Has the RNC Set a Later Starting Date for the First Primaries and Caucuses?

Dan Balz and Philip Rucker had a really nice piece up yesterday on the soon-to-be-revealed RNC rules for 2016 Republican presidential debates. FHQ weighed in on this a year and a half ago and will look at the specifics when they are released later.

But there was one -- probably throw-away -- sentence toward the end of the article that was just plain wrong and bears some isolated consideration:

"The RNC has also set a later starting date for the first caucuses and primaries."

Now, the point was to say that the debate rules in combination with the calendar rules were intended to affect the nomination process and produce a nominee who could win in the general election. Point taken, but the RNC, when it finalized its rules last August, did not include any new provision in terms of the start of primary season.

The intention of the rules in 2016  (see Rule 16.c.1), as was the case in 2012, was to have the carve-out states go in February and every other state follow in March or later. Of course, mentioning the intention of a rule more than hints at the coordination game political parties play in the effort to nominate a presidential candidate. The national parties create the rules to govern the nomination process and the states decide how to fit into those guidelines with their portion of the process or whether ignore/flout those guidelines.

What the RNC did do was twofold:
1. First, the RNC made the carve-out states more mobile in 2016 than they were in 2012. The 2012 rules confined Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to February. The four could not earlier than the first Tuesday in February without also risking penalty from the national party. In 2016, that point is not fixed to a particular date on the calendar. Instead, the carve-out states can go as early as a month before the next earliest contest (without penalty). If North Carolina, for instance, holds a January 1 primary, then the four carve-outs could go as early as December 1, 2015.¹ This provides additional protection to those four states and essentially ensures that they will not be penalized.

2. Speaking of penalties, to prevent the carve-outs from being forced into dates earlier than early February, the RNC also added a more severe penalty for non-carve-out states. The super penalty -- via the new Bennett rule (see rule 17.a) -- would reduce a state delegation to just 9 or 12 delegates, depending on the size of the delegation.²

So it is all ideally sequential.
1. Non-carve-out states, warded off by the super penalty, stay out of February.
2. The carve-outs then have February to themselves.
3. The start of primary season is in February and not right after New Year's.

But it is all ideally sequential. If states opt to break the timing rules or cannot find a path to compliance (North Carolina?), then it all breaks down. The RNC, then, has not set a later start to primary season. It has set rules that they hope will facilitate such a start, but it will be up to the states to decide if they want to play along with that.

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¹ No, this not likely.

² States with delegations of 30 or more would be reduced to 12 delegates while those with 29 or fewer delegates would see them cut to just nine.

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Post-2014 State Government Partisan Control and 2016 Presidential Primary Movement

Four years ago, the story coming out of the 2010 midterm elections was what newly Republican-controlled state governments would do in power. The tale from the 2014 postmortems has been much the same. Indeed, Republicans now control both chambers of state legislatures and gubernatorial seats in 23 states (see map below).¹ That can and will have a significant impact on policy-making in states covering most of the regions of the country.

It could also influence the way in which the 2016 presidential primary calendar develops and hardens throughout 2015.

Whether a state government is unified or divided along partisan lines is a factor in the calculus that state governmental actors go through when making the decision to shift the date of the state's presidential primary.² Again, Republicans have stretched their advantage in state government over the last four years. Yet, conditions are different in 2011 than they are in 2015. State governmental control may play a role in any subsequent primary movement, but it plays a smaller role than other factors.

That is consistent with what FHQ has found for the 1976-2008 period. Throughout that span structural, state-level factors played a much larger role in the determination to shift the date of a primary. For instance, a state such as Arkansas in 2015 is forced to decide between moving the presidential primary together with the primaries for state and local offices or creating a separate presidential primary election that can be moved more easily but incurs the cost of funding that new, separate election. That is a sterner test than in a state like Florida where the presidential primary was separate at the outset of the post-reform era. The costs of moving are greater in Arkansas than in Florida.

Incumbency in the White House also matters in this calculus. This may differ in the currently more polarized era, but in the 1976-2008 period, the floodgates have tended to open up in terms of primary movement in years in which both parties have competitive presidential nomination races. In other words, if there is no incumbent seeking reelection, both parties members in state government are potentially more motivated to help their party -- whether candidates, their state or the partisan voters in the state -- to gain some advantage. Actors on the state governmental level are hypothetically more cautious when an incumbent is running for reelection. Partisan conflicts are more likely to occur when one party is attempting to reelect a president while the other is trying to determine which candidate would be best suited to unseating that incumbent. The I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine mindset gives way to its every man for himself.

The interesting thing is that the 2012 and 2016 cycles may break from that pattern to some extent. 2012 saw a significant amount of primary movement for a year in which an incumbent was seeking reelection. By comparison, 2016 is off to a much slower start (despite both parties having open nomination contests). The reason is the semi-coordinated rules changes between 2008 and 2012. Both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee allowed states to hold delegate selection events in February for the 2008 cycle.³ That resulted in a primary calendar in 2008 that began on the heels of New Years, stretching the calendar and in some respects the process out. Neither wanted repeat of that in 2012. The solution was an informal agreement to shift the start point back to February with the majority of states -- those other than the four carve-out states -- being restricted to March or later dates.

That change put 18 primary states in the national parties' crosshairs in January 2011. 18 states had laws calling for February (or earlier) presidential primaries. That significantly reshaped the primary movement calculus in those states. Those states had to move in order to comply with the new rules and avoid the penalties associated with violating them.

As the map below demonstrates, that same pressure from the national parties will not exist in 2015 as the 2016 primary calendar is being finalized in state capitals across the country. There are only three states -- Michigan, New York and North Carolina -- that are officially slated to hold non-compliant presidential primaries in 2016. Michigan has already signaled that a move to March is likely there. And New York is only back in February because the 2011 primary date change was passed with a sunset provision. That leaves only North Carolina.

...and other states that might want to go rogue, breaking the national parties' rules on timing.

But that brings us back full circle to the unified control factor.

One could hypothesize that with so many Republican-controlled states and a significant increase in the Republican penalty associated with holding a pre-March primary (or caucus) that the stars have potentially aligned to produce an orderly primary calendar. Perhaps put more precisely, the parties may have devised the best way of combatting such frontloading activity than has been the case in the past.

There are 23 Republican-controlled states that the more severe RNC penalty may help keep in line. Past scofflaws (and Republican-controlled states) -- Arizona, Florida and Michigan -- have either disarmed or look to be in the process of disarming. However, attempts at going rogue during the 2016 cycle have thus far occurred in Republican-controlled states (Arizona, North Carolina and Utah). The fact that Arizona is on both lists says something about intra-party divisions. That is not something confined to just Arizona either. North Carolina has seen a number of issues put its Republican-controlled Senate at odds with its Republican-controlled House. On the surface, then, it may look as if the combination of more severe RNC penalties and an expansion of Republican-controlled states would help reign in any potential 2016 rogues. But it is more complicated than that.

If we really want to see the potential impact of partisan control of state governments on this process, the best test may not in Republican states where there is a willingness to break the rules. Rather, the better test may be in Republican-controlled states and the ease with which they form regional and subregional primaries.

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¹ That is a slight increase over the 20 state governments the Republican Party controlled following the 2010 elections.

² To see a similar examination of these factor from 2011 see here and here.

³ That was not new in 2008. Both parties allowed February contests in 2004, but only the Democratic Party had a nomination race that cycle.


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If Primary Season Began Today: A Note on the 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar

There is a method to how FHQ assembles its 2016 presidential primary calendar that bears repeating now that the process is getting into the thick of primary/caucuses movement (or at least to the point in the cycle when most of said movement is typically witnessed). That method boils down to a simple question:

If primary season began today, where would the various primaries and caucuses fall on the calendar? 

To answer that, let's first think about another couple of related (if not redundant) questions. What do we know? What information do we have? FHQ answers these questions first before it sets a preliminary calendar. And what we know at this point is what state laws or state party bylaws tell us. In the vast majority of primary states, state law clearly lays out a date on which a presidential primary election is to be conducted (using state funds). The exceptions are the carve-out primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina along with a handful of other states that have options layered into state law that provide (or were created to provide some scheduling flexibility).¹

Caucuses are slightly different. State parties set the dates of the caucuses/convention process and often that is not something that is codified in the state party bylaws. In fact, those states where a date is codified well in advance of a presidential election year are the exceptions. Hawaii Republicans, for instance, set a date in their party bylaws. Colorado and Minnesota have caucus processes that are guided by state law insofar as the dates are concerned.

Currently on FHQ's calendar, there are 35 states with known primary dates. But that is not the extent of our knowledge on the matter. We also know that...

• Colorado parties have a choice between the first Tuesday in February and the first Tuesday in March for their precinct caucuses.
• Minnesota parties have to agree on a date for Democratic and Republican precinct caucuses in 2016 by the end of February 2015. If they cannot come to an agreement, the caucuses will be conducted on the first Tuesday in February. 
• The carve-out states are protected by the national party delegate selection rules. The DNC has set specific dates for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, but the RNC lets the process play out between those four states (and others). The RNC, however, does protect the carve-outs. And in 2016 that protection is more robust. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina have a month before the next earliest contest in which to schedule their primaries or caucuses. If New York law is not changed, then the carve-out states would have a window of a month before February 2 -- when the New York primary is scheduled -- to set the dates of their contests. The other part of that protection is that the national parties have more severe penalties they can use in 2016. The DNC gives its Rules and Bylaws Committee the power to increase the baseline 50% delegate penalty and the RNC rules would strip rogue states of all but 9 or 12 delegates depending on the delegation size. 
• New Hampshire will want to be before every state but Iowa.
• Iowa will want to be first.
• South Carolina will want to be ahead of all southern states by at least a week (more likely ten days if the parties in the Palmetto state stick with Saturday primaries).
• North Carolina is a problem right now. The primary in the Tarheel state is tethered to South Carolina's. The state law passed in 2013 calls for the North Carolina primary to be the Tuesday after the South Carolina primary (if the South Carolina primary is before March 15. It will be.).  If South Carolina plans to keep a Saturday primary, the Tuesday after that -- and thus when the North Carolina primary would be scheduled -- would violate that seven day buffer the South Carolina parties like (but is not called for in law). 
• New York moved for 2012 from February to April, but came to February back when the law expired at the end of 2012. 
• Michigan has signaled that it will move out of the end of February.

FHQ also assumes that Colorado, Minnesota and Utah -- states with options -- will choose the later and rules-compliant dates available to them and that New York will repeat its move back to a later date in 2016.

What that means is that the states that are on the calendar from March-June have contests scheduled for 2016. The dates are set in stone unless they are changed. That is why the currently convening state legislatures are important to the calendar formation process.

But...

[...and this is a significantly big BUT...]

The carve-out states plus North Carolina currently have no specified dates. Given what we know from above, though, we can make educated guesses about where they would end up on the calendar. The first domino to fall would either be South Carolina or Nevada. South Carolina would be more problematic because of how the North Carolina primary is anchored to its primary. South Carolina would not, for instance, opt for a Saturday, February 27 primary and allow a North Carolina (and other southern states already schedule there) to hold contest just three days later on March 1. South Carolina would at the very least draw North Carolina into the penalized portion of the calendar (i.e.: February), so that the potential penalty would pressure the North Carolina state government into making a change to the law (or barring that, force the state parties to conduct caucuses to avoid penalty).

FHQ has South Carolina on Saturday, February 13, but that could just as easily be a week later on February 20. [We have made the editorial decision to hold off on such a move until after Michigan moves its primary. ...if Michigan moves its primary.]

There will be some interesting cross-party jockeying between South Carolina and Nevada as well. The DNC rules put Nevada first among the two (third overall on the calendar), but South Carolina Republicans have, by custom, gone in that third position on the Republican calendar. The point is that South Carolina and Nevada represent four contests, not two. That's four contests -- different potential dates for each party in both states -- that have to get squeezed into that month-wide window the RNC rules provide.

FHQ currently places a unified Nevada set of caucuses ahead of a unified set of South Carolina primaries (until more information is known later in 2015).

Iowa and New Hampshire will ideally (from their perspectives) settle on dates earlier than the others once the dust has settled on all of the above.

Right now that means, speculatively...
Monday, January 18: Iowa
Tuesday, January 26: New Hampshire
Saturday, February 6: Nevada
Saturday, February 13: South Carolina
Tuesday, February 16: North Carolina

All of that is speculative. Repeat: SPECULATIVE. Given what we know, though, that is a reasonable guess about where those contests would end up.

...today. That's the huge caveat.

Much will change between now and when Iowa and New Hampshire settle on dates for 2016 later this fall. As information changes, so will the calendar.

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¹ And even then, New Hampshire is a state that has options. State law calls for a March primary or allows the secretary of state the discretion to set the date if the presidential primary in the state is not the first primary on the calendar. South Carolina state law only guides the funding of the presidential primary in the Palmetto state. The state parties select the date or dates on which the primaries will be held.


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RNC memo gives Iowa Straw Poll a green light

Jennifer Jacobs at the Des Moines Register has the story.

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FHQ has already commented on this on Twitter, but I'll rehash some of that and expand on it here.

First of all, this argument/concern from within and around the Republican Party of Iowa that the Ames Straw Poll would violate the Rules of the Republican Party always seemed a bit overblown. On the one hand, one could consider it a statewide vote of sorts, which would put the contest in violation of the RNC rules cited above (Rule 16.a.1).¹ Again, of sorts. But while it is an event conducted by the Republican Party of Iowa -- the state party -- it is not and has never been a part of the party's delegate selection process. RNC legal counsel, John Ryder, says as much in the memo drafted as a response to RPI's query on the straw poll.² It is an event; a fundraiser for the state party.

Now, none of this is to say that Ames does not matter. The real question is how the straw poll matters. Value is placed on the contest, unscientific though it may be, by the media and some campaigns not because it is a straw poll but because it is a straw poll in the state that holds the first delegate selection event on the primary calendar. Other state parties hold -- and will hold in 2015 -- straw polls of their own. But Ames is the one that is associated with the caucuses in the Hawkeye state. No, Ames is not decisive. No, Ames is not predictive of what will happen later in caucuses. Ames is a winnowing contest. It may not weed out a frontrunner, for instance, but it is part of the process in the lead up to primary season -- the invisible primary -- that finds an often robust field of candidates shrunk down to a decreasing number of players. Ames winnowed Lamar Alexander in 2000, Sam Brownback in 2008 and Tim Pawlenty in 2012. It claims its victims, but so do other events as well as just plain old poor campaigns/candidates.

The Republican Party of Iowa -- memo from the RNC in tow -- will make its decision on the fate of the Ames Straw Poll in a meeting on Saturday.

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¹ It would be a violation of the RNC rules if the the Republican Party of Iowa failed to allocate delegates based on the straw poll results. ...if the straw poll was part of the delegate selection/allocation process.

² Below is the full memo from the RNC's Ryder (via Jacobs):

RNC Memo on Ames Straw Poll 1/8/15

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Arizona Bill Introduced to Again Attempt to Schedule Presidential Primary on Iowa Caucuses Date

Arizona is at it again.

Representative Phil Lovas (R-22nd -- Peoria, Glendale), just as he did two years ago, has prefiled a bill in the Arizona House to schedule the presidential primary in the Grand Canyon state on the same date as the Iowa caucuses. HB 2015, if passed and signed into law, would move the Arizona presidential primary from the first Tuesday after March 15 to whatever date the Iowa caucuses fall on.

This all sounds like a bigger deal than it really is. It sounds as if Arizona wants to break the national party rules on timing, threatening Iowa's position at the front of the presidential primary (caucuses) calendar queue. But that likely is not the case.

First of all, Lovas tried this in 2013, and it didn't go anywhere. It garnered not only a first in the West response from Nevada, but it also drew the attention of the RNC.¹ When that RNC delegation came to Arizona, Lovas opted to back off the move, but also left open the possibility that he would return to it in the future. The future is now.

However, this is destined to be a case of history repeating itself. For starters, Arizona has already moved its primary back for 2016. During the 2014 state legislative session, a bill was passed and signed into law that moved the Arizona primary from the fourth Tuesday in February to the first Tuesday after March 15. That bill passed the Arizona House unanimously on its way to becoming law. Lovas voted in favor of the move. Furthermore, it should be noted that if this bill shows any signs of going anywhere, it is very likely to once again draw the ire of the Republican National Committee.² And any envoy delegation from the RNC would likely carry the added muscle of RNC Rules Committee chairman, Bruce Ash, who also happens to be the Republican National Committeeman from Arizona.

This one appears to be an escalation of the same old calendar madness witnessed in 2008 and 2012. Lovas is not alone in his desire to see Arizona at the head of the pack, but FHQ does not think this bill will end up going much of anywhere. It is fun to consider the implications though. But we already did that two years ago.

In any event, we will start getting a better handle on the strength of this bill when the Arizona legislature convenes to kick off the 2015 session next Monday.

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¹ Find more on the implications of the legislative dust up between Arizona and Nevada here.

² The DNC would likely be interested as well, but would have little sway with Lovas or others in Arizona's Republican-controlled state government.


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Update on 2016 DC Presidential Primary: Off to June

Just before the holidays, the Washington, DC District Council voted unanimously to shift the presidential primary in the District from April to June.

As FHQ noted at the time, the 2013 bill then moved on to lame duck Mayor Vincent Gray for his consideration. However, given that the bill was passed unanimously there was no utility in issuing a veto on a bill that would be overridden by the council. Regardless, B20-0265 -- the primary bill -- was never signed into law. But the DC system does not require a signature anyway. The mayor has three options when confronted with a bill from the council: sign the bill, do nothing or veto the bill. In the case of the first two actions, the bill becomes law.

Council Period 20 (2013-2015) came to a close at the end of 2014 and there is no evidence that a mayoral veto was issued on the June primary legislation. It thus becomes law, moving the DC presidential primary from the first Tuesday in April to the first Tuesday in June. That moves DC from a point on the calendar just beyond the 50% delegates allocate threshold to the very last week of the calendar. The move also breaks up any lasting remnants of the 2008 Potomac primary (DC, Virginia and Maryland). Washington, DC and Maryland were concurrent again in 2012, but that coalition will not survive to 2016.

The bill does have to go before Congress for review -- as all DC legislation does -- but if there is no review or no disapproval from the House of Representatives within a 30 day window, the bill becomes an act and is law.

FHQ will keep the Washington, DC primary on the first Tuesday in April for now, but that will change to June when and if this becomes an act.

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Bill Introduced to Merge Democratic and Republican Presidential Primaries in South Carolina

Two-time South Carolina Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Vincent Sheheen (D-27th, Kershaw), has prefiled a bill in the South Carolina state Senate that would seek to consolidate the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries.

The legislation, S 204, would put some modicum of pressure on the two state parties (or any other party that received 5% of the vote in South Carolina in the previous presidential election) to mutually set and submit to the South Carolina Election Commission a single date on which the presidential primary would be conducted. If there is no agreement between the parties, then the presidential primary would be held in June with the primaries for statewide and local offices. That provision seems like a poison pill, but the bill provides an out for the parties, allowing them to select another date, so long as the party funds the election.¹ State parties typically choose the state-funded option where available. But state funding of presidential primaries came late to South Carolina. There is a history in the Palmetto state of party-run primaries and caucuses. It was not until the 2008 cycle that the South Carolina legislature authorized and appropriated state money for the presidential primary.

Finally, if only one party opts to conduct a presidential primary -- most common when only one party has an active and competitive nomination race -- then that party can set a date with the State Election Commission.

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Now, FHQ does not know if this bill will go anywhere in the legislature. Our hunch is no, but this thing is multifaceted with a number of implications. The benefits are clear. This is a potential cost-saving mechanism for the state. Instead of funding and conducting two separate presidential primary elections, this measure would exert pressure on the parties to opt into the one state-funded option. Again, state parties tend to be averse to funding their own contests once a state-funded option exists.

Let's assume for a moment that S 204 passes. What influence does that have over the state parties' decisions for 2016 and beyond? Well for one thing, Democrats and Republicans in South Carolina have not held concurrent delegate selection events ever in the post-reform era (1972-present). This legislation would change that; creating the perception of a if not an outright loss of scheduling flexibility (from the state parties' perspectives). The national parties protect South Carolina's position among the so-called carve-out states, but this legislation could -- again, from the state parties' perspectives -- negatively affect their ability to remain first in the South. That is certainly true if the state parties cannot agree on the date of a presidential primary, pushing the state-funded option back to June. [It is quite difficult to be first in the South in June.]

The problem is that there is a built-in conflict that could make agreement between the state parties a difficult enterprise. South Carolina Democrats and South Carolina Republicans have different motivations and even different restrictions from the national parties. Though it is not any sort of codified requirement, South Carolina Republicans have grown accustomed to being the third contest on the presidential primary calendar. There are exceptions, but South Carolina Republicans have more often than not been contest the candidates head off to after New Hampshire (since 2000).²

That conflicts with the restrictions placed on the South Carolina Democrats by the DNC delegate selection rules. Those rules call on South Carolina to be the fourth contest on the primary calendar behind Iowa, New Hampshire and then Nevada. If South Carolina Republicans want to be third and South Carolina Democrats have to be fourth, that makes agreement on a primary date pretty tough. And keep in mind what a moving target all of this may be later this year as the calendar movement is winding down. There is uncertainty built into all of this. The silver lining from the South Carolina perspective -- again, assuming this bill becomes law -- is that the state parties have until January 1 of the presidential election year to make the date decision.³ Consider also that Nevada Democrats and Republicans may not have a consolidated caucuses date as they did in 2008. If parties in the Silver state choose different dates that complicates matters. It may help South Carolina. It may hurt. To help the South Carolina effort, Nevada Republicans would have to opt for a later caucuses date than their Democratic counterparts.

This bill may or may not get out committee, much less pass and be signed into law, but it would offer a potentially interesting dynamic to the positioning of the carve-out states in 2016.

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¹ With or without that provision, state parties would always have the self-funding option. That is consistent with most of the body of case law on the subject of parties controlling the nomination process. More often than not, if there is a conflict between what the state party wants and what the state law calls for, the courts tend to side with the parties.

² Michigan in 2008 is a good example of an exception. South Carolina Republicans were more concerned with staying ahead of rogue Florida that year than worrying about where the Great Lakes state was positioned on the calendar.

³ That deadline seemingly places a great deal of confidence in the calendar positioning being an orderly process for 2016 and that by extension the early states do not get pushed into January. If the parties wait that long to set a date, that leaves the state very little time to prepare for a hypothetical January primary election.


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California: Damned if you do, Damned of you don't [Move] in Presidential Primary Politics

Mark Barabak of the LA Times had a nice ring in the new year presidential election style piece last week, written from the outside looking in perspective in which Californians typically have to view the presidential nomination process. He nicely captured the dilemma that faces California decision makers when it comes to the question of moving the Golden state primary:

"For years, California tried to boost its clout by pushing its primary earlier in the nominating process. That, in turn, prompted other states to advance their elections, resulting in Iowa kicking off the last two presidential campaigns with caucuses held just three days into the New Year."

There is more to it, but this pinpoints the unique mathematical position California represents in the presidential nomination process. Lawmakers in the Golden state were not alone in the decades after the passage of the McGovern-Fraser reforms transformed the manner in which Americans nominate the candidates who will vie for the White House in the general election. Frontloading, after all, did not start with California. However, California did significantly alter the frontloading phenomenon when the state moved its presidential primary into late March (from June) for the 1996 cycle.

That move changed the thinking in other states. That move meant that all of those California delegates (in both parties processes) were not an anchor at the very end of the primary calendar, shifting the point at which a candidate could or would secure the nomination all the while. Before that shift by California, most states -- state governments, particularly folks in the state legislatures -- were like the national parties, always fighting the last battle. "What moves were made last time? How should we react this time? Should we react this time?" they would ask. Again, this is just like how the national parties view their quadrennial efforts at setting their delegate selection rules for the next cycle.

In 1996, that changed for states. California forced the change, forcing states to consider reacting within a cycle instead of based on the last cycle. The issue was exacerbated four years later when legislators in the Golden state moved the presidential primary there up to the first Tuesday in March, the earliest date allowed by the Democratic Party. In concert with the 1996 shift, the move ahead of the 2000 cycle pushed the presidential nomination process into the hyper-frontloaded era. That era -- 2000-2008 -- was characterized by a significant clustering of states at the point on the calendar that was earliest and compliant with national party rules. But much of it had to do with states trying to stay ahead of or even with California after it shifted that end game point of the nomination cycle to earlier and earlier points on the calendar.

But California was also a part of spreading delegate allocation out and delaying that end game in 2012 when it shifted its presidential primary back to June.¹ That shifted all of those delegates back to the very end of the process again.

Will California stay there for 2016? Barabak makes a nice argument that the presidential nomination process is sufficiently nationalized to the point that Californians should be content to leave well enough alone. That said, FHQ is not so sure. California Republicans warned in 2012 that Democrats in the state legislature would move the primary forward again in 2016 when the Democratic Party had a competitive nomination race again. And if (the origin of) traffic to this site in recent weeks is any indication, FHQ would not be surprised to see a bill introduced in California to move the primary again.

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¹ It should be noted that California did move back to June for the 2008 cycle before it moved back up to February.


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2016 Texas Republican Delegate Allocation Rules: A New Caveat to Consider

THE FULL FINAL DELEGATE ALLOCATION RULES FOR TEXAS CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Last week FHQ looked closer at some of the factors surrounding the proposed SEC primary. That process left off talking about one of the two large southern states scheduled on March 1 but not officially party of the SEC primary effort, Florida. Now let's tackle the other, Texas.

The Texas presidential primary is also slated to be held on March 1, but that position, though it is the earliest the Lone Star state primary will have been contested, is less important than how delegates to the national conventions will be allocated. Texas Democrats have their Texas two-step, and now the Republican Party of Texas has made some interesting changes to their method for allocating delegates in 2016.

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Perhaps Ted Cruz winning the 2016 presidential straw poll and the debate over various planks of the party platform were bigger stories coming out of the Republican Party of Texas state convention back in June of last year. There was then, however, at least some forewarning to Texas convention delegates from Republican Party of Texas chair, Steve Munisteri, about the importance of the state convention to the 2016 national convention delegate selection process the state party will undertake in a little more than a year.

How important this state convention was or will be to delegate selection in 2016 remains to be seen. There were, however, changes made to the way that the Republican Party in Texas will allocate delegates to the national convention in 2016. And there is some story in that. Let's have a look at (a timeline of) the changes. [In all cases, focus on the provisions in Rule 38.]

Prior to the 2014 state convention last June, Texas Republicans had already altered the delegate allocation/selection rules as they existed for 2012. Actually, as the Republican Party of Texas was finishing up its delegate selection for 2012 -- at its 2012 state convention -- delegates were also amending the allocation process for 2016. Gone was the proportional system of allocation (see Rule 38, Section 10).¹ In its place following the adjournment of the June 2012 state convention was a plan that was a variation on the delegate selection plan utilized by Georgia Republicans in 2012.

That was the initial Texas Republican delegate selection plan for 2016. In short, if a candidate were to receive a majority of the statewide or congressional district vote, said candidate would receive all of the statewide (at-large) or congressional district delegates (from each congressional district won). Otherwise, to be eligible to receive delegates in proportional to votes won, a candidate would have to clear the 20% threshold in the statewide and/or congressional district vote.² On the congressional district level, that would mean the top votegetter would be allocated two of three congressional district delegates and the runner-up would receive the remaining one delegate.

The intent of such a plan is to allow for a majority winner to take a disproportionate share of delegates at either the statewide or congressional district level, but also layer in some element of proportionality in both units should that majority threshold not be crossed. This a kind of unit-based proportionality; not based solely on the statewide outcome. The obvious issue is that it can be difficult to proportionally allocate just three congressional district delegates.

That allocation method carried over into the revised Republican Party of Texas rules (amended by the State Republican Executive Committee in December 2013), and the bulk of that allocation plan again got the green light from 2014 state convention delegates this past weekend.

The headlining change -- differing from the plan adopted at the state convention in 2012 -- was that Texas Republicans added a concurrent caucus process to the existing primary election. In truth, those caucuses have always been a part of the Republican delegate selection process in Texas. Yet, up until 2016 they will not have been a part of the delegate allocation process. Delegates in attendance at the 2014 state convention voted to allow one quarter of the total number of delegates apportioned to Texas by the Republican National Committee -- minus the automatic delegates³ -- to be allocated based on the results of the caucus/convention process. The (draft language of the) rule (approved by the state convention) actually calls on delegates at the presidential year state convention to "caucus by secret ballot and select a presidential candidate by majority vote to receive the entitlement of a number of at-large delegates".

In other words, the full allotment of one-quarter of the delegates (39 delegates out of 155 in 2012, for example) would go to one presidential candidate. Given the timing of the Texas state conventions of both parties -- typically early June -- this will likely mean little more than the presumptive nominee receiving a cache of Texas at-large delegates.

Much of the reporting on this change has been about how the addition of the caucuses to the Republican delegate process mimics the Texas Two-Step that Texas Democrats have traditionally used (with (in)famously contradictory results in 2008). It does to an extent. For starters, Texas law now allows the parties to allocate up to 25% of their delegates to the national convention based on something other than the primary. The Republican change is more a function of revising a delegate selection plan to conform to the leeway provided Texas Republicans by Texas state law and the RNC delegate selection rules than it is about using the Democratic method.

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Functionally, though, this is an interesting change for Texas Republicans. It has something for everyone. Let's look at the new rules through the lens of the results to the 2008 Texas Republican presidential primary.⁴ Texas had 140 delegates in 2008 (41 at-large/statewide, 96 congressional district and 3 automatic). Using the 2008 results and the 2016 rules, this much is clear: Only John McCain and Mike Huckabee cleared the 20% threshold statewide to receive any delegates. McCain eclipsed 50% though and would have been allocated 6 at-large/statewide delegates. The remaining 35 -- again, using the 2016 rules -- would have been allocated en masse by the state convention later in the season. The congressional district delegates would have been allocated the same way because the rules regarding them are the same in 2016 as they were in 2008. If the winner receives a majority of the vote in the district, that candidate wins all three district delegates. However, if no candidate wins a majority, the top votegetter receives two delegates while the second place finisher in the district is awarded the remaining one delegate. [McCain won that district count 79-17 over Huckabee in 2008.]

But here's the thing: What about those 35 at-large/statewide delegates to be allocated to one candidate at the state convention? That's the new layer to the 2016 rules Texas Republicans will use. That's where everyone seemingly gets something out of this change (though in the end only one candidate will receive any delegates). As FHQ mentioned above, the way this is likely to work is that by the time of the Texas Republican state convention is held in June 2016, the Republican nominee will in all likelihood have been identified and the party will have transitioned into preparing for the national convention. That would leave a Texas Republican little choice but to vote for that candidate; the presumptive nominee. This is something that the establishment of the Republican National Committee if not the establishment wing of the Republican Party of Texas would like.

This was a move that had a significant level of support from the non-establishment part of the Texas Republican delegates at the 2014 state convention. Why? Why would they support something that establishment within the party was fine with? Well, let's assume for the sake of the argument that Ted Cruz wins the March 1, 2016 Texas primary. Let's also assume that a more establishment-oriented candidate does well enough in the rest of the country, but not well enough to have clinched the nomination before the Texas state convention. Suddenly that 35 delegates -- or however many it is in 2016 -- becomes somewhat important depending on the overall delegate count. [This would be a nightmare scenario for the RNC, especially with an early/earlier national convention in the works.]

This is not likely as the basic assumptions of the above exercise run counter to what has been witnessed in terms of how nominations have been secured in the post-reform era. However, that chance is probably enough for some within the Republican Party of Texas. And it is enough to to get FHQ to look at it. The better question may be to ask whether such a plan is compliant with the new RNC rules regarding the binding of delegates based on the first statewide vote in the state. That would be the primary in this new Texas plan. The answer is that it is likely fine until it isn't, meaning that it is only a problem in that divided nightmare scenario. If those remaining convention-allocated delegates go to the presumptive nominee anyway, then, no harm, no foul.

Come primary season next year, this will be an interesting asterisk to consider.

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¹ Even that proportional allocation went through some changes in the lead up to the 2012 Texas Republican primary. The Rule 38 amended in October 2011 called for a rather convoluted method of delegate selection with a simpler allocation and binding mechanism. Candidates under those October 2011 changes were eligible for delegates if they received over 20% of the statewide or congressional district vote. However, that 20% threshold seemed to have been removed following the February 2012 changes to the rules. The "entitlements" (allocation) rules detailed in Sections 8 and 9 of Rule 38 were struck and replaced by a new provision in Section 10, giving the state party chairman the power to "…in a manner directly proportional to the statewide presidential vote, as well as the presidential vote by congressional district, if possible, assign each delegate to represent a presidential candidate (or uncommitted)…". That late change may have meant something for the Texas delegate totals at the margins, but had no real impact on the 2012 Republican nomination race. With such a late contest -- May 29 -- Romney's haul from the Lone Star state would have pushed the former Massachusetts governor over the 1144 delegate threshold to clinch the nomination regardless.

² There are other caveats to this as well. If only one candidate clears the 20% threshold on the congressional district level, that candidate would be entitled to all three congressional district delegates. The same sort of the provision is not in place on the statewide level for at-large delegates. There is no rule specified for such a scenario. Additionally, if no candidate wins more than 20% of the vote at the statewide level, then the at-large delegates are allocated to candidates in proportion to their statewide votes. If no candidate wins more than 20% in any given congressional district, then the top three votegetters receive one delegate each.

³ The automatic (state party) delegates are the state chairman, national committeeman and national committeewoman.

⁴ Recall that the 2012 Texas primary was on May 29. While that was the contest that put Mitt Romney over the threshold of delegates necessary to clinch the Republican nomination, most of the other candidates had withdrawn much earlier. It was not, then, much of a contest; not for the purposes of this exercise anyway.

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Primary Movement Starts with the State Legislatures: 2015 State Legislative Session Calendar

The National Conference of State Legislatures has this calendar as well, but in alphabetical order. FHQ is more concerned with sequence. Which state legislatures convene first, when do their sessions end and how does this impact the scheduling of presidential primaries?

2015 State Legislative Session Calendar
Date (Convene)	States	Date (Adjourn)
December 1, 2014	California	September 11, 2015
December 3, 2014	Maine1	June 17
January 2, 2015	Washington, DC	year-round2
January 5	Montana Ohio Wisconsin	late April year-round2 year-round2
January 6	Indiana Kentucky Minnesota1 Mississippi North Dakota1 Pennsylvania Rhode Island	April 29 March 24 May 18 April 5 late April year-round2 late June
January 7	Colorado1 Connecticut Massachusetts Missouri Nebraska New Hampshire New York Vermont	May 6 June 3 year-round2 May 30 early June July 1 year-round2 mid May
January 12	Arizona Arkansas Georgia Idaho1 Iowa1 Kansas1 Puerto Rico Washington	mid April March 12 early April early April May 1 late May May 12 April 26
January 13	Delaware New Jersey South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Wyoming1	June 30 year round2 June 4 late March late April June 1 early March
January 14	Illinois Maryland Michigan North Carolina Virginia West Virginia	May 14 April 13 year-round2 early July February 28 March 14
January 20	Alaska1 New Mexico	April 19 March 21
January 21	Hawaii1	early May
January 26	Utah	March 12
February 2	Nevada1 Oklahoma Oregon	June 1 May 29 July 11
March 3	Alabama Florida	June 15 May 1
April 13	Louisiana	June 11
Notes: 1 States in italics are caucus states. State parties and not state legislatures control the scheduling of those contests. 2 State legislatures with year-round sessions.

The table answers the first two of the three questions posed above. With the schedule of state legislative sessions down, though, what impact will this have on the formation of the 2016 presidential primary calendar? The biggest thing is that 2016 is not 2012. There are not nearly 20 states that have to make some form of scheduling change to comply with changes to the structure of the primary process at the national party level. In 2008 both parties allowed February contests. For 2012, both parties changed their minds and constructed a calendar structure that had the carve-outs in February and all other states in March or later.

Right off the bat, then, the 2012 cycle had a tension between where state laws had various primaries scheduled and what the national parties wanted in terms of the overall calendar. That tension has been greatly minimized. 2011 saw a significant amount of backward primary movement, and that process has continued in 2013-14. Importantly, past rogue states like Florida and Arizona have moved back from the brink and Michigan is signaling that it may follow suit. But that does not mean that there are not other rogues out there.

Here are a few things to look out for as state legislative session progress (mostly) over the first half of  2015 and into the latter half of the year.

Rogue states (2016 calendar for reference)
2015 looks a lot less like a minefield than 2011 looked from the national parties' perspectives. There are far fewer automatic problems on the calendar. New York has to move back. But the state legislature moved back in 2011, but just for 2012. Michigan and North Carolina have to move too. Michigan looks like it will move back, but North Carolina may be a different matter. Legislatures in both states convene on January 14.

The rest of the states that have any claim to a non-compliant position on the calendar at this juncture all have options that would allow them disarm in any potential fight with the rules committees in both national parties. Colorado parties can choose the March caucuses option laid out in state law. All the parties in Minnesota have to do is agree on a date they would like to conduct caucuses (by the end of February), otherwise the caucuses are automatically scheduled for the first Tuesday in February. The issues with Utah are twofold. First, and less problematic, the the Beehive state would only be on the first Tuesday in February if the legislature appropriates funds for a Western States Primary (WSP). That most likely means that there will not be an appropriation is there is no WSP. The second factor in Utah's case is perhaps more tension-ladened than the first. That has more to do with the attempt to move Utah to the first position on the calendar with online voting that popped up in 2014 and died on the final melee during the close of the legislative session after having passed one chamber. The very short session in Utah kicks off on January 26. We may begin to get some answers there then.

Regional primaries
Most of the talk thus far has been about southern primaries clustering on March 1, the earliest date on which the national parties allow non-carve-out states to hold primaries or caucuses. Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia (and Oklahoma) are already scheduled for March 1 primaries. In 2014, Louisiana moved to the weekend following those contests and does not appear to be headed to an earlier point on the calendar as of now. Mississippi and Arkansas convene legislative sessions over the next couple of weeks and could join the fray with legislation to move primaries then. The state legislative session kicks off in March in Alabama. Alabama and Mississippi are easier to move (only a move up of a week) while Arkansas has some conflicts that make a move up from mid May tough but not impossible.

Regional clustering may not be done there. There was chatter about a midwestern primary in late 2013. Illinois and Missouri have already staked out a position together on March 15. Others may be interested in joining. Early in 2015, keep an eye on Ohio. The legislature in the Buckeye state opens its session on January 6. A later western primary may materialize as well (see Utah above).

Caucuses to Primaries or Primaries to Caucuses
Finally, one other factor to be mindful of is states switching from caucuses to primaries or vice versa. 2012 saw more of the primary to caucuses movement as Idaho Republicans abandoned the primary in the Gem state. Florida Democrats made a similar move but to avoid the sanctions associated with participating in a non-compliant January primary.

Fewer and less successful have been the attempts to shift from a caucuses/conventions system to primaries as a means of allocating national convention delegates. Minnesota tried it in 2009 and Maine did likewise in 2013.

There are always a few of these shifts. Typically, they do not develop in state legislatures; not the successful moves anyway. Rather, the changes in mode of delegate allocation that are witnessed tend to happen because of legislative inaction. State legislatures not moving non-compliant (too early) or very late primaries. Regardless, it is something to watch for as legislatures swing into action in the coming days, weeks and months.


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