. But while that is suggestive, it is just one poll.

And the presidential nomination process is, after all, sequential. What happens between now and the South Carolina primary early next year will have some impact on the course of that election. The remainder of the invisible primary will matter. The Iowa caucuses will matter. That primary in New Hampshire will matter as well in terms of what is likely to transpire in the South Carolina primary. Haley and Scott may stay in the race through the third contest. But either or both could also pull out so as not to be embarrassed at home.

If one is in the DeSantis camp, the first point to focus on may be the filing deadline for candidates in the Palmetto state. Regardless of whether Haley and/or Scott withdraw from the race after Iowa or New Hampshire, or whether either or both are on the ballot in South Carolina at all matters. If both South Carolinians are still actively in the race at that point, they may pull a meaningful amount from DeSantis in South Carolina. However, even if both suspend their campaigns before their home state contest, they may still siphon off a smaller but sizable enough amount of support from DeSantis if Haley and Scott remain on the ballot. 

Those things matter, but what likely is of greater significance (or should be) to the broader DeSantis presidential effort is the Florida governor being able to pick off one of the first two contests. The worry is better trained on Haley and Scott in Iowa than it is on either one of them back home in the Palmetto state. 

Another question: How are Haley and Scott affecting DeSantis in South Carolina in terms of the invisible primary metrics? That may be the true source of the grumbling. It maybe less that Haley and Scott may rain on the DeSantis parade in the South Carolina primary and more that they are gobbling up institutional support in the state that might otherwise be receptive to DeSantis. There have been headline-grabbing waves of endorsements for the Florida governor in Iowa and New Hampshire. But something has deterred similar inroads (so far) in South Carolina. 


...
The Rhode Island House on Monday, June 12 unanimously passed SB 1010, concurring with the Senate version of legislation to move the presidential primary in the Ocean state up from the fourth Tuesday in April to the first Tuesday in April for just the 2024 cycle. The House did not vote on the measure by itself. Rather, the body took up and adopted by a 67-0 vote a seven bill consent calendar package including SB 1010. 

The bill now heads off to Governor Dan McKee (D) for his consideration. However, it is likely to be joined shortly by HB 6309, the House version of the same bill, which is on the state Senate's consent calendar for Tuesday, June 13. Should the upper chamber concur, Rhode Island will join New York as states eyeing presidential primary shifts to April 2 where bills have fully cleared the legislative hurdle in the process.


...
From around the invisible primary...
  • Doug Burgum did not take long after his announcement last week to hit the airwaves. The North Dakota governor has ads up and running in Iowa and New Hampshire, part of a $3 million buy. 
  • In the money primary, First Lady Jill Biden has been deployed on a fundraising junket ahead of the second quarter deadline at the end of the month.

...
On this date...
...in 2011, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. 

...in 2015, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.



--
Posted by Josh Putnam at 12:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Share |

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Sunday Series: Ranked Choice Voting in 2024 Presidential Primaries, Updated (May 2023)

One electoral reform that FHQ has touched on in the past and has increasingly popped up on the presidential primary radar is ranked choice voting (RCV). And let us be clear, while the idea has worked its way into state-level legislation and state party delegate selection plans, widespread adoption of the practice is not yet at hand. 

However, there has been some RCV experimentation on a modest scale in the delegate allocation process primarily in small states. And that has opened the door to its consideration in a broader swath of states across the country. States, whether state parties or state legislators, are seeing some value in allowing for a redistribution of votes based on a voter's preferences to insure, in the case of presidential primaries, that every voter has a more direct say in the resulting delegate allocation. 

That is apparent in legislation that has been proposed in state legislatures across the country as they have begun convening their 2023 sessions. Again, RCV is not sweeping the nation, as the map below of current legislation to institute the method in the presidential nomination process will attest. There are a lot of unshaded states. But if RCV was adopted across those states where it has been passed (Maine), where it has been used in Democratic state party-run processes (Alaska, Kansas and North Dakota), and where it is being considered by legislators in 2023 then it would affect the allocation of nearly a third of Democratic delegates and a little more than a quarter of Republican delegates. That is not nothing. 



The thrust of activity on adding RCV to presidential primaries for 2024 in legislatures across the country has shifted since FHQ last updated the situation in April. While much of the first few months of the 2023 state legislative sessions were about introducing legislation, the time since has mostly been about moving that legislation, and in recent days, doing so before legislatures adjourn. 

Unlike much of April, however, there were a few new bills proposed since the last update. A pair of companion bills in both chambers of the New Jersey legislature were introduced to establish RCV in presidential primaries and for the election of electors to the Electoral College. In Colorado, a measure to set up RCV for the 2028 cycle quickly came and went. SB 301 was proposed in late April and went nowhere before the legislature in the Centennial state adjourned for the year earlier this month. And just this last week, a trio of New York Republican members of the US House introduced legislation to prohibit the use of RCV in elections to federal offices. It is not clear whether that extends to the nomination phase as well. But not much is clear about the bill without text. Currently, the details are missing.

There was, however, continued progress for some of those RCV-related bills that have previously been floating around out there this session. 

From 30,000 feet, the overview remains much the same. The existing pattern of legislation has been for Republican-controlled states (where legislation has been proposed) to move bans on RCV while Democratic-controlled legislatures and Democratic legislators in red states have largely been behind efforts to augment the presidential primary process with RCV. That outlook has not changed. But it has evolved to some degree. To the extent any of the RCV-related legislation has been successful, it has been more likely to move through legislatures and be signed into law in Republican-controlled states. The Montana measure to prohibit RCV that was before Governor Gianforte (R) during the last update was signed into law, for instance. It brings the Treasure state in line with other neighbors -- Idaho and South Dakota -- in banning RCV during the 2023 session. 

All of that maintains the status quo as it has existed in those states. And in many ways, that -- maintaining the status quo -- is the path of least resistance with regard to RCV. 

And resistance is the key word when the focus shifts to those states with active bills to institute RCV for 2024 (or beyond) in the state-run presidential nomination processes. It is not that those bills have not budged, it is that most of those bills have not easily made their way through the legislative process. Yet, most is not all. A handful of RCV measures have found some modicum of success. 

In Hawaii, the differences across passed versions of the bill raised last month were squared and that measure was sent off to Governor Josh Green (D) for his consideration. But while that may bring RCV to the Aloha state, any new law will not affect state-run presidential primaries. That is because while the Hawaii legislature was able to push HB 1294 through before adjournment in early May, the bill to create a state-run presidential primary failed. However, Aloha state Democrats do intend to use RCV in their party-run primary again in 2024. Beyond that, the only other measures that moved since late April were ones in Minnesota and Oregon. HB 2004 in Oregon passed the lower chamber there and awaits action in the state Senate. And in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, an appropriation bill with a RCV rider passed the legislature and was signed into law. However, the money will be used not for implementing RCV but for the Secretary of State of Minnesota to include consideration of the process in a broader voting study.

And that is it. 

The last month may have seen incremental developments, but those changes have occurred as legislatures have been adjourning. And that may be the biggest change this month. More RCV-related bills have been rendered inactive or dormant as legislatures have tagged out for the year (or for regular sessions anyway with no guarantee that RCV will be revisited). That claimed both bills that had been proposed in Vermont, for example. The Senate version passed the upper chamber, but stalled in the House and never moved before the legislature in the Green Mountain state ended its session. 

The picture, then, of RCV and the 2024 presidential nomination process remains one of incremental movement at best in the first half of 2023. A handful of Republican-controlled states in the mountain West have bolstered the status quo with bans of RCV, and momentum on the pro- side has been next to negligible. There may be incremental advances where RCV is being experimented with in the presidential nomination process for 2024. But note also that most of the experimenting is being done by state parties in party-run processes on the Democratic side. And further, regardless of whether the legislation has sought to establish RCV or ban it, most of the movement has been in relatively small states. Idaho, Hawaii, Montana, South Dakota and Vermont are not the big hitters of national politics. Laboratories for or against RCV are in small states for now. And that may or may not be the best proving ground for it in the presidential nomination process (or anywhere else).

The bottom line, however, is that while RCV may be considered a remedy to some of the maladies that plague American politics, its adoption is not yet widespread. And that does not look to change much more than incrementally in 2023. 





--
Posted by Josh Putnam at 11:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , ,
Share |

Sunday, May 14, 2023

Sunday Series: An Update on 2024 Presidential Primary Movement

Back in March, FHQ had an initial glimpse at early legislation to move, establish or eliminate state-run presidential primary elections for the 2024 cycle. And the picture then was one of a fairly sleepy cycle for movers and shakers on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. In the two months since, things have changed, but the story has basically stayed the same. 


First of all, 2023 looks a lot like the other years immediately prior to a presidential election year during the 21st century. That is the year -- the legislative session -- in the cycle that sees the most activity. To most state legislators, there is more, or has proven to be more, urgency to establish and/or position state-run (and funded) contests at that point than at any other time. It is on their radars. 

The 2023 legislative session has not strayed from that trend, but two months further on into it, the activity has not necessarily remained sleepy. In fact, there are now more bills that have been introduced in state legislatures across the country to schedule or reschedule presidential primaries for 2024 than there were in all of 2019 ahead of the competitive Democratic presidential nomination race. Part of the reason for that is partisan. Despite Democratic gains in state legislatures in the 2018 midterm cycle, Republicans continued to control the bulk of state legislatures in 2019. Presidential primary positioning may have been on the minds of Republican majorities in state legislatures, but it was not the priority to them that it would have been to Democratic legislators. 

However, even with fewer bills introduced overall, 2019 saw a higher success rate -- primary scheduling bills signed into law -- than the 2023 session has seen to this point. Yes, more and more state legislatures are adjourning their regular sessions for the year, but 2023 is still young. Primary bills have passed and been signed into law in four states as of mid-May: Idaho, Kansas, Maryland and Michigan. But there are more in the pipeline that look poised to pass (Connecticut, Rhode Island) and others where legislation is likely to eventually move (Pennsylvania) or be introduced in the first place (New Jersey, New York).

And that particular subset of states -- those in the northeast and mid-Atlantic -- are all signaling (or potentially signaling) an alignment that will have some impact on the overall calendar. Most of those states have in recent cycles occupied spots on the calendar in late April. Yet, with Passover falling in that window in 2024, legislators in some of those states are looking at a point a little earlier in the calendar: April 2. If Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island all join Wisconsin on that first Tuesday in April, then it will likely serve as the backside bookend of the delegate sweet spot on the calendar. All at once, the winner-take-all window will open in the Republican process on March 19 and the number of delegates allocated will hit 50 percent and then 75 percent in quick succession by April 2.1 And that would trigger the 50-75 rule that has so often been a guide to when Republican nomination races of the recent past have signaled the presumptive nominee. 

But all of that depends to some degree on what happens in that group of northeastern/mid-Atlantic states. Legislators actually have to do the hard work of legislating. And as both Idaho and Missouri have proven already in 2023, that endeavor is easier said than done. Regular sessions have ended in both states and neither has a state-run presidential primary option for 2024. Idaho eliminated their stand-alone March presidential primary and Missouri failed to reestablish their own. Yet, the door is not completely closed on either state. Revived pushes for a presidential primary option may come up in special sessions should they be called. That not only raises the possibility of primaries coming back, but also more bills to be added to the mix above both in terms of the overall number of primary bills and the success rate as well. 

Finally, note that none of the bills discussed or hinted at thus far are in any way threatening the beginning of the calendar. That is significant. Yes, that Michigan bill that was signed into law shifted the presidential primary in the Great Lakes state into the early window in the Democratic process, but that will have limited impact on how the beginning of the 2024 presidential primary calendar shakes out during the rest of 2023. Iowa Democrats appear to have found a way out of the penalties trap and New Hampshire continues to indicate its intention to go rogue, but how far into January Iowa Republicans and New Hampshire end up depends on what Nevada Republicans opt to do (and to a lesser extent how South Carolina Republicans react to that).

Many wondered aloud whether the Democratic National Committee decision to shuffle the primary calendar would set off a rush to the beginning of the calendar like in 2008. It has not. However, that decision has increased the level of uncertainty about the early part of the calendar. But the South Carolina Democratic primary being scheduled on February 3 means that there is a pretty narrow range of possibilities for the remaining undecided early states on the Republican side of the ledger. The big thing about the early calendar to internalize at this point is that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire are scheduled for early February. They never have been and will not be from the look of things at this point in 2023.


--
1 A reminder: Just because the Republican winner-take-all window opens on March 15 does not mean that every state after that point will use winner-take-all rules. It just means that they all will have that option. 


--
Posted by Josh Putnam at 10:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , ,
Share |

Sunday, April 23, 2023

Sunday Series: Ranked Choice Voting in 2024 Presidential Primaries, Updated (April 2023)

One electoral reform that FHQ has touched on in the past and has increasingly popped up on the presidential primary radar is ranked choice voting (RCV). And let us be clear, while the idea has worked its way into state-level legislation and state party delegate selection plans, widespread adoption of the practice is not yet at hand. 

However, there has been some RCV experimentation on a modest scale in the delegate allocation process primarily in small states. And that has opened the door to its consideration in a broader swath of states across the country. States, whether state parties or state legislators, are seeing some value in allowing for a redistribution of votes based on a voter's preferences to insure, in the case of presidential primaries, that every voter has a more direct say in the resulting delegate allocation. 

That is apparent in legislation that has been proposed in state legislatures across the country as they have begun convening their 2023 sessions. Again, RCV is not sweeping the nation, as the map below of current legislation to institute the method in the presidential nomination process will attest. There are a lot of unshaded states. But if RCV was adopted across those states where it has been passed (Maine), where it has been used in Democratic state party-run processes (Alaska, Kansas and North Dakota), and where it is being considered by legislators in 2023 then it would affect the allocation of nearly a third of Democratic delegates and a little more than a quarter of Republican delegates. That is not nothing. 


The thrust of activity on adding RCV to presidential primaries for 2024 in legislatures across the country has shifted since FHQ last updated matters in March. While much of the first few months of the 2023 legislative sessions were about introducing legislation, the time since has been about moving that legislation rather than proposing new bills. As such, there were no new measures introduced to layer RCV into the presidential nomination process (or ban it altogether) since mid-March. There was, however, continued progress for some of those RCV-related bills that have been floating around out there this session. 

From 30,000 feet, the overview remains much the same. The existing pattern of legislation has been for Republican-controlled states (where legislation has been proposed) to move bans on RCV while Democratic-controlled legislatures and Democratic legislators in red states have largely been behind efforts to augment the presidential primary process with RCV. That outlook has not changed. But it has evolved to some degree. To the extent any of the RCV-related legislation has been successful, it has been more likely to move through legislatures and be signed into law in Republican-controlled states. The South Dakota measure to prohibit RCV that was before Governor Noem (R) during the last update was signed into law. Likewise, the ban bill in Idaho was signed by Governor Little (R). And in Montana, the measure to prohibit the use of RCV in the Treasure state has made it through the legislature and awaits Governor Gianforte's consideration. 

All of that maintains the status quo as it has existed in those states. And in many ways, that -- maintaining the status quo -- is the path of least resistance with regard to RCV. 

And resistance is the key word when the focus shifts to those states with active bills to institute RCV for 2024 (or beyond) in the state-run presidential nomination processes. It is not that those bills have not budged, it is that most of those bills have not easily made their way through the legislative process. Yet, most is not all. A handful of RCV measures have found some modicum of success. 

One of the Hawaii bills has passed both the state House and Senate. Only, passage of the legislation has been in two different forms and it is unclear whether the two sides will be able to iron out those differences in a bill that includes a number of other electoral changes. [And recall that Hawaii does not yet have a presidential primary. It may by the end of the 2023 legislative session, but RCV would only come to the presidential primary process in the Aloha state in 2024 if there is a presidential primary in 2024.] The Vermont Senate was also able to pass its version of an RCV bill (exclusively for the presidential primary in the Green Mountain state), but that measure has yet to be taken up in the state House. And the House version of the same bill has been untouched in committee since it was introduced in February.

Outside of that, movement has been slow or non-existent most everywhere else on pro-RCV legislation. There were committee hearings on bills in Connecticut and Illinois. But in the former there was no recommendation from the committee one way or the other and that bill continues to be dormant. The Illinois committee hearings occurred with great fanfare (or at least news coverage), but has subsequently been met with some pushback. 

And that is it. 

The picture of RCV and the 2024 presidential nomination process remains one of incremental movement at best in the first part of 2023. A handful of Republican-controlled states in the mountain West have bolstered the status quo with bans of RCV, and momentum on the pro- side has been next to negligible. Vermont and Hawaii may get RCV over the finish line, but progress has been slow. That may incrementally advance where RCV is being experimented with in the presidential nomination process for 2024. But note also that most of the experimenting is being done by state parties in party-run processes on the Democratic side. And further, regardless of whether the legislation seeks to establish RCV or ban it, most of the movement is in relatively small states. Idaho, Hawaii, Montana, South Dakota and Vermont are not the big hitters of national politics. Laboratories for or against RCV are in small states for now. And that may or may not be the best proving ground for it in the presidential nomination process (or anywhere else).

The bottom line, however, is that while RCV may be considered a remedy to some of the maladies that plague American politics, its adoption is not yet widespread. And that does not look to change much more than incrementally in 2023. 



--
Posted by Josh Putnam at 9:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , ,
Share |

Saturday, April 15, 2023

From FHQ Plus: The Blurred Lines Between State and Party on the Caucuses in Iowa

The following is a cross-posted excerpt from FHQ Plus, FHQ's new subscription service. Come check the rest out and consider a paid subscription to support our work. 

--

I dealt with part of the new bill to change the parameters of the caucus process in the Hawkeye state over at FHQ earlier today. But that bill — HSB 245 — moved past its first obstacle today and out of the Study Bill Subcommittee of the Iowa House Ways and Means Committee on a 3-2 vote, and it looks like it will face a full committee vote on Thursday. [NOTE: HSB 245 passed Ways and Means on a party line vote on Thursday, April 13.]

As some have noted the effort to require in-person participation at a caucus — to ban a proposed plan by Iowa Democrats to shift to a vote-by-mail process — is a move that would immediately be on shaky legal ground. Parties have wide latitude in setting the rules of their internal processes under Supreme Court precedent. And the caucuses are a party affair. The parties pay for them. The parties set the rules. The parties run them.

But the Iowa caucus operations have often blurred the line between state and party on the matter. The parties and the state government, regardless of partisan affiliation across either, have tended to work together to protect that first-in-the-nation status the caucuses have enjoyed over the last half century. There is a state law in Iowa, as in New Hampshire, but both 2008 and 2012 demonstrated that it is fairly toothless. The caucuses in neither case were eight days ahead of the next contest, as called for in state law, and neither party was hit with sanctions for the move.

Moreover, the state/party line has been blurred by the encroachment of same-day party registration at caucus sites in recent years. The state’s tentacles stretch into the caucuses, but that still does not change the fact that the precinct caucuses are a party affair, a party-funded and run operation. And that is kind of the ironic thing about the proposed 70 day buffer required between registration with a party and the caucuses in this bill moving through the Iowa legislature. It retracts those state tentacles to some degree, drawing a sharper line again between state and party domain.

In the end, the fate of this bill beyond the committee is uncertain. But one thing this episode demonstrates is the deterioration of the relationship between Iowa Democrats and Republicans on the one thing that has united them in the past: protecting the status of the caucuses. Republicans unilaterally introducing this measure without consulting the Democratic Party at all on the matter says a lot. And in the long run that will likely hurt Iowa’s efforts to retain its status in the future. 


--
Posted by Josh Putnam at 10:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Share |

Saturday, April 8, 2023

From FHQ Plus: Drama Introduced into Effort to Move Idaho Presidential Primary

The following is cross-posted from FHQ Plus, FHQ's new subscription service. Come check the rest out and consider a paid subscription to support our work. 

--

The 2023 state legislative session drags on in Idaho. Gem state lawmakers had targeted last Friday, March 24, as the date on which the body would adjourn. But last Friday came and went and the work has continued well into this week. 

One bill that was a part of that unfinished business was S 1186, the trailer bill to legislation that now sits on the desk of Governor Brad Little (R), having already passed both chambers of the legislature. Together, H 138 and S 1186 were intended to eliminate the separate presidential primary in March and consolidate the election with the primaries for other offices in May. Actually, the House bill was intended to do all of that on its own. But despite the stated intent, all H 138 ever did was strike the presidential primary language from state code. It never built back the statutory infrastructure to add the presidential line to the May primary ballot. S 1186 was the patch for those omissions.

Only, that patch ran into trouble in committee on the House side on Thursday, March 30. Again, H138 is on the governor’s desk. It overwhelmingly passed both chambers with bipartisan support, and S 1186 had cleared the state Senate as well. All that seemingly stood in the way of the intended elimination and consolidation was a quick committee hearing and another presumably lopsided vote in favor of the trailer bill. 

But then came Thursday’s House State Affairs Committee consideration of the measure. The hearing itself covered familiar ground. Sponsors (and the secretary of state) touted the more than $2 million savings consolidating the elections would have while those tightly associated with the state Republican Party cried foul for not being consulted about the potential change ahead of time (before its winter meeting earlier this year).

And it was during that Republican Party backlash to the legislation that the hearing got interesting. Idaho Republican Party Chair Dorothy Moon spoke in opposition to the bill, saying that, if anything, the state party would prefer to move the primary up even further on the calendar than the second Tuesday in March rather than back to May. She went on to say that she and the party would like to have been given the chance to work with the Republican National Committee to move the primary to February; to make Idaho the “Iowa of the West.”

Put a pin in that for a second. That is a storyline in and of itself, but there was another twist. 

All the witnesses who lined up to testify spoke, and it then looked as if the committee was going to move quickly to vote on S 1186 and presumably push it to the floor. Again, the three floor votes that each of these two bills had faced ended with bipartisan passage. The assumption, then, was that State Affairs was going to move this to the House floor for final consideration. Instead, this happened:

State Affairs Committee Chair Brent Crane (R-13th, Nampa): “Senate bill 1186 is properly before the committee."

Silence. [Crane glances around with a slight, knowing grin on his face.]

Chair Crane: “Senate bill 1186 dies for lack of a motion.”

From the Democratic side of the dais: “Uh.”

Chair Crane: “Already made my decision.”

So, with that S 1186 died in committee. 

Now, that could mean a lot of things moving forward. But what it means in the near term is that Governor Little has a decision to make about H 138. If he signs the measure into law, then the March presidential primary is eliminated, but has no home alongside the May primary. If, however, he vetos the House bill, then everything with the presidential primary stays the same as it has been in Idaho for the last two cycles. 

Maintaining the status quo on the March primary may hinge on how much the governor values the cost savings of eliminating the stand-alone presidential primary. If he prioritizes that roughly $2 million savings, then Little may very well sign the bill or allow it to become law without his signature. 

But that means there would be no Idaho presidential primary in 2024, at least not without further action in a special legislative session. It could be that consideration in that setting may occur after enough time that the state Republican Party has had a chance to consult with the RNC about their February primary idea. Granted, that proposal would be dead on arrival with the national party. The RNC set the early calendar in the rules it adopted in April 2022, and Idaho was not among the states given a carve-out to hold February or earlier primaries or caucuses. Additionally, Idaho Republicans would face the national party’s stiff super penalty if it opted to thumb its nose at the rules and conduct a February contest.

That may or may not be enough to deter the Idaho state legislature from going along with an unsanctioned (by the RNC), state-funded presidential primary in February or even raising the presidential primary issue again in a special session. But the Idaho Republican Party may forge ahead without the primary, whether a state-funded option is available or not. 

Gem state Republicans may choose to hold caucuses instead. And, like West Virginia, Idaho fits into this sort of sweet spot with respect to the RNC super penalty. Yes, the penalty would eliminate all but 12 delegates if Idaho broke the timing rules. But there are only 30 Idaho delegates to begin with. Yes, that is a penalty and one that is greater than the old 50 percent reduction that the RNC employed in the 2012 cycle. Yet, it may not be enough to keep Idaho Republicans from forcing the issue and attempting to become the “Iowa of the West.”

And honestly, that may be a good thing for the overall Republican primary calendar for 2024. The Democratic calendar — with South Carolina at the top on February 3 — is likely to push the early Republican states into January, leaving a barren expanse with no contests for all or much of February until Super Tuesday on March 5. A February Idaho caucus and/or a Michigan primary (with waiver) may help fill in that gap.

However, all of that remains to play out. First thing’s first: Governor Little has a decision to make on H 138. And it is a bigger decision than one might expect for a seemingly simple presidential primary bill.

--
NOTE: It was reported this past week upon the Idaho legislature adjourning sine die that Governor Little signed H 138 into law. That eliminates the stand-alone March presidential primary in the Gem state, but bigger questions remain about where the Idaho delegate selection events for both parties end up on the 2024 presidential primary calendar.

Posted by Josh Putnam at 11:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Share |

Sunday, March 26, 2023

California Bill to Change Primary Date Amended

Earlier this week, significant changes were made to a California Senate bill that, upon its introduction, appeared to affect the date of the consolidated primary, including the presidential primary, in the Golden state.

In fact, the original version of that bill -- SB 24 -- struck the entire section of the California code dealing with various aspects of the primary, leaving the date unspecified. In brief, the introduced bill described the legislation like this:
This bill would change the date of the presidential primary and consolidated statewide direct primary described above to an unspecified date.
As it turns out, however, that was a change meant to serve as a placeholder while the particulars of the intended bill were worked out. The newly amended version of SB 24 was released on Monday, March 20 and revealed that the date of the presidential primary would remain unaffected moving forward. In its place, grander language to put a public financing (of elections) system before the voters of California was inserted. 

California, it seems for now, will remain one of the anchors of Super Tuesday alongside the primary in Texas. 


Posted by Josh Putnam at 9:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Share |

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Bill Eliminating Idaho Presidential Primary Ready for Governor

The leadership of the Idaho legislature had targeted Friday, March 24 as the last day of the 2023 regular session. 

But that did not happen. 

Instead, the state Senate dragged through another legislative day at a glacial pace as the state House stood by, finished with its work and awaiting further action from the upper chamber. 

One matter the Senate was able to dispense with was defining the parameters around which the presidential primary will operate for the 2024 cycle. Those bills -- one to eliminate the stand-alone March presidential primary (H 138) and one to consolidate that election with the mid-May primaries for other offices (S 1186) -- were passed on Thursday, March 23. And since the former bill had earlier passed the state House in it current form, the bill was signed by the requisite parties in both chambers and enrolled, ready to be transmitted to the governor for consideration.

But again, that bill merely ends the separate March presidential primary. It does not build the necessary infrastructure into state code to add a presidential line to the May primary for other offices. That amending action is contained in the trailer bill, S 1186. If the amending bill does not also get a thumbs up from the House, then there would simply be no presidential primary in Idaho for 2024. However, that was not the intent of the original bill, incomplete though it may have been. And that likely is not the intent of legislators in the lower chamber either. 

Nonetheless, S 1186 is not yet on the House calendar for when it is due to reconvene on Tuesday, March 28. New to the chamber, the bill would first have to go through committee, and although it has been referred to House State Affairs, S 1186 is not yet on the panel's docket. FHQ is not suggesting that the trailer bill will not be dealt with. It likely will be. The delay is only a function of the end-of-session logjam. 

But what is interesting is that the state Republican Party opposes the primary's shift to May, and it retains the ability to opt for earlier caucuses as a means of assessing presidential preference among Republicans in the state in 2024. Should the governor sign H 138, then proponents of the bill will have gotten at least part of what they wanted out of the 2023 regular session: they will have eliminated the separate presidential primary and saved the state more than $2 million. But the second part of this -- adding the presidential line to the May primary ballot -- becomes superfluous if the state Republican Party ultimately opts to caucus instead of using the later primary. 

The legislative delay at the end of this session, then, may provide legislators (if not the Idaho Republican Party) some time to consider those options in a way that may affect further progress on S 1186. In other words, that action could be saved for a special session (should one be called) after the Republican state central committee makes any decisions on its 2024 delegate selection process. The party may not want to conduct caucuses, but it also does not want such a late presidential primary. It would appear to be a bit of a lose-lose proposition for state Republicans at the moment. 

Yet, that is all speculative. The state legislature will answer some if not all of these questions as it presumably wraps up its regular session work in the week ahead. 

--
See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 
Posted by Josh Putnam at 9:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Share |

Friday, March 24, 2023

Kansas Committee OKs Amended Presidential Primary Bill

During a working session Friday morning, March 24, the state Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee (FSA) convened to markup SB 321, the bill to create a one-off presidential primary election for the 2024 cycle in Kansas. 





Posted by Josh Putnam at 3:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Share |

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Idaho Presidential Primary Bills Pass Senate

The two bills that would eliminate the stand-alone March presidential primary in Idaho and merge it with the May primaries for other offices passed the state Senate on Thursday, March 23. 


Posted by Josh Putnam at 7:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Share |

Kansas Presidential Primary Push Faces Friday Deadline

The Kansas state Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee convened on Thursday, March 23 to conduct a hearing on the newly introduced SB 321. Brought forth formally just one day prior, the measure would establish a presidential primary election in the Sunflower state for the 2024 cycle. 

The Thursday hearing was revealing for several reasons:
1. This bill is going to move fast if it is going to move at all. Across the legislature, committees face a deadline of Friday, March 24 to complete work on certain bills. SB 321 is among those certain bills. It faces a very quick trip from introduction one day to public hearing the next and finally followed by a working session after which there will be action to either pass the bill on to the Senate floor for consideration or leave it in committee. That working session will fall on deadline day and is still awaiting a fiscal note being delayed by counties who have been asked to quickly ascertain how much an additional election would cost at the local level. 

2. The principal driver behind the effort to reestablish the Kansas presidential primary is the state Republican Party. The state Democratic Party was unaware of the possible change.

3. While the state Republican Party entertained an earlier Super Tuesday date for the primary, March 19 -- the first Tuesday after March 15 -- was chosen in order for the party be able to allocate delegates in a winner-take-all manner. March 15 is important because that is the date before which truly winner-take-all allocation methods are prohibited by Republican National Committee rule. [This is something FHQ raised on social media earlier.]

4. The sponsor of the competing Senate bill to reestablish the presidential primary but pair it with the primaries for other offices spoke in favor of the new legislation. But Senator Caryn Tyson (R-12th, Anderson) urged the committee to consider consolidating the primaries to cut down on the total costs associated with carrying out nominating elections. [The Kansas secretary of state's office at the hearing roughly estimated -- again, without full input from the counties -- that the price tag would come in around $4.5 million. That expenditure may or may not be an issue for legislators.] Tyson continued that her bill was intended as a conversation starter on shifting to a primary and that the first Tuesday following the first Monday in May date was a suggestion based on how little it would overlap with the legislative session. A consolidated primary any earlier would have legislators campaigning and raising funds during the legislative session, a conflict of interest issue that often pops up in states when consolidated primaries are discussed. The cost savings may be tempting to legislators but the campaigning conflict may offset it. The bottom line with respect to Tyson's bill (SB 290) is that it is not going anywhere and the May timing may or may not be workable. One thing consolidation would do would be to permanently schedule all the primaries for a particular time. 

5. On a similar note, as mentioned in the post about the introduction of SB 321, this is a one-off action for 2024. That there would just be a presidential primary in 2024 was confirmed in the course of the hearing. Kansas would revert to a system in which the parties run the process in 2028 and beyond. The consolidation path would avoid that drawback.

6. The state Democratic Party was not present to comment on the bill or whether they would opt into a primary, if available. Kansas Democrats held a party-run primary by mail in 2020.

Given the haste with which this measure has already moved, it is likely that it will come out of committee in some form after the working session on March 24. There may be some changes, but it seems unlikely that any of the thornier issues like consolidation will be addressed. It would open a can of worms in a process that has already been maximally streamlined and can afford no delays given the deadlines facing the committee. 
Posted by Josh Putnam at 4:30 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Share |
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)