More Notes on Yesterday's Democratic Change Commission Meeting

Commission member, Suzi LeVine, once again has provided us all with what she called in an email to me her "copious notes" on the events that transpired at the two part meeting a day ago.

Copious indeed. Still the best firsthand account of what is going on in these meetings. Check it out and I'll be back later with some broader comments on what transpired.


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Democratic Change Commission Meeting #2: Timing

Frank Leone over at DemRulz is on the scene in Washington and has a rundown of the morning half of the Change Commission's meeting. The group picked up with what they were to have addressed during their August meeting (postponed due to Ted Kennedy's funeral): public comments on the issues the group is charged with examining.

Let's look at what was discussed on the issue of timing (Would you expect anything less from Frontloading HQ?). From DemRulz:

"Curtis Gans, Director of the Study of the American Electorate at American University made a presentation. He criticized the 1988 Super Tuesday Southern primary for starting the race to early primaries; this resulted in a process based on “state selfishness.” It is more important to select the best person to be president than for a state to get more attention. He recommended a bipartisan, durable system with less frontloading and less moving around. He recommended starting with smaller, diverse, individual primaries, and a spread-out process – not regional primaries. Regional primaries may result in different candidates representing different regions and split the party. He opposes a rotation where it all changes every four years. He favors a long process which worked this year, allowing candidates flexibility to skip certain states, 20-day filing deadlines to allow new candidates to file. Spread out individual primaries will encourage grassroots and discourage negative campaigning – if you have 20 primaries on one day, you need to rely on negative TV. He would prefer to start the whole process in March, but is okay with IA, NH, SC, and NV going early — it worked well in 2008. In response to a question from Jeff Berman, he stated that there is an opportunity for cooperation with RNC in setting calendar and the GOP is likely to agree on starting date."

...and also...

"Hon. Dan Blue (Comm. Member, NC State Senator) – late primaries can be good. In 2008, NC linked the presidential primary with state office primaries, the late primary got a lot of attention, and Obama and Democratic candidates won in November. Grouping of 29 states on the same day is crazy – you need to break it up, spread out process."

Gans is right to blame 1988, but the idea of a Southern primary movement had its origins in the mid-1970s and was actually begun when Georgia and Alabama moved to coincide with Florida in 1980 (at the Carter administration’s behest). At the time, New Hampshire and Massachusetts were early and gave Kennedy a potential leg up in the race. So, it didn’t actually start off as state selfishness so much as the administration’s need to regain the 1980 nomination. By 1988, when the other Southern states moved, that had morphed into state (or regional really) selfishness.

The proposals are nice to see and it is great to idealize what happened a year ago, but I still don’t see any incentive structure to get any of the bloc of early states to move back in the process. The bonus delegate regime has not been effective and the winner-take-all proposal for later states is flawed. Bipartisanship would help, but both parties have to stand unified behind any plan they construct together.

Leone then adds his thoughts:

"My thoughts: The most important point re timing is that the DNC (even with the RNC) does not have the power to set a single primary date and is not writing on a blank slate. State legislatures set primary schedules and proposed changes need to account for political realities – like IA and NH are going to go first. Thus I believe that a rotating process, consisting of changing dates in every state every four years is a non-starter. Super regional primaries, that don’t change, do run the risk of favoring candidates from certain regions (although famously this was not the case in the 1988 Super Tuesday Southern primary). Mini-regional primaries, like last year’s Potomac Primary (VA, DC, MD), allow campaigns to focus their resources and states should consider such groupings. As to the basic schedule – a long term process, starting in March for most states (with the now traditional early states of IA, NH, SC, and NV going after Feb. 1) makes sense. Spreading out primaries, using bonus delegates, as was the case with NC and other states this year also allows for a full vetting of candidates and should result in a better choice."

Exactly right. Regional primaries are simply just a no-go from a state legislative standpoint. It is inherently unfair because both parties don't always have contested nomination races every year. As a result, some segment of the primary electorate on one or both sides of the partisan aisle may miss out on having an impact on their party's nomination when their state gets to go early. That alone will pit Democratic-controlled state legislatures against Republican-controlled ones.

Again though, to think of and idealize the North Carolinas and Pennsylvanias and Indianas just because they lucked out and happened to have a protracted battle fall into their laps, doesn't mean that it is possible to make states go later (or at the very best to incentivize them doing so). That assumes that the Clinton-Obama nomination race is the new normal. It could be, but I doubt it.

There's a lot of talk about the bonus delegate system and how North Carolina benefited from it in 2008. Yes, they gained, but only because they had a higher barrier to frontloading than other states had. If the Tarheel state did not hold its primaries for state and local offices on the same date as their presidential primary, they likely would have moved as well. But moving from the North Carolina General Assembly meant more than just moving to an earlier date; it meant funding an all new election (for the presidential primary) or moving everything else up. The latter is seen as a negative because that would affect turnout in down-ballot primaries in which the legislators themselves are involved (see Atkeson and Maestas).

On further on that point, Leone adds:

"Note – It was claimed that most states have presidential and state primaries on the same day, but it’s not clear that this is true and certainly hasn’t been true in Virginia."

Most states DO NOT have their state and local primaries in conjunction with their presidential primaries. That is the main reason that most of the states that have moved over the years have been able to do so.

I have shown that in my own research (Shameless, FHQ, shameless.). Prior to 1996, states with split primaries (presidential and state/local) were about 7 times more likely to make a move forward. After 1996, that dropped to only 2 times more likely. But still states with concurrent primary structures (still the minority) are less likely to move forward. That claim, then, is false. Where it is partially true is when you look at ONLY primary states. Once caucus states are considered (and most of them are held apart from the nominating contests for other offices), it is not the case. That is why caucus states have a much easier time of moving. [Dare I cite myself again? Oh, what the heck.]

I catch a lot of flack for being a negative nellie and shooting down all these ideas. That really isn't the case. I've made a career of looking at the unintended consequences of rules changes to the presidential primary process. My main argument has always been that if you are going to make reforms you absolutely have to take into consideration all of the potential unintended consequences. Otherwise, there is a risk that the reform measures just make things worse. Besides, from a Democratic perspective, the system did just work rather effectively. Obama is in the White House. [Well, some may have preferred having a Clinton in the White House.] Granted, it has worked well from a GOP perspective in the past as well.

I think the proposals to spread the calendar out are the right way to go, but there just has not been an effective incentive structure proposed that would offset the state-level desire to move forward on the calendar. The first step in getting to that point, in my opinion, is have both parties work together to create a unified reform. Without that, states will continue to have the ability to pit the two parties' rule structures against each other as a means of maintaining the status quo.


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Reminder: Democratic Change Commission Meets Tomorrow in Washington

Reminder: Democratic Change Commission Meets Tomorrow in Washington

The Democratic Change Commission, which is reviewing the Democratic Party presidential nomination process will meet on Saturday, October 24, 2009, at 9:30 (tentative) at the Capital Hilton, 1001 16th Street, NW, Washington DC. The Commission will continue to focus on state nomination process calender, superdelegates, and caucuses.

FHQ will be scouring the web for updates and news and posting them here. Here are a few links I'll be keeping an eye on:

DCC Member Twitter feeds:
Claire McCaskill
Suzi LeVine (Oh, and here is her blog where she posted some great material following the first meeting. She's already alerted folks following her Twitter feed that she'll be posting updates on her site. Now, whether that happens tomorrow or later is yet to be determined, but this remains a great place for firsthand accounts from inside the process.)
Rebecca Prozan
Joan Garry

DemRulz (Frank Leone had a great live blog from the first meeting in Washington. He has already said he will reprise that role tomorrow. Here, too, is his Twitter feed.)

DemConWatch (I don't know what Matt's plans are, but we had a nice discussion going between our respective blogs during the weekend of the first meeting back in late June.)


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Nevermind: Democratic Change Commission Meeting Postponed

I don't know how I missed this on Thursday (I suppose there are only so many times you can search "Democratic Change Commission" in Google News. At least the news broke after I wrote that all was quiet.), but in the wake of the Kennedy death and funeral, the DNC postponed the Change Commission's meeting "until further notice."

Here's the write-up from the Boston Globe's Political Intelligence blog:

Here comes word of the latest cancellation out of respect for the passing of Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

A Democratic Party panel that is taking another look at the presidential nominating process -- likely including the timing of the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire -- was scheduled to meet Saturday in St. Louis.

That will be the day of Kennedy's funeral in Boston, expected to draw many Democratic leaders.

The Democratic National Committee said the meeting of the Democratic Change Commission has been postponed until further notice. The panel, created last year, is to address "1) changing the window of time during which primaries and caucuses may be held 2) reducing the number of superdelegates and 3) improving the caucus system."

The commission must issue its report and recommendations to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee no later than Jan. 1.

There's really nothing new in there other than the delay of the meeting (That January 1, 2010 deadline looms, too though, I suppose). And with the third meeting scheduled for October 24, the panel has a bit of time during September for another meeting. But I wouldn't be surprised if they rolled the second and third meetings into one in October. And I'm going to throw this out there too: It would be nice if they would hold this meeting in the home state of the other commission co-chair, Jim Clyburn (This second meeting was in co-chair Claire McCaskill's home in the Show-Me state.). And yes, I say that for completely selfish reasons. It is far easier to go from North Carolina to South Carolina than it is to go from the Tarheel state to DC or Missouri.


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Reminder: Democratic Change Commission Meets Tomorrow in St. Louis

The Democratic Change Commission kicks off its second meeting tomorrow morning at 9:30am in St. Louis. A quick glance at C-SPAN's schedules for tomorrow shows that the network and all its various channels will be focused on the Kennedy funeral* instead (That's probably as it should be.), which means that interested parties will be without live (or even taped) coverage of the event. Considering that the event is billed as being open to public comment, that's too bad. But under the circumstances, it is understandable.

But never fear, FHQ will be scouring the web for updates and news and posting them here. Here are a few links I'll be keeping an eye on:

DCC Member Twitter feeds:
Claire McCaskill
Suzi LeVine (Oh, and here is her blog where she posted some great material following the first meeting.)
Rebecca Prozan
Joan Garry

DemRulz (Frank Leone had a great live blog from the first meeting in Washington. I don't know that he'll reprise his role tomorrow. Here, too, is his Twitter feed.)

DemConWatch (I'm sure Matt will be actively covering this as well and I'll likely be pulling double duty and cross-posting over there too.)

I'll add others when and if I come across them. And if there's any interest, I'll open up a thread for comment-in-real-time in the morning. Just let me know in the comments section if you're interested.

*Speaking of the Kennedy funeral, I wonder what effect that event will have on attendance at tomorrow's meeting. It seems like several members of the 37 member group examining the reform of the presidential nomination process would be inclined to attend. Chairs Claire McCaskill and Jim Clyburn would be particularly conflicted to some degree I'd imagine, having served on the Hill with Kennedy (Rep. Clyburn, from his position in the House, didn't serve directly with Kennedy, but Sen. McCaskill did.). I suppose they could appear "via satellite" from Boston/Washington if they had to.


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All Quiet on the Democratic Change Commission Front

All Quiet on the Democratic Change Commission Front

Understandably Ted Kennedy's passing has Democrats thinking about other things today, but even before that, there was and continues to be an almost total absence of the Democratic Change Commission in the news this week ahead of the group's weekend meeting in St. Louis. Normally, I wouldn't make that big a deal of this, especially considering that real news of the DCC's first meeting didn't start filtering out until the Wednesday before. Even then, that scant news was able to cut through a week that involved Mark Sanford's adultery admission new conference and Michael Jackson's death. [What a week!] To me, though, this is troubling because this is the meeting that is supposed to be open for public comment. Yet, we've heard nothing from the party since the August 7 press release announced the online suggestions form.

There are however a couple of suggestions that are floating around out there that may see the light of day this weekend in Missouri.

1) End the Texas Two Step: Caucuses are definitely on the Commission's to-do list, but this is a tricky one. The problem some see in the primary-caucus set up in the Lone Star state is that primary voters' votes are discounted because not all primary voters return for the night cap caucus. That's all well and good, but this is still an issue that pits the national party against the state party; specifically a longstanding state party preference. And yes, the Democrats are more willing to strike down these types of structural anomalies than to yield to the states as the Republican Party typically does.

There's also the issue of Obama's preference. The system in Texas did allow him to best Hillary Clinton in the Texas delegate count once the caucus portion was tabulated in June. This still seems like a Clinton/Obama holdover to me; one that will be left to Texas Democrats to decide. And yes, the Texas Democratic Party has already been looking into the issue. I should also note that each state has to submit a delegate selection plan to the Democratic Party for approval (or will in 2011). The party does have the power to strike that down if they wish. But Texas can pull a Florida/Michigan move and hold a primary-caucus anyway. Both Florida and Michigan submitted plans that called for their 2008 primaries to be during the party-sanctioned period; not outside the window where they were ultimately held.

2) Be more youth friendly: The DNC Youth Council also penned a letter to the DCC and asked that the group attempt to insure that contests don't occur too early. The argument there is that contests like Iowa's January 3 caucuses occurred at a time when students were still at home on winter break. That is a legitimate concern, but seems to be moot given that the DCC seems committed to pulling back the opening of the window in which contests can take place into March again.

The Youth Council's other issue is with Saturday caucuses. Again, the concern is that weekend working youth would be disadvantaged. Some in the Jewish community may be willing to go along with the Youth Council on this one. Of course, now I really want to go and check out both the youth and Jewish proportion of the population in Saturday caucus states. In 2008 that list included Nebraska, Nevada, Washington and Wyoming. [Louisiana and South Carolina held Saturday primaries and Maine Democrats had a Sunday caucus.] This one will be talked about, because the effects aren't understood very well. There are pros and cons to having and not having weekend contests.

These and other public comments will be interesting to track throughout the Democratic Change Commission's meeting on Saturday. [No word yet on whether the DNC Youth Council has a problem with the day of this particular meeting and how that bodes for their argument. Oh, but the irony.]


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