Working against a deadline, the Washington state legislature finished up not only a (third) 2015 special session, but completed work on a 2015-17 budget during the last week in June as well. This work had some impact on the 2016 presidential primary in the Evergreen state. Before digging into that impact, let's look at how the state parties have traditionally allocated delegates in Washington and how that set up the debate over the 2016 primary in the legislature.
For starters, Washington state parties had used a caucus/convention system to determine presidential preference in order select and allocate delegates to the national conventions in the earliest cycles of the post-reform era (1972-1988). After the 1988 cycle, however, an initiative push brought a presidential primary election to the northwest. In the time since that 1989 initiative, Democrats have never utilized the primary as a means of selecting, allocating or binding delegates. Instead, the Washington Democratic Party has opted to stick with the caucus/convention system.
Republicans in the Evergreen state have, depending on the cycle, used a two-step process with delegates being allocated based on the results of both the primary and caucuses. The rules have not been uniform over that post-initiative period for Republicans. In 2000, for instance, Washington Republicans allocated only a third of the the delegates apportioned them by the Republican National Committee via the primary. The remaining delegates were bound to candidates based on results from the caucus/convention process. Eight years later, during the 2008 cycle, Washington Republicans kept the two-step primary-caucus process, but nearly equalized the number of delegates allocated based on the results of each contest. This time 51% of the Republican delegates were allocated through the primary and the rest in the caucuses.
Republicans in Washington, then, have some history with a presidential primary. Democrats there do not.
That has some influence on how each state party and those affiliated with each in the state legislature approach the primary every four years. When Democrats control the state government and/or when Republicans do not have a competitive nomination on the horizon, the likelihood of the presidential primary being cancelled by the state legislature increase. Those reasons contributed to cancelations for the 2004 and 2012 cycles. The justification for the budget expense to fund the contest just is not there in all cycles (dependent on the political conditions in the state at a given point in time).
Unlike 2011, Democrats did not control all the levers of presidential primary decision-making in 2015. While the party retained the governor's mansion and the lower House of the legislature, Republicans won control of the state Senate following the 2014 midterm elections and the state elected a Republican secretary of state who pushed for the primary early on in 2015. That made a repeat of the 2011 cancelation a tougher sell. In fact, it was only after a bill began to work its way through the Republican-controlled state Senate to move the primary from May to March that a bill to cancel the presidential primary was even proposed by Democrats in control in the House.
This set up a stalemate on whether to move or cancel the primary between the two chambers, but it also created an impasse in the budget process over whether to appropriate funds for the election. In the case of the former, the Republican-controlled Washington Senate passed the bill to move the primary to March, but it later got bottled up in committee on the House side as the regular session drew to a close. Additionally, Washington Democrats made clear with the release their draft 2016 delegate selection plan that the party once again had no intention of utilizing any state-funded primary; at least not for allocating national convention delegates to candidates.
All of the legislation to either move or cancel the presidential primary carried over from the regular session to the first special session at the tail end of April. And the state Senate once again sent the May to March primary move bill back over to the state House. However, that was the point where the move or cancel impasse gave way to the fund or don't fund debate between the chambers. And to be clear, the two are not mutually exclusive. Not funding the primary would have canceled it, but state law calls for the election and thus the funding if there is no bill passed to cancel the election. With neither bill -- cancel or move -- likely to move, that basically forced the hand of the legislature. They had to -- and did in SB 6052 -- fund the presidential primary election, appropriating $11.5 million for an election that will apparently have a bearing on the allocation of just half of the Washington Republican delegates.
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So, there is a presidential primary in Washington for 2016. What does that mean?
For Democrats in the state it means a beauty contest. Democrats can vote in the open primary (after declaring affiliation with the party), but it will not affect delegate allocation to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The only benefit the Washington Democratic Party will derive from the primary is a list of participants they can use to target voters in the fall general election.
Democrats will caucus on Saturday, March 26.
The picture on the Republican side is less clear. If the party caucuses on the date they used in 2012 -- the first Saturday in March -- then they will caucus on March 5. That is just speculative though. The date of the primary is equally as unclear. It is clear now by law: Tuesday, May 24. Yet, the secretary of state -- Republican Kim Wyman in this case -- has the option of calling party leaders from both sides together to agree on an alternative. That was something that happened in June 2007 as the primary was moved into February accompanying February caucuses for both parties. And it appears at this point as if Wyman will do just that, targeting the same March 8 date embedded in the legislation to move the primary in the first place.
That would mean at least a couple of things. First, the Washington primary would be aligned with the primary in neighboring Idaho on March 8. That would make the pair the only contiguous states on that date; a potential draw to presidential candidates. However, it would also create a compact two-step primary-caucus if the caucuses end up on the preceding Saturday, March 5. There were ten days separating the Republican primary and caucuses in 2008, but a three day window for a double dip on the heels of Super Tuesday/SEC primary date could prove to be a coup of sorts for Washington Republicans.
We have a few more answers about the nomination process in Washington next year, but a handful of questions remain on the Republican side as the summer of 2015 stretches on.
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Thanks to Jim Riley for the heads up on the Washington budget bill that passed in June.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Friday, July 3, 2015
Kentucky Republicans Aiming for Early March, Proportional Caucuses
It still has to pass the Kentucky Republican State Central Committee, but the plan to switch the delegate selection process from a primary to caucuses for 2016 is taking shape in the Bluegrass state. Tom Loftus at the Louisville Courier-Journal has the latest on the special state party committee's efforts:
And planning for the caucus goes on. The head of the special committee, Scott Lasley, a political science professor and chairman of the Warren County Republican Party, said the plan will likely schedule the caucus for a Saturday or a Tuesday in early March.
Lasley said delegates will be allocated proportional to the vote received by the candidate — it will not be winner take all.Though the caucus switch is at least partially intended to help out home state candidate, Sen. Rand Paul, the cost of the switch -- $500,000 to $1.2 million from state party coffers -- and the logistics of the caucus voting make the outlook for the late August State Central Committee vote on the change less than 100%.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Adjournment Ends Legislative Push for Earlier Presidential Primary in Rhode Island
Legislators at the Rhode Island General Assembly wrapped up their business for the 2015 session last week on Thursday, June 25. Among the items left languishing in committee was a Republican-sponsored bill in the House to shift the presidential primary in the Ocean state from the last Tuesday in April up to the last Tuesday in March.
The writing had been on the wall for HB 6054 for a while, though. A committee hearing back in early May had already basically tabled the discussion. Democrats in the majority had less incentive to shift than did the Republicans behind the bill in the first place. In the time since then, however, the Rhode Island presidential primary position on April 26 has become slightly less enticing to Democrats. New York likely ending up a week earlier on the calendar on April 19 costs Rhode Island Democrats a 15% clustering bonus to their delegation to the national convention in Philadelphia. Ocean state Democrats will still be eligible for a timing bonus of 10% with an April primary.
Rhode Island Republican legislators were differently motivated and wanted an even earlier date to affect a nomination process that is more competitive than on the Democratic side.
With the conclusion of the legislative session, the bill dies and cannot by rule in Rhode Island be carried over to the 2016 session.
The writing had been on the wall for HB 6054 for a while, though. A committee hearing back in early May had already basically tabled the discussion. Democrats in the majority had less incentive to shift than did the Republicans behind the bill in the first place. In the time since then, however, the Rhode Island presidential primary position on April 26 has become slightly less enticing to Democrats. New York likely ending up a week earlier on the calendar on April 19 costs Rhode Island Democrats a 15% clustering bonus to their delegation to the national convention in Philadelphia. Ocean state Democrats will still be eligible for a timing bonus of 10% with an April primary.
Rhode Island Republican legislators were differently motivated and wanted an even earlier date to affect a nomination process that is more competitive than on the Democratic side.
With the conclusion of the legislative session, the bill dies and cannot by rule in Rhode Island be carried over to the 2016 session.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Two-Step Primary-Caucus Is Out for Texas Democrats in 2016
The Texas Two-Step that gained notoriety -- if not infamy -- under the spotlight of a closely contested 2008 Democratic presidential nomination process is dead for 2016.
For years Texas Democrats have split the allocation of their national convention delegates across both a primary election and a caucus/convention process. Roughly two-thirds of the delegates have been awarded to presidential candidates based on the statewide presidential primary results while the remainder were allocated at the state convention (through Texas senate district conventions).
Again, this has been the standard operating procedure for the Texas Democratic Party through much of the post-reform era. The winner of the primary has tended to be the winner of the caucuses as well. The two exceptions to that rule were 1988 when Michael Dukakis won the March 8 primary, but Jesse Jackson won the caucuses, and in 2008, a cycle that saw Hillary Clinton win the Texas primary on March 4, but lose the overall delegate count in the Lone Star state to Barack Obama, who had won the caucuses later in the day.
That latter outcome brought the Two-Step under increased scrutiny. And it was an interesting microcosm of a narrative tightly woven into the fabric of the 2008 nomination: that Obama was winning low turnout caucus votes while Clinton was claiming victories -- and a greater number of votes overall -- in primaries.1
Despite the 2008 controversy, the Texas Two-Step survived and once again netted the Texas Democratic Party a waiver in 2012.2 That fact, though, brings into focus another portion of what has become standard in the implementation of the state-level rules: The Two-Step is only compliant with Democratic National Committee delegate selection rules with some help. The state party has successfully petitioned the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee for a waiver to hold the "double vote" primary-caucus even though (national) Democratic rules prohibit it.
Basically, the Two-Step has been grandfathered in since the rules were changed. Texas was the lone remaining state to have continually been granted a waiver to allocate delegates through both a primary and a caucus. But that waiver was not granted for 2016. The Rules and Bylaws Committee unanimously rejected the waiver request at its Friday meeting in Washington. The Rules and Bylaws Committee conditionally approved the draft Texas delegate selection plan. But the condition was -- at least partially -- that it drop the caucuses from the allocation equation.
What that means is that Texas Democrats will now allocate all of their delegates proportionally (as mandated by the national party rules) based on the statewide results in the March 1 presidential primary.
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As a side note, it hard to resist viewing the denied waiver request as a signal of if not the Clinton campaign's pull on the Rules and Bylaws Committee, then the reality that there are folks on the committee (Harold Ickes comes to mind) that are or have in the past been aligned with the Clintons. That comment is not meant as some form of conspiracy theory. That is how the Democratic process has worked: Surrogates of the various campaigns get involved in the rules process. Given that Clinton folks were not fans of the two-step (and for arguably legitimate reasons) after 2008, it is not a real shock that it would meet its end now.
But why now and not four years ago? Parties holding the White House tend not to tinker as much with their delegate selection rules. And by extension, those in the White House at the head of their parties often prefer to maintain the same combination of rules that got them to the White House in the first place. The denied Texas request is as much about the DNC transitioning to life after Obama as it is about Clinton (and company) not liking the two-step because of 2008. It is naive to think that both are not factors in the change for 2016 though.
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1 That narrative was not really backed up by the data, but that did not keep it from being a talking point in and after 2008.
2 Good point from Kyle D.: Due to redistricting issues in 2011-12, Texas Democrats were forced to revise their delegate selection plan as that process played out in the courts.
For years Texas Democrats have split the allocation of their national convention delegates across both a primary election and a caucus/convention process. Roughly two-thirds of the delegates have been awarded to presidential candidates based on the statewide presidential primary results while the remainder were allocated at the state convention (through Texas senate district conventions).
Again, this has been the standard operating procedure for the Texas Democratic Party through much of the post-reform era. The winner of the primary has tended to be the winner of the caucuses as well. The two exceptions to that rule were 1988 when Michael Dukakis won the March 8 primary, but Jesse Jackson won the caucuses, and in 2008, a cycle that saw Hillary Clinton win the Texas primary on March 4, but lose the overall delegate count in the Lone Star state to Barack Obama, who had won the caucuses later in the day.
That latter outcome brought the Two-Step under increased scrutiny. And it was an interesting microcosm of a narrative tightly woven into the fabric of the 2008 nomination: that Obama was winning low turnout caucus votes while Clinton was claiming victories -- and a greater number of votes overall -- in primaries.1
Despite the 2008 controversy, the Texas Two-Step survived and once again netted the Texas Democratic Party a waiver in 2012.2 That fact, though, brings into focus another portion of what has become standard in the implementation of the state-level rules: The Two-Step is only compliant with Democratic National Committee delegate selection rules with some help. The state party has successfully petitioned the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee for a waiver to hold the "double vote" primary-caucus even though (national) Democratic rules prohibit it.
Basically, the Two-Step has been grandfathered in since the rules were changed. Texas was the lone remaining state to have continually been granted a waiver to allocate delegates through both a primary and a caucus. But that waiver was not granted for 2016. The Rules and Bylaws Committee unanimously rejected the waiver request at its Friday meeting in Washington. The Rules and Bylaws Committee conditionally approved the draft Texas delegate selection plan. But the condition was -- at least partially -- that it drop the caucuses from the allocation equation.
What that means is that Texas Democrats will now allocate all of their delegates proportionally (as mandated by the national party rules) based on the statewide results in the March 1 presidential primary.
--
As a side note, it hard to resist viewing the denied waiver request as a signal of if not the Clinton campaign's pull on the Rules and Bylaws Committee, then the reality that there are folks on the committee (Harold Ickes comes to mind) that are or have in the past been aligned with the Clintons. That comment is not meant as some form of conspiracy theory. That is how the Democratic process has worked: Surrogates of the various campaigns get involved in the rules process. Given that Clinton folks were not fans of the two-step (and for arguably legitimate reasons) after 2008, it is not a real shock that it would meet its end now.
But why now and not four years ago? Parties holding the White House tend not to tinker as much with their delegate selection rules. And by extension, those in the White House at the head of their parties often prefer to maintain the same combination of rules that got them to the White House in the first place. The denied Texas request is as much about the DNC transitioning to life after Obama as it is about Clinton (and company) not liking the two-step because of 2008. It is naive to think that both are not factors in the change for 2016 though.
--
1 That narrative was not really backed up by the data, but that did not keep it from being a talking point in and after 2008.
2 Good point from Kyle D.: Due to redistricting issues in 2011-12, Texas Democrats were forced to revise their delegate selection plan as that process played out in the courts.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
2016 Virginia Presidential Primary Survives Tight Republican State Central Committee Vote
By a vote of 42-39 (with one abstention), the Republican Party of Virginia State Central Committee supported a compromise measure to hold a presidential primary in 2016 and a nominating convention in 2017.
The vote ends the push for a state convention to bind and select delegates to attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland from Virginia. The convention proposal called for March 5 district conventions to select delegates to move on to the state convention. It would have been at that proposed March 19 state convention that the first presidential preference vote in the process would have taken place, thus binding the delegates for the national convention.
But that proposal never came up for a vote. The primary compromise came up first and was passed. That clears the way for a March 1 Virginia presidential primary, placing the commonwealth alongside other southern states with primaries on the SEC primary date. With Virginia locked in as a primary state and one scheduled for March 1, the focus turns toward compliance with the Republican National Committee rules on proportionality. The Republican Party of Virginia allocated at-large delegates proportionally four years ago, but the congressional district delegates were awarded in a winner-take-all fashion. That latter allocation method will have to be altered to bring Virginia into compliance with the national party rules.
That decision will likely be officially made at the State Central Committee's September meeting.
The vote ends the push for a state convention to bind and select delegates to attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland from Virginia. The convention proposal called for March 5 district conventions to select delegates to move on to the state convention. It would have been at that proposed March 19 state convention that the first presidential preference vote in the process would have taken place, thus binding the delegates for the national convention.
But that proposal never came up for a vote. The primary compromise came up first and was passed. That clears the way for a March 1 Virginia presidential primary, placing the commonwealth alongside other southern states with primaries on the SEC primary date. With Virginia locked in as a primary state and one scheduled for March 1, the focus turns toward compliance with the Republican National Committee rules on proportionality. The Republican Party of Virginia allocated at-large delegates proportionally four years ago, but the congressional district delegates were awarded in a winner-take-all fashion. That latter allocation method will have to be altered to bring Virginia into compliance with the national party rules.
That decision will likely be officially made at the State Central Committee's September meeting.
Iowa Republicans Trying to Find the Right Balance in 2016 Delegate Allocation
PLEASE SEE A MORE DETAILED DISCUSSION OF THE DELEGATE SELECTION PLAN ADOPTED BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF IOWA HERE.
It is a real shame that Jennifer Jacobs' Des Moines Register story on the Iowa Republican Party's deliberations on delegate allocation in 2016 was released after 5pm on the East coast and on a day with so much other news. This really is an interesting, if not important, story.1
The question Iowa Republicans are wrestling with now is something that FHQ discussed at the beginning of May. Basically: How does a state party make the transition from non-binding caucuses in one cycle to being a binding caucus state in the next? What kind of delegate allocation rules do you, as a party, craft? And how?
As Iowa Republican Party officials let on to Jacobs, the process is tricky. In reality, it is that much trickier because Iowa has the first contest. It is all well and good to just select a method of delegate allocation at random, but all things held equal, Iowa Republicans theoretically have a different calculus on this than most if not all other states. Very simply, it is more difficult for Iowa to devise rules on delegate allocation when other states 1) have tried and tested a particular method over time and 2) will likely see a significantly winnowed field of candidates in a March 1 or April 26 primary.
South Carolina Republicans, for instance, have a pretty good idea of how a winner-take-most (winner-take-all by congressional district) plan works. There is a reason the party has used that method for as long as it has. California Republicans utilize a similar allocation plan to South Carolina's, but with a June primary, the list of surviving viable candidates will look decidedly different from the group that will brave the mid-winter cold of Iowa four months prior.
If you are the Iowa Republicans, how do you plan for the possibility that the winner of your early/first contest may not actually still be around later in the process, much less at the convention? How do you bind those delegates in a way that accounts not only for that but also reflects the results of the caucuses?
For starters, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann says that the party is leaning toward a proportional rather than winner-take-all method. As FHQ argued before, such a move is at least partially one made to preserve the state's first-in-the-nation status. No, Iowa is not affected by the proportionality requirement -- none of the carve-out state are -- but the RNC is unlikely to look on a move to adopt winner-take-all rules favorably.
So, no winner-take-all.
However, as FHQ mentioned repeatedly in 2011-12 and already here in 2015, there are a number of variations to the proportional method of delegate allocation as defined by the Republican National Committee rules on delegate selection. In the thought experiment FHQ constructed in initially bringing up the Iowa delegate binding question, due to the likely large field and depending on how the rules are written, Iowa could be proportional, but with a threshold that could make it winner-take-all or nearly winner-take-all. If, for instance, Iowa Republicans set a minimum threshold for receiving any delegates at 20%, then it is not inconceivable that with such a large field, only one candidate would break that barrier. And he or she would potentially be awarded all of the delegates (either statewide and/or at the congressional district level). Iowa would become a backdoor winner-take-all state.
What that demonstrates in reality is that state parties have a great deal of latitude under the national Republican guidelines in setting these delegate allocation rules. And the proposals in Iowa appear to be closer to a truly proportional distribution of delegates. As Jennifer Jacobs describes it:
FHQ should also note that this plan Jacobs describes is a truly proportional plan, allocating delegates proportionally based on the statewide results alone. The plan described does not split the allocation across statewide and congressional district results. In other words it makes no distinction between at-large and congressional district delegates in the allocation. To be very -- VERY -- clear, the plan Jacobs describes separates the allocation and election/selection parts of the delegate process. All delegate slots (regardless of whether they are at-large or congressional district slots) are allocated to candidates based on the statewide results in the likely February 1 caucuses. Delegates to fill those allocated slots are elected/selected at either congressional district conventions (12 congressional district delegates) or at the state convention (at-large delegates). Those delegates are then bound to vote for the candidate to whom their slot was allocated.
--
That binding mechanism beyond the caucuses (and the Iowa state convention) is the other part of the calculus that Iowa Republicans are dealing with now. How long does that -- the bind -- last at the national convention and under what conditions? Actually the considerations in Iowa add another wrinkle. Again, from Jennifer Jacobs:
--
Overall, these are difficult issues to tackle. And the uncertainty of the cycle to this point is driving a lot of contingency planning. Since Iowa is the first delegate selection event, the rules behind its delegate selection process almost have to be complicated enough to accommodate a broad candidate landscape, a landscape that will evolve over the course of primary season (based on the results of other contests, the influx of super PAC money and other factors).
The new RNC delegate binding rules have brought or will bring about rules changes at the state level. In total, that may end up being a lot of rules changes. The more rules changes there are, there greater the potential for unintended consequences. That may be consequential.
...or it may just end up being overplanning on the other side of the 2016 election. It is interesting to consider the implications though.
--
1 Results may vary on just how interesting or important it is to you, valued reader, but for FHQ, well...
2 Depending on how the rules are written, a candidate being awarded one delegate could have to get 3% of the vote or a share that would round up to 3%, say, 2.5%. As is often the case, though, often times delegates will be awarded sequentially starting with the top votegetter and working down the vote-based rank ordering. The rounding more often occurs on the actual delegate awarding rather than the vote share. Let's use the Santorum example from Jacobs' description, but assume that he won 19.9% of the vote.
To reiterate, the top votegetters are only marginally affected. In this instance there are minimal differences in the delegate gaps between candidates based on the rounding rules. However, those candidates with smaller vote shares may or may not qualify for any delegates depending on the rounding. With a sequential, top-down allocation with round up rules, Bachmann gets shut out of delegates where she gets two delegates under different rounding rules.
It is a real shame that Jennifer Jacobs' Des Moines Register story on the Iowa Republican Party's deliberations on delegate allocation in 2016 was released after 5pm on the East coast and on a day with so much other news. This really is an interesting, if not important, story.1
The question Iowa Republicans are wrestling with now is something that FHQ discussed at the beginning of May. Basically: How does a state party make the transition from non-binding caucuses in one cycle to being a binding caucus state in the next? What kind of delegate allocation rules do you, as a party, craft? And how?
As Iowa Republican Party officials let on to Jacobs, the process is tricky. In reality, it is that much trickier because Iowa has the first contest. It is all well and good to just select a method of delegate allocation at random, but all things held equal, Iowa Republicans theoretically have a different calculus on this than most if not all other states. Very simply, it is more difficult for Iowa to devise rules on delegate allocation when other states 1) have tried and tested a particular method over time and 2) will likely see a significantly winnowed field of candidates in a March 1 or April 26 primary.
South Carolina Republicans, for instance, have a pretty good idea of how a winner-take-most (winner-take-all by congressional district) plan works. There is a reason the party has used that method for as long as it has. California Republicans utilize a similar allocation plan to South Carolina's, but with a June primary, the list of surviving viable candidates will look decidedly different from the group that will brave the mid-winter cold of Iowa four months prior.
If you are the Iowa Republicans, how do you plan for the possibility that the winner of your early/first contest may not actually still be around later in the process, much less at the convention? How do you bind those delegates in a way that accounts not only for that but also reflects the results of the caucuses?
For starters, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann says that the party is leaning toward a proportional rather than winner-take-all method. As FHQ argued before, such a move is at least partially one made to preserve the state's first-in-the-nation status. No, Iowa is not affected by the proportionality requirement -- none of the carve-out state are -- but the RNC is unlikely to look on a move to adopt winner-take-all rules favorably.
So, no winner-take-all.
However, as FHQ mentioned repeatedly in 2011-12 and already here in 2015, there are a number of variations to the proportional method of delegate allocation as defined by the Republican National Committee rules on delegate selection. In the thought experiment FHQ constructed in initially bringing up the Iowa delegate binding question, due to the likely large field and depending on how the rules are written, Iowa could be proportional, but with a threshold that could make it winner-take-all or nearly winner-take-all. If, for instance, Iowa Republicans set a minimum threshold for receiving any delegates at 20%, then it is not inconceivable that with such a large field, only one candidate would break that barrier. And he or she would potentially be awarded all of the delegates (either statewide and/or at the congressional district level). Iowa would become a backdoor winner-take-all state.
What that demonstrates in reality is that state parties have a great deal of latitude under the national Republican guidelines in setting these delegate allocation rules. And the proposals in Iowa appear to be closer to a truly proportional distribution of delegates. As Jennifer Jacobs describes it:
Candidates would be awarded a percentage of delegates that roughly matches the percentage each candidate wins in the Iowa caucuses. For example, say former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum wins 20 percent on Feb. 1. He'd be assigned 20 percent of Iowa's 30 delegates. That's six delegates.
The proportional numbers would be rounded to the nearest whole delegate, so a candidate would have to earn at least 3 percent of the vote in the caucuses to get just one delegate.This is a proportional plan with no threshold other than a candidate getting a share of the caucus vote large enough to round up to one delegate.2 It is a more open plan rather than a closed one, limiting the number of candidates who may qualify for delegates.
FHQ should also note that this plan Jacobs describes is a truly proportional plan, allocating delegates proportionally based on the statewide results alone. The plan described does not split the allocation across statewide and congressional district results. In other words it makes no distinction between at-large and congressional district delegates in the allocation. To be very -- VERY -- clear, the plan Jacobs describes separates the allocation and election/selection parts of the delegate process. All delegate slots (regardless of whether they are at-large or congressional district slots) are allocated to candidates based on the statewide results in the likely February 1 caucuses. Delegates to fill those allocated slots are elected/selected at either congressional district conventions (12 congressional district delegates) or at the state convention (at-large delegates). Those delegates are then bound to vote for the candidate to whom their slot was allocated.
--
That binding mechanism beyond the caucuses (and the Iowa state convention) is the other part of the calculus that Iowa Republicans are dealing with now. How long does that -- the bind -- last at the national convention and under what conditions? Actually the considerations in Iowa add another wrinkle. Again, from Jennifer Jacobs:
If the nation rallies around one favorite candidate in the states that follow Iowa, the convention will be easier, Kaufmann said. Iowa GOP officials could pass a rule that says if only one candidate's name is placed in nomination, all of Iowa's delegates are bound to cast their first vote for that one candidate.
But what if more than one Republican is up for nomination at the convention? One idea is to reshuffle the delegates so that "all of Iowa's votes will go to candidates who have officially been placed in nomination," said David Chung, a member of the party's governing board. That way, votes aren't being cast for candidates no longer in the race. If there are, say, three candidates in the nomination fight, 100 percent of Iowa's delegates would be divided among those three, in proportion to the number of votes each got in the caucuses.Now, both scenarios represent planning that is innovative but is also unique to either Iowa, the 2016 cycle or both. We might call these contingencies a "rebinding" of the delegates. That, however, is a loaded term. In a fractious party -- state or national -- rebinding gets right to the heart of the fairness of the process. Yet, what the proposals indicate is a conscience effort on the part of the Republican Party of Iowa to create a formula that can adapt to the changes that will almost certainly occur as the Republican presidential nomination process moves from its official kickoff in Iowa to the national convention in Cleveland. The party is seemingly trying to create a formula that always makes an attempt to accurately reflect the results of the caucuses.
--
Overall, these are difficult issues to tackle. And the uncertainty of the cycle to this point is driving a lot of contingency planning. Since Iowa is the first delegate selection event, the rules behind its delegate selection process almost have to be complicated enough to accommodate a broad candidate landscape, a landscape that will evolve over the course of primary season (based on the results of other contests, the influx of super PAC money and other factors).
The new RNC delegate binding rules have brought or will bring about rules changes at the state level. In total, that may end up being a lot of rules changes. The more rules changes there are, there greater the potential for unintended consequences. That may be consequential.
...or it may just end up being overplanning on the other side of the 2016 election. It is interesting to consider the implications though.
--
1 Results may vary on just how interesting or important it is to you, valued reader, but for FHQ, well...
2 Depending on how the rules are written, a candidate being awarded one delegate could have to get 3% of the vote or a share that would round up to 3%, say, 2.5%. As is often the case, though, often times delegates will be awarded sequentially starting with the top votegetter and working down the vote-based rank ordering. The rounding more often occurs on the actual delegate awarding rather than the vote share. Let's use the Santorum example from Jacobs' description, but assume that he won 19.9% of the vote.
30 (total Iowa Republican delegates) X .199 = 5.97 delegatesSantorum's total haul would not be 5.97 delegates. That would round up to 6 delegates. There are no fractional delegates. However, states deal with rounding differently to account for the fact that there are no fractional delegates allowed. Some always round up while others round up only if the fraction is higher than .49. The rounding rules impact the candidates at the top end of the rank ordering, but that is minor in view of the fact that those further down the list could get shut out of the allocation due to how the rounding rules are constructed. The 2012 Iowa Republican caucus results offer a nice example of this issue.
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| 2012 Iowa Republican Caucus Results and Delegate Allocation | |||||
| Candidate | Vote (%) | Delegates (Raw/Unrounded) | Delegates (Rounded Down)1 | Delegates (Rounded Up) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santorum | 24.6 | 7.38 | 7 | 8 | |
| Romney | 24.5 | 7.35 | 7 | 8 | |
| Paul | 21.4 | 6.42 | 6 | 7 | |
| Gingrich | 13.3 | 3.99 | 4 | 4 | |
| Perry | 10.3 | 3.09 | 3 | 32 | |
| Bachmann | 5.0 | 1.50 | 2 | -- | |
| Remainders3 | -- | -- | 1 | -- | |
| Notes: 1 Delegates are rounded up only if the fractional delegate is greater than .49. Fractional delegates at or below .49 are rounded down. 2 The Perry number is not rounded up as the rest are because there were only three delegates that remained to be allocated by the time the sequence worked down the list to him. 3 Remainders in this case means any delegates left unallocated due to the rounding rules, not the candidates who received a smaller share of the Iowa caucus vote than Rep. Bachmann. | |||||
To reiterate, the top votegetters are only marginally affected. In this instance there are minimal differences in the delegate gaps between candidates based on the rounding rules. However, those candidates with smaller vote shares may or may not qualify for any delegates depending on the rounding. With a sequential, top-down allocation with round up rules, Bachmann gets shut out of delegates where she gets two delegates under different rounding rules.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Local Officials Object to Prospect of New York Losing Bonus Delegates Due to April 19 Presidential Primary
John Spina and Jennifer Fermino have the story at The New York Daily News:
But with the presidential primary a Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signature away from an April 19 date, the Passover conflict is averted, but the 15% clustering bonus is gone. No cluster, no bonus.
Former Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver (D), who pushed for the earlier date is, according to Spina and Fermino, "trying to convince the DNC to still award New York the bonus delegates." Unless Connecticut and Rhode Island bring up legislation in special sessions, that is probably unlikely. The DNC has no rules-based discretion to award bonus delegates to states that do not meet the criteria. [The focus is on the two New England states because the Pennsylvania legislature is currently considering whether to move its April 26 primary to March 15. If that move occurs, New York would be dependent on its two eastern neighbors to achieve the clustering bonus anyway.]
Some irate local officials are warning New York will lose dozens of delegates to the 2016 Democratic convention following a successful push by former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to move the party’s primary from Passover week.FHQ addressed the potential loss of bonus delegates in our post covering the Assembly passage of the April 19 presidential primary bill earlier this week. This is a classic example of political trade-offs. On the one hand, New York Democrats would have received a double bonus for holding an April 26 primary; a 10% bump for an April primary and a 15% boost for clustering with up to five other neighboring (or contiguous) states. The price of that bonus -- due to the scheduling on April 26 -- was the Passover holiday conflict. Jewish voters would have been forced to vote during the holiday, vote absentee or not vote at all.
Moving the primary from April 26 to April 19 would deprive New York of bonus delegates, which the Democratic National Committee doles out to states that cluster their primaries on one day.
But with the presidential primary a Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signature away from an April 19 date, the Passover conflict is averted, but the 15% clustering bonus is gone. No cluster, no bonus.
Former Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver (D), who pushed for the earlier date is, according to Spina and Fermino, "trying to convince the DNC to still award New York the bonus delegates." Unless Connecticut and Rhode Island bring up legislation in special sessions, that is probably unlikely. The DNC has no rules-based discretion to award bonus delegates to states that do not meet the criteria. [The focus is on the two New England states because the Pennsylvania legislature is currently considering whether to move its April 26 primary to March 15. If that move occurs, New York would be dependent on its two eastern neighbors to achieve the clustering bonus anyway.]
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
April 19 Presidential Primary Bill Passes New York Assembly
The New York Assembly on Wednesday, June 24 passed S5958, moving one step closer to scheduling the presidential primary in the Empire state for April 19.
The Assembly version (A8310) of the April 19 bill was taken up after being moved from the Election Law Committee to Rules and added to the calendar. On the Assembly floor, A8310 was replaced by the state Senate-passed version and then passed by the Assembly.
All this after former Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, announced yesterday that the April 19 date had been agreed to to avert a conflict with the Passover holiday a week later (on April 26). If signed into law by Governor Cuomo, S5958 would move the New York presidential primary to a spot on the calendar where the contest would stand alone.
This would cost the New York Democratic delegation a 15% delegate bonus for clustering contests with Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. By moving, New York would cost Connecticut and Rhode Island their chance at the same clustering bonus. Under the rules set forth in the Democratic Call to the Convention, three neighboring states are required for a state to qualify for the bonus. While Connecticut and Rhode Island lose out due to the potential New York shift, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania continue to qualify so long as Pennsylvania maintains its position. Legislation in the Keystone state would move the Pennsylvania primary to March 15.
Despite that loss, New York Democrats would still receive a 10% delegate bonus for holding an April primary.
The Republican National Committee does not include any delegate bonuses in its rules.
The Assembly version (A8310) of the April 19 bill was taken up after being moved from the Election Law Committee to Rules and added to the calendar. On the Assembly floor, A8310 was replaced by the state Senate-passed version and then passed by the Assembly.
All this after former Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, announced yesterday that the April 19 date had been agreed to to avert a conflict with the Passover holiday a week later (on April 26). If signed into law by Governor Cuomo, S5958 would move the New York presidential primary to a spot on the calendar where the contest would stand alone.
This would cost the New York Democratic delegation a 15% delegate bonus for clustering contests with Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. By moving, New York would cost Connecticut and Rhode Island their chance at the same clustering bonus. Under the rules set forth in the Democratic Call to the Convention, three neighboring states are required for a state to qualify for the bonus. While Connecticut and Rhode Island lose out due to the potential New York shift, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania continue to qualify so long as Pennsylvania maintains its position. Legislation in the Keystone state would move the Pennsylvania primary to March 15.
Despite that loss, New York Democrats would still receive a 10% delegate bonus for holding an April primary.
The Republican National Committee does not include any delegate bonuses in its rules.
Kansas Republican to Caucus on March 5
The Kansas Republican Party has settled on March 5, 2016 as the date of the party's presidential caucuses.
Coming off the state convention in late January, Kansas Republicans announced that they had tentatively set the date of the 2016 caucuses for March 5. In the time since, what the party described then as "will probably" changed to "will" be on March 5 by the time Kansas Republican Party Chairman Kelly Arnold testified in favor of legislation canceling the 2016 presidential primary in the Sunflower state. The date has subsequently been added to the party's calendar of upcoming events.
March 5 caucuses for Kansas Republicans means that both parties in the state will share the same delegate selection date for the first since Kansas last held a presidential primary in 1992. The first Saturday in March date is also the same date Kansas Republicans used four years ago. This time the party will be competing with more than just distant US territories. As of now, the Louisiana primary also shares that date (on the Republican primary calendar) with Kansas.
Coming off the state convention in late January, Kansas Republicans announced that they had tentatively set the date of the 2016 caucuses for March 5. In the time since, what the party described then as "will probably" changed to "will" be on March 5 by the time Kansas Republican Party Chairman Kelly Arnold testified in favor of legislation canceling the 2016 presidential primary in the Sunflower state. The date has subsequently been added to the party's calendar of upcoming events.
March 5 caucuses for Kansas Republicans means that both parties in the state will share the same delegate selection date for the first since Kansas last held a presidential primary in 1992. The first Saturday in March date is also the same date Kansas Republicans used four years ago. This time the party will be competing with more than just distant US territories. As of now, the Louisiana primary also shares that date (on the Republican primary calendar) with Kansas.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
2008 Republican Delegate Allocation Rules by State
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NOTES:
1. FHQ will not dive too far into all of this now. This is, along with the 2012 post, should serve as a baseline to which the 2016 rules as they come more into focus can be compared.
2. The Republican delegate allocation in 2008 may be a better prism through which to view the aggregate patchwork of rules that will govern the 2016 Republican presidential nomination process at the state level. FHQ says that because the expectation is that there will be a handful (to a great deal) more winner-take-all states in 2016. The addition of the proportionality window in 2012 had something to do with the 11 winner-take-all states in 2008 dropping to just 6 in 2012. Two of those five states (Connecticut and New York) voluntarily adopted more proportional rules even with later primary dates outside of the proportionality window. Missouri switched a caucus with no formal rules in 2012. Only Vermont and Virginia had primaries scheduled in the 2012 proportionality window, forcing a change to a more proportional method of allocation from a truly winner-take-all plan.
3. In the aggregate, it appears that most of those winner-take-all (2008) turned more proportional (2012) states went from the truly winner-take-all category in 2008 to the truly proportional category in 2012. When we push the examination down to the individual (state) level, the shuffling is more complex (see previous paragraph).
4. Again, FHQ should note that those states in the hybrid category tend to be more like proportional states than truly winner-take-all states in terms of the underlying allocation. Together, hybrid and proportional states comprised two-thirds of the total delegates available in the 2008 Republican presidential nomination process. Importantly, 10 of the 11 winner-take-all states were on or before February 12, 2008 (the week after Super Tuesday). John McCain won all of those early truly winner-take-all states except Utah. That provided a significant delegate cushion for the Arizona senator over his challengers.
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