The Runback: Primarily Window Dressing
Democrats are shaking up their primary calendar. Or are they?
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News and Politics
Simonaire's Leadership Stint Ends as We Expected It To: Bryan Simonaire had to go. He should have never been there in the first place.
Cox's Electoral Dysfunction: Dan Cox received the lowest raw vote total in years. He received half as many total votes as Larry Hogan in 2018, and that's just part of the story.
Maryland's Looming Environmental Disaster: Adoption of California's all-electric car mandate is going to be a boondoggle of epic proportions.
December 2022 Republican Presidential Power Rankings: It's Moving Day
Schifanelli Unity State Still Trying to Claw Its Way Back into MDGOP Leadership Races: MD GOP Unity Team still spinning a conspiracy to cover up their own inadequacies.
The Maine House, by the numbers: An updated look at the Maine House results
Travel
A Masterful Course: Hawaiian Rumble, home of the Mini-Golf Masters, exceeds the hype
Pinball Wizardry at the Beach: Did you know Myrtle Beach even had a pinball museum?
Get thee to Sidereal: A new farm brewery near the capital is hitting home runs.
Sports
Ballroom Blitz: The economics of women's college basketball are problematic
Reimagining the NFL Playoff Structure: because the current system is dog doo
The Monday Thought
In case you didn’t the Democratic National Committee on Friday voted to drastically shake up their Presidential primary calendar:
The rule-making arm of the Democratic National Committee on Friday voted to approve a proposal to drastically reshape the 2024 presidential nominating calendar and make South Carolina the first state to hold a primary, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on the same day a few days later, and then Georgia and Michigan before Super Tuesday.
President Joe Biden this week asked DNC leaders to adopt this early state lineup, which strips Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status. The proposal by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee needs to be approved at a full DNC meeting, which will take place early next year, and states will still need to set their own primary dates.
The DNC rules panel proposed that the 2024 presidential calendar schedule South Carolina’s primary on February 3, Nevada and New Hampshire’s contests on February 6, Georgia’s primary on February 13 and Michigan’s on February 27.
Ultimately, a lot of us is the Democratic establishment clearing the field for Biden’s renomination in the same way the Republican establishment cleared the way for Donald Trump’s renomination in 2020.
The problem of course is that this is easier to accomplish in theory than it is in reality.
The first problem that Democrats are going to have is the law. The Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary are governed by state law as to the timing of when their nominating processes happen.
For example, Section 653:9 of the New Hampshire code reads:
The presidential primary election shall be held on the second Tuesday in March or on a date selected by the secretary of state which is 7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election, whichever is earlier, of each year when a president of the United States is to be elected or the year previous. Said primary shall be held in connection with the regular March town meeting or election or, if held on any other day, at a special election called by the secretary of state for that purpose. The purpose of this section is to protect the tradition of the New Hampshire first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
This has been taken VERY seriously in New Hampshire. Former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury served for 45 years as Secretary of State, and once he threatened to hold the 2008 primary in December 2007 in order to preserve the first-in-the-nation status.
The reality is that most of these nominating processes are conducted at some level under state law. And the Democratic National Committee has no authority whatsoever to tell those states that they need to violate state law.
That brings us to the issue of delegation votes. The last time the Democrats tried to finagle the primary calendar was 2008 when the DNC refused to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations because their state legislatures moved their primaries to a place in the primary calendar where they were “not allowed.” Again, this was state law dictating all of this and the DNC knowingly planned to punish the states as a result and exclude them from their nominating process for reasons outside of the delegation’s control.
It won’t surprise you to learn that the delegations were seated, partially due to the contested nature of the Obama-Clinton 2008 race. But also to save face and try to sow party unity heading into 2008.
So what does this precedent mean? It means that the Democrats will likely fold again. They don’t want to give the voters of New Hampshire or Iowa a reason to not consider the Democratic ticket in 2024.
The main cause of all of this of course is the fact that the state funds presidential primaries (and primaries in general) at taxpayers’ expense. The parties willingly submit themselves to these rules in order to avoid the expense of paying for it themselves.
So just remember this: until the parties agree to foot the bill for every primary and every caucus across the country, all of this talk about primary order and who gets to go when is little more than window dressing designed to appease the Democratic Party base…