Close of Michigan Session Kills Presidential Primary Bill

The Michigan state legislature gaveled to a close on Tuesday, December 30. This was more a formal adjournment than anything else as no votes were taken. The real meat of the legislative day was the transmission of messages between the two chambers and between each and the executive branch.

Some of that dealt with late bills that were passed and to then be sent on to the governor. Other messages, however, were delivered informing the houses that the other had failed to act on a piece of legislation passed in the other originating chamber. The latter was the fate met by SB 1159. After the lame duck Senate passed the bill to move the Michigan presidential primary back into compliance with the national party rules -- from the fourth Tuesday in February to the third Tuesday in March -- the state House did not or was not able to act on it.

On December 30, the House informed the Senate of as much. When the chambers both adjourned sine die, then, the presidential primary bill died with it. However, the effort to shift the presidential primary in Michigan to a later date likely will not die as well. Again, this is a move endorsed by the Michigan Republican Party and driven in the legislature by the Senate majority leader. Republicans control both chambers of the Michigan legislature and the governor's mansion in the state. That does not mean that a shift in the Michigan primary calendar position is a sure thing, but it does mean that action to that end is likely forthcoming in the early part of the 2015 legislative session.

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Why is Florida on March 1 and Not March 15?

***UPDATE*** (3/3/15): Given the signal from the Republican Party of Florida, the state party will continue to utilize a form of winner-take-all delegate allocation. Under current Florida state law, that would put the 2016 Florida presidential primary on March 15.

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Original Post:
FHQ has spent the week looking at some of the extraneous aspects of the proposed SEC primary in 2016. Outside of that state-level effort yet very much related to it is the reality that there are couple of behemoth states -- Florida and Texas -- that have already occupied the calendar real estate that the SEC states are eyeing. To this point, FHQ has set each to the side. That should not be interpreted as any sort of suggestion that there are not issues attendant to the delegate selection processes in either state. Both Florida and Texas have their quirks where 2016 is concerned.

Florida first.

The state government in the Sunshine state actually seemingly deescalated its two-cycles-running battle with the national parties in 2013. That law mimicked the law passed in 2011 in one respect by not setting a specific date for the Florida presidential primary.¹ However, while there is no specific date included in the new law, the statute requires that the presidential preference primary fall on the first date on which there is no penalty from the two national parties. Here is that clause (important portion in bold):

Each political party other than a minor political party shall, at the presidential preference primary, elect one person to be the party's candidate for nomination for President of the United States or select delegates to the party's national nominating convention, as provided by party rule. The presidential preference primary shall be held in each year the number of which is a multiple of 4 on the first Tuesday that the rules of the major political parties provide for state delegations to be allocated without penalty. Any party rule directing the vote of delegates at a national nominating convention shall reasonably reflect the results of the presidential preference primary, if one is held.

That would seem to indicate March 1. The Republican National Committee has said no states other than the four carve-out state can hold a contest prior to the first Tuesday in March (March 1). Those states that choose to defy the rules in 2016 will face a significant reduction to their national convention delegation depending on the original size of that delegation. Most states would be knocked down to just 12 total delegates, but states with delegations smaller than 30 delegates will have their delegations shrunk to just nine delegates.

The Democratic National Committee has the same March 1 threshold for non-carve-out states in its rules. Yet those same rules lay out only a 50% delegation reduction penalty for violating states. The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee does retain the ability to increase the severity of that reduction if it deems such an action necessary.

Again, March 1 seems to be the landing spot for the Florida primary given the basic uniformity of the two parties' delegate selection rules.

There is, however [as always?], a catch to all of this. The RNC has another penalty that may affect the Sunshine state presidential primary calendar position. Florida not only conducted a presidential primary in 2012 on a non-compliant date but also allocated all of its convention delegates to the winner of the primary, Mitt Romney. That move by the state Republican Party was also in violation of the then-new proportionality requirement the RNC rolled out in 2012. For the 2016 cycle, any state with a contest before March 15 will have to include in its delegate allocation an element of proportionality. That is something the past plans of the Republican Party of Florida have lacked (at least since 2008).

Does that move Florida back to March 15? The quick answer is yes, but only if the Republican Party of Florida opts to maintain a winner-take-all allocation of national convention delegates. That has not always been the case. Prior to 2008, Florida Republicans utilized a winner-take-all by congressional district method of allocation. That changed for the 2008 cycle when a change in the RNC rules gave states a bit more leeway in choosing a winner-take-all plan. The rules change gave precedence to state party decisions over state law and opened the door to a greater use of true winner-take-all allocation plans. That national party rule stands, but Florida Republicans hold the key to when the presidential primary in the Sunshine state will be scheduled.

A true winner-take-all allocation means a March 15 primary.

A plan with some element of proportionality would put the primary on March 1.

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¹ In the 2011 law, the state legislature ceded the power to set the date of the presidential preference primary to a nine member committee set by the governor, the president of the state Senate and the speaker of the state House. While that group opted to defy the national parties' delegate selection rules on timing, that was not something mandated by the law. That was a departure from the 2007 law that set the date for the final Tuesday in January, in direct violation of the national party rules.


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Happy New Year

FHQ wants to wish everyone a happy 2015. States reacting throughout the coming year to the national party delegate selection rules finalized last year should give us all plenty to mull over as 2016 approaches.

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Will a Calendar Bump Up Mean More Candidate Visits in SEC Primary States?

Just this morning Alabama Secretary of State-elect, John Merrill (R) clearly added his voice to the chorus of SEC presidential primary supporters in an op-ed at Yellowhammer News. He repeated a variation of the refrain that has become one of the go-to lines during the frontloading wave of the post-McGovern-Fraser reforms era:

"The main goal of this effort is to create an environment that forces candidates to appeal to the an even larger and more complete constituency than they currently do. Southerners, and more specifically Alabamians, represent a largely conservative, working class group of voters, but because of the timing of our primary elections, our calls for more conservative candidates have gone unheard."

...
"As your Secretary of State and Chief Elections Official, I will do all that I can to help position the South — and more specifically Alabama — as a place that all Presidential candidates will make an effort to visit and meet our remarkable people." [Emphasis is FHQ's.]

This echoes what Merrill's counterpart in neighboring Mississippi, Delbert Hosemann, has said:

"With Georgia, and Tennessee and Arkansas and Louisiana we are putting together a group where we would have a super SEC Tuesday where basically the candidates would have to come through Mississippi before they got elected president of the United States. Both Democrats and Republicans." [Again, emphasis is FHQ's.]

But would moves by Alabama or Mississippi or Arkansas to earlier dates on the 2016 presidential primary calendar do anything to really improve the lot of southern states in terms of attention paid them by the various presidential candidates in 2016? That remains to be seen. Such moves have not been a cure-all for states in the South or elsewhere in the past. Both Merrill and Hosemann seem to be talking about this as an increase in visits/attention. That may be the case, but it could also be that these states are merely splitting up a finite number of visits -- or visits within a rather finite window of time -- and aren't necessarily gaining attention to issues of, say, the Deep South. Is a visit to Texas or Tennessee a proxy visit to Alabama or Mississippi, for example?

If the focus shifts to a micro-examination of just those states looking to move to March 1 to be a part of the so-called SEC primary the advantages -- as measured by candidate visits -- are not all that clear.

Total Presidential Candidate Visits by SEC Primary States (2000-2012)
State	20001	20041	20082	20123
Alabama	0	5	13	27
Arkansas	0	10	16	1
Georgia	2	32	38	47
Mississippi	0	1	13	20
1 Data from Ridout and Rottinghaus (2008). The 2000 data are via the Washington Post; gathered from October 1, 1999-primary season 2000. Hotline provided the 2004 data; gathered from June 1, 2003-primary season 2004. 2 Data from Frontloading HQ via Slate.com Map the Candidates visits tracker. 3 Data from the Washington Post Campaign 2012 Republican Primary Tracker; gathered from June 2011-primary season 2012. * For the calendar dates of the contests in these from 2000-2012 click on the year.

Clearly earlier is better (see Ridout and Rottinghaus 2008; Mayer and Busch 2003). Alabama and Arkansas were lodged in June and late May primaries respectively in 2000 and 2004 while Georgia and Mississippi were in March in those years. Georgia benefited. Mississippi did not. Georgia has consistently been scheduled on the earliest date allowed by the national parties during this period (save 2004) and was delegate-rich enough to draw attention from the candidates despite being on dates shared by a large number of states.

In 2008, all of the above states were scheduled on the first Tuesday in February with the exception of Mississippi which as a month later on the second Tuesday in March. All gained over the previous couple of cycles.¹ Mississippi was later on the calendar but took advantage of the fact that it was the lone contest on its date in the midst of a tightly contested two-candidate race for the Democratic nomination.

As we look toward 2016, however, 2012 may be not only a decent guide but a cautionary tale for this. Arkansas was both late and after the point at which most of the Republican candidates had dropped out of the Republican nomination race.² The Natural state got one lone visit from Herman Cain. The other states potentially moving to a March 1 SEC primary for 2016 were earlier on the 2012 calendar. Georgia incrementally gained over 2008 despite just one party having a contested nomination race and sharing the most crowded date on the calendar with 11 other states; the earliest date allowed by the national party delegate selection rules.

Alabama and Mississippi were together a week later. The Deep South duo's power in 2012 may have been their sub-regional contiguity and that together the two dominated a day that also included caucuses in Hawaii and the American Samoa (neither large draws).

That raises questions if not red flags for a move for 2016 for those latter couple of states. Does a move away from a date that still finds Alabama and Mississippi dominant and to a date shared by a number of larger southern states (Florida, Georgia and Texas among them) net more or fewer visits in 2016 over 2012? If Ohio vacates March 8 to join a later March midwestern primary, would it not be more beneficial to stick with a date you dominate versus a date shared with others? Is a visit to Texas -- a regional visit -- the same as a candidate visit in Alabama or Mississippi?

These are tough questions to answer for state actors who have a limited state legislative session window in which to act in the spring of the year before the primary. And these folks tend to be risk-averse. Alabama and Mississippi would only gain by sticking with a later date is the nomination races are ongoing once they get to the second Tuesday in March. The field may be winnowed too much by then dropping the number of visits to either.

This is the mindset that has dominated the frontloading era. Move up or get left behind. But it isn't clear in this instance that states in the South will receive the attention they crave. In the meantime, decision makers in both Alabama and Mississippi seem to have forgotten what they gained in 2012 with their sub-regional coalition. Surely "cheesy grits" would have proven more memorable to elected officials in the Deep South.

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¹ Some of that has to do with how and when the visits data was gathered, but some of that also has a great deal to do with how many parties had contested/competitive campaigns and how many candidates were involved in the race at the time of the primaries in these states.

² Romney had not clinched enough delegates to assume the mantle of presumptive nominee, but was approaching that mark with only Ron Paul actively running in the later primary states.


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Why Getting Arkansas into an SEC Primary is More Difficult

As the 2015 state legislative sessions draw nearer, primary movement for the 2016 cycle is back on the radar. Lately, much of that discussion has centered on the possibility of a southern regional primary forming on the first date allowed by the national parties, March 1. As FHQ has mentioned previously, this effort is being spearheaded by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R). Secretary Kemp has reached out to his counterparts in a number of other SEC states to gauge their interest in their states -- Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi -- joining Georgia (and a number of other southern and border states) on March 1.

Louisiana has already bumped their primary up in 2014 and is not necessarily eager to shift -- even if only slightly -- again.

Alabama and Mississippi coordinated their primary dates on the second Tuesday in March for 2012. Neither state would seemingly face too much resistance to moving up another week for 2016.

In Georgia, the power to set the presidential primary date lies with the secretary of state and Kemp seems more than inclined to keep Georgia on the first Tuesday in March for a second straight cycle.

There is also some interest in Arkansas, but the decision-making calculus on moving the presidential primary is different in the Natural state than it is in the other states. That is true for a few reasons:

When the Arkansas presidential primary was shifted up for the 1988 and 2008 cycles, the decision was made to create an all new and separate presidential primary election at an earlier point on the calendar. Traditionally, the majority of Arkansas primary elections have been consolidated in mid- to late May. In 1988 and 2008, everything but the presidential primary stayed in May while a presidential primary was created and moved into March and February, respectively.

Relatedly, to do that again, Arkansas state legislators would have to consider whether to incur the costs associated with a separate presidential primary as has been the case in the past. In 2008, that meant an extra $1.7 million to conduct that additional election. The alternative is to do what Alabama and Mississippi have done: consolidate all primary elections on the earlier presidential primary date. Mississippi has been doing this for years, but Alabama shifted both its presidential primary from February to March and its other primaries from June to March in 2008.

Arkansas could follow suit. But there is one catch that was raised in 2009 when Arkansas legislators were considering (and ultimately deciding on) eliminating the presidential primary and consolidating it with the other 2012 primaries. A constitutional amendment was passed by Arkansas voters in 2008 that moved the state legislatures sessions from biennially to annually. Annual sessions meant that the possibility existed for campaigning and fundraising to take place (for state legislators) during the state legislative session, violating a self-imposed rule (for those activities not to overlap). A March 1 [consolidated] primary would fall in the midst of the 2016 state legislative session.

So, in Arkansas it is a decision between the financial costs of creating and scheduling an earlier presidential primary or breaking the norm of state legislators campaigning/fundraising during their legislative session. The former has been the (less cost-effective) precedent in Arkansas in the past while the latter will potentially serve as a deterrent to moving up. Every additional roadblock makes moving a presidential primary forward and joining the proposed SEC primary that much more difficult, and Arkansas has a list of obstacles that other southern states involved do not have. That does not mean the presidential primary in the Natural state will not end up on March 1. Rather, it does indicate a more difficult path to that end.

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But Southern States Will Have to Be Proportional

Throughout 2014 the idea of a southern regional primary has gathered some steam. Thanks to the efforts of Georgia Secretary of State, Brian Kemp (R), that has taken hold among a handful of secretaries of state across the Deep South and gotten some scrutiny in the media as well. Most of that examination tends to focus on the Republican side of the looming 2016 presidential nomination contest. The partisan focus in combination with the likely March 1 date for the proposed SEC presidential primary comes with the typical caveats about the Republican National Committee requirement for a proportional allocation of delegates for any contest held before March 15.

In other words, southern states are going to potentially cluster their contests on the earliest date allowed by the major parties, but with the implication that they will have to dilute the significance of the primaries by allocating delegates in a proportional manner; not winner-take-all.

But here's the thing (actually two things, but bear with me): 2012 showed that that dilution was not all that strong in the first place. That has something to do with the dispersion of primaries and caucuses across the calendar, but also is a function of the RNC definition of "proportional". Proportional does not mean proportional in the mathematical sense. Rather, it means that one candidate cannot receive all of a state's bound delegates (unless that candidate receives a majority of the statewide vote in a given primary, for example). Proportional simply means not winner-take-all.

For southern states considering a shift up to March 1 to be a part of this SEC primary, though, there is another important layer to add: They were all "proportional" in 2012. With the exception of Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas, every southern state had a primary or caucuses before April 1.¹ And regardless of timing, all southern states either already had or transitioned an allocation plan with the necessary proportional element for 2012. Alabama was proportional. Georgia was proportional. Mississippi was proportional. Arkansas was funky, but it was proportional too (...even in late May).

There may be some revisions to those plans by state Republican parties in 2015, but across the states that are a part of this proposed SEC primary, the allocation plans are already proportional.

Will that dilute the power of the South on March 1, 2016? Perhaps, but recall that Democratic contests during the 1988 Southern Super Tuesday were proportional also. That fact did not hurt the southern states then as much as the diversity of winners of contests on that second Tuesday in March in 1988.

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¹ April 1 was the threshold before which states had to allocate delegates proportionally in 2012. That was shifted up to March 15 by the RNC for 2016.

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Louisiana not inclined to join 'SEC' presidential primary day in 2016

The story from the Times-Picayune.

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A couple of notes:
1. Louisiana, as the story notes, has already moved its presidential primary for the 2016 cycle. Moving again would be fairly atypical. States, if they move at all, usually only move once per cycle. Double moves happen, but they are rare and recent occurrences. Both California and New Jersey moved twice ahead of 2008.¹

2. This would likely be a wise move on Louisiana's part. A Saturday, March 5 primary would be proximate enough -- regionally and on the calendar -- to the proposed SEC primary on March 1 to benefit from the regional attention. However, being on a separate date means that Louisiana would be less likely to be lost in the shuffle among larger neighboring states (with more delegates) on March 1. During the following week, March 8 is also a point on the calendar that is sparsely populated with contests. That is particularly true if Alabama and Mississippi move up a week; leaving only Ohio and the Hawaii Republican caucuses. Such a line up is unlikely to pull the campaign immediately out of the South following March 1.

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¹ California moved from March to June before moving into February. New Jersey first moved up to late February before bumping the Garden state primary up a few more weeks to early February.

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A Couple of Reasons the 2016 Texas Presidential Primary Isn't Going Anywhere

There's been a nice call and response between James Hohmann at Politico and Patrick Svitek at the Houston Chronicle over the 2016 presidential primary in Texas the last few days.

Hohmann's deep dive on the proposed SEC primary sharing a date with primaries in Texas and Florida included this side note:

Some GOP insiders believe that Florida and Texas will opt to push back their primaries until later in March. Under the new RNC rules, states that wait until March 15 can have “winner take all” primaries, with the candidate receiving the most votes collecting all of a state’s delegates. The potential presidential candidates from Florida and Texas are likely to prefer that.

The response from Texas Republicans was a mix of "meh" and "we're not moving' (from March 1)".

FHQ tends to agree with Texas Republicans for a few reasons. I don't know who the GOP (RNC?) insiders Hohmann spoke to, but the proportionality rule has not played out at all as an enticement to larger states moving back to later dates on the primary calendar. [The statement seems more like wishful thinking than theory of presidential primary movement.] State-level actors have not reacted by both moving back and adopting winner-take-all allocation rules. States may shift the dates of their primaries and caucuses around. However, most state parties tend to choose the path of least resistance when it comes to their method of delegate allocation. Most of the time that translates to states not changing the rules they used the last time unless they are forced to.

States that move back are not forced to adopt a winner-take-all allocation method. Those states do, however, have that option. They just tend to stick with what they had allocation-wise the previous cycle, though.

Look no further than Texas in 2012. Had the redistricting process not gotten bogged down in the courts, the Texas presidential primary would have been the first Tuesday in March (as called for by Texas law). Since the redistricting battle dragged into 2012, the Texas primary got forced back into May. The shift did not come with a switch to winner-take-all rules. In fact, Texas Republicans kept the true proportional method of allocation the party passed in late 2011. Once that change was made, Texas Republicans were resistant to changing it, mainly because the state party rules prevented them from making a change outside of a state convention setting.¹

Of course, Texas delegate allocation methods are not the only area of the delegate selection rules where Texans have been slow to react over the years. This also extends to the state government moving the primary date around. This is something that Texas Republican National Committeeman, Robin Armstrong in Stivek's piece seems to be projecting onto states that are part of the SEC primary proposal: state legislatures derailing a potential move. Texas moved its primary to the second Tuesday in March for the 1988 cycle -- the Southern Super Tuesday. That was the date used for the presidential primary in the Lone Star state through the 2004 cycle. Then, when other states were moving up into February -- when it was still allowed by both parties -- for 2004 and 2008, the Texas legislature managed to bump the primary up to the only the first Tuesday in March; just a week earlier.²

So, FHQ is not of the opinion that the Texas presidential primary is going anywhere in 2016. No one has been eager to jump back on the calendar in order to get winner-take-all rules and Texas has had a history of resisting these sorts of changes (calendar and delegate allocation).

There is also an additional reason, but I'll save a discussion of that for a separate post in the next week or so.

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Let me also weigh in on Armstrong's theory that only a couple of states will move into this SEC primary slot on March 1. That has always been likely. Georgia has the flexibility to move there because the secretary of state in the Peach state sets the date. Additionally, Alabama and Mississippi seem likely to move as well. Arkansas has conflicts as FHQ has discussed previously and Louisiana has already shifted its primary up to an earlier Saturday in March than it used in 2012. The Pelican state is unlikely to move again.

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¹ There is an exception for emergencies, but a switch to winner-take-all rules is not necessarily an emergency.

² The move to that date had been made before and for the 2004 cycle, but redistricting kept that from coming to fruition for 2004. 2008 was the first cycle that law was implemented. Redistricting then pushed the primary date back to May during 2012.

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Nebraska Democrats Commit to Caucuses for 2016

During the weekend of December 13-14 the Nebraska Democratic Party voted to conduct their delegate selection/allocation process through a caucuses/convention system. From NDP chair, Vince Powers:

The NDP after a robust discussion voted today to hold caucuses for the 2016 Presidential nomination. @NebraskaDems @LJSdon @RobynnTysver
— Vince Powers (@vince_powers) December 14, 2014

The party switched from utilizing the mid- to late May primary in the Cornhusker state to caucuses for the 2008 cycle and retained the process in 2012. Such a move gives the NDP the flexibility to set the date of the precinct caucuses that the Nebraska Unicam did not or does not provide under the primary law.

In the wake of changes to the Republican National Committee rules changes -- particularly those attempting to facilitate an earlier convention -- there was talk of amending a bill in the spring of 2014 to shift the date of the primary to an earlier spot on the 2016 primary calendar. That legislation was never amended but did provide more state government guidance on the delegate selection process (primarily on the binding of those delegates to candidates).

The delegate selection plan Nebraska Democrats used in 2012, if carried over in 2016, would pass muster under the new law.

Left unclear by the NDP is when the precinct caucuses will take place in 2016. That decision will be made in 2015.

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Michigan Presidential Primary Move Bottled Up in State House Until After Christmas

The Michigan legislature stretched what was to be its last day of the 2014 session working well into Friday morning on an 11 bill package with a sales tax increase to fund road repairs.

What the state House did not get to was the Senate-passed legislation that would move the presidential primary in the Wolverine state to March. What that means for SB 1159 is somewhat unclear. Both the Michigan House and Senate have adjourned (for the time being), but the 2014 session may not have been gaveled closed yet. As of this writing, the Michigan Legislature web site is showing that the state House is adjourned until Tuesday, December 30 at 11:30am.¹ That may provide a window in which the presidential primary could be passed. Otherwise, it may simply be a casualty of a countdown clock that reached all zeroes.

Regardless, the presidential primary move to March is an idea endorsed by the state Republican Party and got broad bi-partisan support in the state Senate. SB 1159 may die somewhere in the committee-to-floor transition for 2014, but the presidential primary shift is something that will very likely be revived in 2015.

For now, though, the 2016 Michigan presidential primary remains in February, non-compliant with national party delegate selection rules.

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¹ The Senate has already acted on this, so as long as the House passes the bill in its Senate-passed form, it will be enrolled by/in the Senate. That would, of course, require the Senate to be in session in late December as well. Michigan Senate offices are closed December 22-January 4.

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