Friday, January 20, 2023
New Hampshire Senate Moves to Further Protect First-in-the-Nation Presidential Primary with Constitutional Amendment
Hawaii Bill Would Establish a Presidential Primary
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This legislation has been added to the updated 2024 presidential primary calendar.
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Thursday, January 19, 2023
State House Companion Bill Would Also Push Michigan Presidential Primary to February 27
Read the rest at FHQ Plus.
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This legislation has been added to the updated 2024 presidential primary calendar.
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Wednesday, January 18, 2023
How Do New Hampshirites Really Feel About 2024 and the Presidential Primary Calendar?
FHQ will admit it. We almost took the bait.
...again.
Another group of New Hampshire Democrats are voicing their displeasure with President Biden's proposed shake up to the 2024 presidential primary calendar. And once again, it looks like a doubling -- or tripling -- down on the same arguments that Democrats in the Granite state have used in defense of their first-in-the-nation presidential primary since the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) adopted the proposed calendar in December. And these Democrats are equally as justified in making that defense directly to the president as others have been over the last month or more. The calendar decision has not been finalized and will not be until the February DNC winter meeting at the earliest.
But the national media keeps treating this as a national story. And it is! In that national story, New Hampshire Democrats keep digging in, seemingly making the situation worse with national Democrats. In that game it would behoove New Hampshire Democrats to quietly defer to the state law that requires the secretary of state in the Granite state to schedule the presidential primary there at least seven days before any other similar contest. That decision, after all, is out of their hands. So, too, are the changes to state law that the DNCRBC has requested New Hampshire Democrats push for with Republicans in control of the levers of power in the state.
What continues to be in the control of New Hampshire Democrats is how they push for those changes. Elected Democrats in the New Hampshire General Court can propose legislation to change the date of the primary and to add no-excuse absentee voting. One Democrat has already proposed an expansion of absentee voting conditions (even if those changes likely fall short of what national Democrats have in mind).
Granted, the incentives are just not there to push for changes to the presidential primary date or to propose some alternative method of selecting and allocating national convention delegates. Those are both well within the power of New Hampshire Democrats to do, but to cede any ground -- any -- on first-in-the-nation status is to undermine the whole institution. And Democrats in the Granite state are not going to do that, especially before the decision has been finalized at the national level.
So we are all left with this constant back and forth of bad optics for New Hampshire Democrats in the national media. A decision still has not been made and the vacuum keeps getting filled by the constant, yet natural, drip of New Hampshire Democrats lobbying the president or the DNCRBC in the lead up to when the calendar decision is to be made.
But rather than continue on that feedback loop where a new communication from Concord to Washington begets yet another national story about New Hampshire Democrats digging their hole even deeper with national Democrats, the focus should perhaps be elsewhere.
Why is it that New Hampshire Democrats are doing this? Yes, yes. Defense of the presidential primary. Everyone gets that. But why are they doing this in this way when continued defiance only hurts them with the national party -- when it only seemingly brings the state party inescapably closer to sanctions from the national party?
Much of this has to do with the fact that New Hampshire Democrats have two audiences to which they have to play. Every facet of the above story is about how the decisions state Democrats are making are playing with the national party audience (whether the national party as an organization or Democrats nationally). But how do these decisions play at home? In New Hampshire?
No, FHQ is not talking about the DNC proposal. The vocalized response thus far seems to be against the changes called for the in the calendar plan adopted by the DNCRBC (but not yet finalized by the DNC). But how do New Hampshirites feel about the defense the Democratic Party in the Granite state is waging?
Do they feel it is adequate?
Do they feel it is even necessary?
This strikes FHQ as a missing link in all the reporting on the New Hampshire Democratic Party response to the DNCRBC decision. The public reaction to the DNCRBC decision has been covered but feelings about the NHDP response have not. And that is important. It is important because NHDP continues to raise the negative ramifications of the national-level process and decision on electoral prospects for Democrats up and down the ballot in the Granite state.
If New Hampshire Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents in the electorate are of the opinion that the NHDP response to the national party is adequate, then it may not hurt Democrats in races other than the presidential race in 2024 or only affect them at the margins. [Yes, those margins can matter.]
If those same folks in New Hampshire feel like the response from NHDP is unnecessary -- that New Hampshire is going to do what New Hampshire is going to do and go first anyway -- then it may not hurt Democrats at all in 2024. Republicans in the state are just screaming into the wind to no avail when raising the issue as a potential wedge.
But we do not know those things. They are not part of the national narrative on this story. [And the New Hampshire press has incentives to tell this story as a defense of the primary and that alone.] So this story keeps getting told the same way every time it is revealed that some New Hampshire Democrat or group of them is making another pitch to some national Democrat or the DNCRBC.
And it is not that FHQ is demanding a poll be commissioned. We do not even really have this information anecdotally. We are just being made to take a variety of New Hampshire Democrats' words for it that this calendar move -- whether New Hampshire Democrats defy it or not -- will be injurious to Democrats in 2024.
Will it? There are ways to answer that and no one is really getting at them. ...at least not yet.
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Assembly Companion Introduced to Consolidate New York Primaries in June
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Tuesday, January 17, 2023
West Virginia Bill Would Move Presidential Primary to February
Monday, January 16, 2023
Post-2022 Partisan Control of State Government and 2024 Presidential Primary Movement
What if anything do the 2022 midterm results mean for primary movement on the 2024 presidential primary calendar?
Part of that question was actually answered back in August when the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) finalized all of the delegate selection rules for the 2024 cycle except one section. That exception? The pre-window calendar rules and exemptions. And why did the panel wait? They pushed pause on finalizing the early calendar because the midterms were going to be determinative in just how ambitious Democrats could be in reworking the calendar. A Republican surge would have meant something more like the status quo would have prevailed while a Democratic hold or gains would have given the DNCRBC a bit more latitude in changing things.
The results ended up closer to the latter and Democrats swung big in booting Iowa and (effectively) New Hampshire from the pre-window in the adopted calendar proposal for 2024.
That has largely been the story thus far for 2024 primary movement, prospective or otherwise. And that is unusual. It is atypical for a party currently occupying the White House to tinker with its delegate selection rules, especially when the incumbent president is signaling a run for reelection. Very simply, incumbent presidents of the post-reform era have made a habit of demonstrating that they like the rules that got them to the nomination in the first place and have tended to carry them over for the most part to their reelection cycle.
That has not been the case with the Biden administration of the DNCRBC following the 2022 midterms. Instead of the focus being on Republican-controlled states angling to better position their primaries and caucuses for a competitive nomination cycle, the spotlight has been on two states tabbed to be a part of the new Democratic pre-window lineup. Two states where Democrats did not gain sufficient state legislative or gubernatorial seats to change the tide. That is, the talk has been about Georgia and New Hampshire not moving because Republicans in both state governments stand in the way.
But the DNC calendar rules are not finalized yet and will not be until the February winter meeting at the earliest. Georgia and New Hampshire will continue to be stories in the process, but may force Democrats to look elsewhere to states that may be better able to implement changes. Given the national party's preference for state-run contests, any changes to move additional states' contests around will occur in state legislatures across the country.
The other side of this, of course, is that Republicans did not flip control of any state legislative chambers in 2022. And the only gubernatorial seat the GOP gained was in Nevada, where Democrats retained control of the legislature (and the primary is already early on the calendar). As a component of possible primary movement, the lack of a typical out-party surge in the midterms did not portend pronounced primary movement.
Another significant component is that Republicans are still dealing with the fallout of the primary movement from the 2012 cycle. As a quick primer on 2012, one has to go back to the 2004 cycle when Democrats aligned their calendar rules with those of the Republicans. Both parties allowed February contests for the first time then. While that set off some movement toward the new early, most states did not catch on to the rules change and act until the 2008 cycle. But that rush to the front of the queue was marked not just by states trying to shift to the earliest date allowed by the two major parties -- the first Tuesday in February -- but by a handful risking penalties to go beyond that point, threatening the positions of the earliest states exempted from national party rules. That pushed Iowa and New Hampshire to the brink of conducting contests in 2007, something that decision makers in neither national party seemed to prefer.
And that influenced the calendar rules for 2012. The parties informally brokered a later start to primary season, nixing February as the earliest point during which non-exempt states could hold contests. Both parties nudged that starting time back to the first Tuesday in March for the 2012 cycle. But that left nearly 20 states in the lurch. All had February or early contests on the books. And all 20 needed to change state laws in order to come back into compliance with the new national party rules.
That change set off a flurry of activity on the state level in 2011. But there was a pattern to it. With an active Republican presidential nomination race on the horizon, the Republican-controlled states among that 20 tended to move back but less so. They mostly ended up in March. Democratic-controlled states, on the other hand, pushed even further back on the calendar with less at stake.
And that is the legacy of 2012. The March start point for most states is still there in the national party rules and so are most of the Republican states. Some of the Democratic ones have even come back. That is not to say that there are not Republican-controlled states later in the calendar. There are. But there just is not a lot of movement that can happen at this point. Not movement forward anyway.
In the end, there will be primary movement for 2024. Some has already happened prior to 2023. But the point here is to hone in on just how much movement can happen. Some can, but this is neither 2008 nor 2012. The changes on the Democratic side will likely push at least Iowa and New Hampshire into January and bring Michigan at a minimum into the pre-window. Other than that, however, there may be some incremental changes to comply with the new national Republican rules that will affect the end of the calendar. Unified Republican control in Montana and South Dakota ought to make those changes easier.
The 2022 midterm elections saw relative stability across the board, and the lack of change there will affect how much the calendar is able to change in 2023. So far the outlook suggests limited tweaks. But it is still early.
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Sunday, January 15, 2023
Iowa Back in the Democratic Pre-Window?
During the last month or so there has been significant chatter about not to mention back and forth between New Hampshire Democrats and the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) over the position of the Granite state presidential primary on the 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar. But that has mostly overshadowed the impact the proposed calendar overhaul has had on the other traditional lead-off state, Iowa.
Sure, the caucuses in the Hawkeye state were ousted from their spot at the head of the class in the Democratic presidential nomination process for first time in the last half century. However, more (national) attention has been paid to the defiance of New Hampshire Democrats, who received a pre-window waiver (albeit with a demanding set of conditions), than to Iowa Democrats also potentially breaking the rules to continue occupying the top slot.
Placed on the back burner in reality or not, the Iowa situation has not gone anywhere. In fact, the recent deadline for the states granted contingent pre-window waivers by the DNCRBC to check in with their progress did not go unnoticed. When it was revealed that Georgia and New Hampshire had both fallen short of meeting the state-specific mandates from the national panel, Iowa Democrats took the opportunity to lobby once again to be reinserted into the lineup.
In a letter to the DNCRBC, Ross Wilburn, outgoing Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) chair, astutely leaned on the feasibility argument that weighed so heavily on the panel down the stretch in their decision-making process. Those potential complications forced the committee to punt on a calendar decision until after the 2022 midterms. As Wilburn wrote:
"The Iowa Democratic Party believes that, with two states apparently unable to meet the criteria set forth as conditions of a waiver, within the timeline set forth by this committee, we have a compelling case to be granted a conditional waiver for a pre-window contest. As a state party run contest, we retain the ultimate ability to tailor our contest to RBC rules and specifications and maintain a flexibility that states with state-run contests cannot. To that end, we request consideration for a conditional waiver be considered at the February meeting of the RBC."
Honing in on the revised, fully-absentee caucuses that the IDP pitched to the DNCRBC in the summer, Wilburn continued:
"The process we proposed allowed flexibility as to the date while complying with Iowa law. We believe that Iowa can be an important part of the solution to an early nominating calendar by providing flexibility with its new process."
But Wilburn was not the only one making the case. Iowa's sole member of the DNCRBC, Scott Brennan also weighed in:
"We view this as an opportunity to go back and say, 'Take another look, you made a mistake with us the first time. We're willing to forgive and forget and take our spot back in the pre-window."
Brennan added that Iowa Democrats "stand ready, willing and able to fill in" before setting expectations for the coming weeks before the DNC presumably votes on finalizing the early calendar:
Brennan said he expects the committee will discuss Wilburn’s request at its February meeting, but meet virtually in the meantime in the next couple of weeks to discuss granting a deadline extension for New Hampshire and Georgia.
Even Governor Kim Reynolds (R-IA) added her two cents during her second inaugural speech this past week:
“To the national Democrats, to President Biden, I say this: Reconsider,” she said. “Come back to Iowa, and you won’t regret it.”
None of this is unexpected. The Iowa loose end will have to be tied off at some point by either the DNCRBC or the Iowa Democratic Party. But until (and perhaps after) the DNC finalizes the 2024 calendar rules, the IDP clearly has no qualms about continuing to pitch the caucuses as a solution to any implementation problems other states may have.
But one thing this highlights that I do not think has been emphasized enough since the DNCRBC handed down its proposal in December is that that action has so far served as a massive wedge in between a host of institutionalized traditions that have developed during the post-reform era with Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the queue.
Think about how both parties in each state may have differed on every policy position under the sun, but agreed on one thing, keeping their respective states first in the presidential primary order. That bipartisanship still exists in both states, but it has been weakened. State parties in Iowa and New Hampshire are still fighting to remain first, but Republicans in both states have not been shy about pointing out how the DNCRBC decision means that national Democrats do not care about the interests of either state. And neither have Democrats in the two states been unwilling to tell the national party what the decision may mean for Democrats in their states or nationally. That past togetherness on the matter between Democrats and Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire is gone.
And that is not the only wedge. The DNCRBC decision has also undermined the Iowa/New Hampshire relationship. It has not always been the case, yet both states have done well to band together to ward off threats in the past. Now, those threats were from other potential rogue states and not a change in national party rules, but Iowa and New Hampshire would work together. Iowa Democrats even consulted with New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner in the lead up to the 2020 cycle to insure that any changes to the caucus process in the Hawkeye state would not run afoul of the state law in the Granite state.
That working relationship now seems to be gone too in the aftermath of the DNCRBC adoption of the calendar rules package. New Hampshire Democrats failed to meet the DNCRBC stipulations by January 5, and Iowa Democrats did not hesitate to offer the caucuses up as a substitute. That would not have happened in the past.
None of that was by design, per se. The DNCRBC and the Biden administration simply wanted to change up the states and order of the contests in the pre-window. But it would be a mistake not to make note of the extent to which that has already eroded rituals if not instincts that have developed in the post-reform era, traditions primary watchers could be excused for taking for granted.
In the end, as the DNC winter meeting approaches at the beginning of February, Iowa may or may not prove to be a suitable substitute. However, the DNCRBC did not support a plan that included five state-run contests by accident. It has a preference for them. That is why the Iowa caucuses -- feasibility of movement aside -- should be discounted as much as New Hampshire Democrats potentially offering to shift to a party-run contest in order to comply with the DNCRBC proposal (which they have not done and likely will not).
Of course, that may leave the DNCRBC with other imperfect possibilities relative to the criteria it has used during the selection process. Then again, Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats may just ignore them anyway. But that is another matter.
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Saturday, January 14, 2023
Legislative Odds and Ends from New Hampshire with 2024 Implications
There is obviously a long way to go but the first two weeks of the 2023 session in the closely divided state legislature in Concord have already produced some interesting bills. And it is legislation that would have some impact on 2024 in the state that traditionally holds the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Two in particular -- one from each side of the aisle -- have been introduced in the early going.
1. Provable, positive steps from New Hampshire Democrats
FHQ has done a lot of talking about actions taken or not taken by New Hampshire Democrats in the time since the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) adopted a 2024 primary calendar proposal that would push the presidential primary in the Granite state back in the order for the upcoming cycle. But earlier in the week, I discussed the opportunities that New Hampshire Democrats may have to extricate themselves from the predicament in which the party finds itself. Taking those actions -- making provable, positive steps toward the goals set by the DNCRBC to retain their early calendar status -- might not keep the party from being penalized, but it might lessen the penalties.
Legislation was offered last week by one Democrat that falls into that category. Rep. Barry Faulkner (D-10th, Cheshire) introduced HB 586 which would expand absentee voting access in the Granite state. Now, while it does not go as far as the sort of "no excuse" absentee voting that was voted down in the state Senate in 2021 (SB 47), the measure would expand the list of excuses to receive an absentee ballot to include health and safety concerns (beyond disability) and a "lack of convenient and affordable transportation." Clearly, that is a provable, positive step that moves toward the DNCRBC mandate for an early calendar waiver. But it ultimately would likely fall short and does nothing to change the date of the presidential primary, the heavier lift for New Hampshire Democrats.
That is not nothing, but it likely would not be enough in the eyes of those on the DNCRBC who will serve as final arbiters on the New Hampshire primary situation.
2. A potential own goal by Granite state Republicans
On the Republican side, Rep. Mike Moffett (R-4th, Merrimack) and Rep. Joseph Guthrie (R-15th, Rockingham) introduced HB 101, legislation that would close primaries in New Hampshire to only those who affiliate with a political party. This is an age-old, intra-party question pitting pragmatists against purists that waxes and wanes over time but has surged in recent years during both the Tea Party and MAGA eras. While the phenomenon is not exclusive to the Republican Party, that has been where purists have pushed most often and most forcefully for closed primaries.
But closing off primary participation would go against the grain in New Hampshire. The tradition of independents voting in primaries for offices up and down the ballot is storied, but has been part and parcel of the presidential primary process in the state for decades. However, this legislation does not just break with tradition in the Granite state, it comes at a particularly inopportune time. With state Democrats embroiled in a fight with their national party over the first-in-the-nation status of the New Hampshire presidential primary, Republicans in the state would be passing up a prime opportunity to potentially more easily woo independent voters in the 2024 presidential primary with the general election and the state's four electoral votes in mind.
To close the presidential primary to only registered Republicans would be political malpractice in that light.
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Look, neither of these bills are likely to go anywhere. If the fate of the bill in the 2021 session is any guide, then Republicans in the state House are likely to balk at any expanded absentee voting measure (even a scaled down one). And although there may be some Republican support for closing primaries in the Granite state, it likely will fall short of unifying the caucus behind a bill that would essentially have the party cut off its nose to spite its face. Still, this is the sort of legislative wrangling that happens not just in Concord but in state legislatures across the country.
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Friday, January 13, 2023
Roadblock to an Earlier Michigan Presidential Primary?
Yes, Democrats control state government in Michigan after the 2022 midterms.
Yes, there is now legislation to bring the Michigan presidential primary in line with the calendar proposal adopted by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) last month.
But none of that necessarily means that obstacles do not stand in the way of the state's Democrats coming into compliance with the DNC's likely rules for the 2024 cycle. The legislation -- SB 13 -- is simple enough and non-controversial to the Democratic majority, but state legislative rules may gum up the works with respect to the legislation moving seamlessly through the legislature and being implemented in time for February of next year.
The Detroit News reports that even though the Democrats holding the levers of power in Lansing plan a "rapid" consideration of the presidential primary date change, they may need Republican help in the state House to make it happen.
The reason is because the Michigan Constitution requires bills to take effect 90 days after the end of the legislative session unless two-thirds of the lawmakers in each chamber vote to give them "immediate effect."
That "immediate effect" measure matters because Democrats hold only a narrow majority in the state House, short of a two-thirds advantage, and the legislature typically adjourns at the end of the year. Late December 2023 is within 90 days of the proposed new position of the Michigan presidential primary on February 27, 2024.
In other words, Michigan Democrats may need state House Republicans to get the primary date change over the finish line. And therein lies the rub. Although Republicans in the Great Lakes state may in theory support and earlier primary and a potentially larger voice in the presidential nomination process in 2024, Republican National Committee (RNC) rules prohibiting primaries and caucuses other than the four typical carve-out states before March 1 may deter cooperation in the effort. Assisting state Democrats now in shifting the presidential primary into February may cost Michigan Republicans around three-quarters of their national convention delegates in 2024.
That is a steep price and was intended to be when the RNC added the penalty for the 2016 cycle. But just because there are national party rules against any particular maneuver on the state level does not mean that Republicans in any given state will follow along blindly. There may, then, be enough Republican support to push SB 13 through the House and immediately thereafter take effect.
Of course, even if Republicans in the minority pull together in united opposition to the move in the Michigan state House, Democrats will still have tools at their disposal to bring the primary move to fruition. If the majority completes their 2023 work in time, the Democrats will still have the ability to adjourn the session early enough that there is at least a 90 day cushion between that point and February 27, 2024.
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Two footnotes to this:
1. National party cross-pressures
The politics of this are interesting because of the dynamics that exist between what is happening in Lansing and how legislators there are being cross-pressured by the national parties' rules if not the national parties themselves. Michigan Democrats want SB 13 to move "rapid[ly]" in order to meet the February 1 deadline to have the primary moved that the DNCRBC-adopted calendar rules package set in December. There is probably some wiggle room on that deadline as long as the legislature is making progress.
But the Republican side of this equation raises some questions. Clearly, RNC penalties are on the radars of at least some Michigan Republican legislators. One Republican opposed state Senate-passed legislation in 2022 that would have pushed the presidential primary even earlier into February because of the rules implications.
Yet, at this point in time, how much are the feelings of that lone Republican, Senator Jim Runestad, being buttressed by representatives from the RNC? That is unclear. There is a large enough team at the RNC to be able to multitask on a variety of issues, but considering that a heated race for RNC chair is taking place in the same window in which the DNCRBC is requiring completed action on the primary move in Michigan, it could mean that resources may be diverted at the very time they are needed in Lansing. It is not that RNC backup is necessarily needed in Michigan to inform Republicans in the state legislature of the gravity of moving the presidential primary, but rather that the national party may be sidetracked at a point when that backup may matter most.
2. Maybe Michigan cannot help Georgia
On a different note, this potential legislative roadblock in Michigan complicates to some degree the Georgia primary situation for the Democratic National Committee (DNC). FHQ recently raised the prospect of the DNC switching the Georgia (February 13) and Michigan (February 27) primaries in the proposed calendar order as a means of actually getting the presidential primary in the Peach state into the pre-window.
However, such a switch was predicated on an unfettered Democratic majority in Lansing; a majority free to tweak legislation if necessary. Michigan Democrats in the legislature may still have that ability, but it appears that the entire Democratic apparatus in the state -- state party and legislature -- are taking the February 1 DNCRBC deadline seriously. The quicker the legislative majority in Michigan feels compelled to move on SB 13, the less likely it is that the Georgia situation can be fixed in a way that is amendable to the Republican secretary of state there.
Again, there is likely some latitude in that DNCRBC deadline if Michigan is moving positively toward the goal of changing its primary date. But that is a tricky position for the DNC. At once they want to convey the need to lock in the primary date change in Michigan, but to also find a way to accommodate the complications that are present in Georgia. And at some point the DNC is just going to have to finalize its calendar order and be ready to face whatever state-level reactions come. Still, the party does not want to finalize a calendar rules package that will be tough or impossible to implement and creates headaches down the road.
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