How Iowa Democrats can follow state law and DNC rules

 (originally published at Bleeding Heartland)

As Iowa Democratic Party leaders struggle through the denial stage of the grieving process, they are clinging to a state law that supposedly privileges Iowa’s historic first place on the presidential nomination calendar.

In an email sent to party activists on the evening of December 1, soon after President Joe Biden announced his support for a Democratic nomination calendar that does not include Iowa among the early states, party chair Ross WIlburn wrote:

Our state law requires us to hold a caucus before the last Tuesday in February, and before any other contest. When we submit our delegate selection plan to the Rules and Bylaws Committee early next year, we will adhere to the State of Iowa’s legal requirements, and address compliance with DNC rules in subsequent meetings and hearings.

While the law itself is ridiculous—what if 49 other states pass the same law?—Iowa Republicans are also pushing the “state law” argument. In part they want to make the Democrats squirm. But also, Republicans have grounds for concern that if Democrats follow the new Democratic National Committee approved calendar, it will hurt the Iowa GOP’s chances of staying First on their side, which the Republican National Committee has approved for 2024.

The Iowa Democratic Party is in a jam. If we go along with the Republicans, the DNC penalties are draconian. There are strict restrictions against candidates campaigning in calendar breaking states, and there would be an automatic reduction by half in the state’s national convention delegation. Stricter sanctions could be imposed, including kicking the Iowa delegation entirely out of the convention. 

And the DNC will not hesitate to impose the harshest punishments on Iowa. The president himself said, “Our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process.” We learned in the Rules and Bylaws Committee discussion just how much other states hate our poor track record and our complicated process.

Unlike New Hampshire, which is also making loud threats to break the rules, we do not have two Democratic senators or swing-state status to protect us. We are the perfect state to make an example of. We are too weak within the national party to get away with breaking the calendar rules, and too weak within the state to get the law changed.  

But we don’t need to. Iowa Democrats can both follow state law and be in compliance with the national calendar. It’s not hard; you just have to read the law.

Here’s what Iowa Code 43.4 actually says:

Delegates to county conventions of political parties and party committee members shall be elected at precinct caucuses held not later than the fourth Monday in February of each even-numbered year. The date shall be at least eight days earlier than the scheduled date for any meeting, caucus, or primary which constitutes the first determining stage of the presidential nominating process in any other state, territory, or any other group which has the authority to select delegates in the presidential nomination.

 
Despite the way both parties are spinning it, 43.4 does not say parties must conduct a presidential preference process at the caucus.

In fact, Republicans had a long tradition of not holding a presidential straw vote at their caucuses in years when their incumbent presidents were seeking re-election. They changed that policy in 2020, but Republicans did not hold a vote in 1984, 1992, or 2004. The decision was somewhat controversial in 1992, when Pat Buchanan won nearly 40 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary against President George H.W. Bush.

All 43.4 says is that parties have to elect their precinct level officers before any other state starts its presidential nomination process. The DNC only cares about how early Iowa is voting for president. No one cares when we elect Central Committee members and county convention delegates. 

So Iowa Democrats should go ahead and do that—and only that.

The caucus date is uncertain, because New Hampshire is likely to insist on following its state law and hold the first primary a week before any other state. That will trigger Iowa Republicans to move their caucus date back. Iowa Democrats are just along for the ride (albeit willingly).

On whatever night the Republicans set, Democrats should have a mid-term style caucus to debate the platform and elect committee members and delegates. But it needs to be made clear that election as a delegate is in no way linked to presidential preference. The handful of activists who attend off-year caucuses, or who stayed late in presidential years after the hours-long nightmare of realignment, would attend.

So when do we get to vote for president?

In a December 6 email to county chairs, Wilburn outlined a few more details of the somewhat vague vote by mail plan he and Scott Brennan presented to the Rules and Bylaws Committee over the summer.

JANUARY 2, 2024

First day for the Iowa Democratic Party to receive requests by mail or online portal, and send preference cards to registered Iowa Democrats.

14-28 DAYS PRIOR TO THE IN-PERSON CAUCUS

IDP Chair opens the non-present participation period of the caucuses. Caucus-goers may return their preference cards by mail, in-person, or drop box. The non-present participation period will continue for at least 14 days. During this time, Democrats may continue to request a preference card.

5 DAYS PRIOR TO THE IN-PERSON CAUCUS

Last day to postmark or hand-return preference cards

1 DAY PRIOR TO THE IN-PERSON CAUCUS

Deadline for Iowa Democratic Party to receive mailed preference card (Note: this would likely be a Sunday, with no mail delivery)

CAUCUS DAY

The Iowa Democratic Party will release the raw caucus results by a time certain to the public. Caucus site coordinators will receive both the raw results and delegate allocation results for all precincts at their site, and announce the number of delegates to be elected for each candidate (or uncommitted) in each precinct.

One good thing that came from the calendar reform process, and from the survey the Iowa Democratic Party conducted over the summer, is that no one is continuing to defend the old “stand in a corner for three hours to vote” system. The reformers have already won that battle. 

Many details need to be thought through before implementing a vote by mail system, and that work needs to start very soon. The process will also be expensive, which a financially weak party will need to address. But the vote by mail concept is a good framework.

The timeline simply needs to be moved into compliance with the new DNC calendar.

After the precinct caucuses, the traditional next step of the process is the county convention in March. That’s a perfect time, outside the early state window that we are no longer a part of. We can make the county convention the new centerpiece of the presidential preference process.

IDP should schedule the proposed 14 to 28 day vote by mail window to begin between Wednesday, February 28 and Friday, March 1, on whatever day the early state window is officially considered closed. We can then spend the month of March voting, which is a nice long early voting window like we used to have in this state.

Democrats should then announce the presidential preference vote results at each county convention, on Saturday, March 23 or 30. This creates actual news out of the convention, to whatever extent “Biden 99 percent, Uncommitted 1 percent” is news.

(One under-discussed aspect of the calendar change is that President Biden weighing in so strongly is an indicator that he is running for re-election, so the 2024 Democratic cycle is likely to be uncontested. That gives Iowa Democrats a low-key, low stakes cycle to work the bugs out of our new system before a contested 2028 cycle.)

County conventions can proceed to elect pledged congressional district and state convention delegates, based on the results of the preference vote announced that morning.

The Congressional district and state conventions would proceed much as they always have and elect pledged national delegates. And, with Iowa in compliance with the DNC calendar, those delegates would be seated at the national convention with full votes and no penalties.

This plan is very close to what IDP presented to Rules and Bylaws. The only thing that changes is the time frame of the mail in vote. The Republicans already set the precedent that we do not need to have a presidential vote at the caucuses and we can simply elect unpledged county convention delegates. Delaying the presidential voting to March not only complies with both state law and party rules, it preserves as much of the Democrats’ traditional caucus to convention process as possible, given our removal from the early state window. The only thing it does not preserve is First As We Have Known It.

Of course, all this assumes Iowa Democratic leaders want to comply with the DNC calendar. All indications are, they do not. Let’s be honest here. “Following state law” is just an excuse. The real concern is keeping the privileges of First: the command performance cattle call events, the year and a half of candidates and organizers blanketing the state, and most importantly to some, the personal phone calls from presidential candidates to key state players. 

State law says we have to elect delegates and central committee members early. It does not say that South Of Grand donors have a constitutional right to have Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigeig’s cell phone numbers. It does not say that small county chairs have a right to be quoted in the New York Times. It does not say you have a right to collect selfies with presidential candidates. We did this to ourselves, over many cycles and with many mistakes.

Iowa Democrats are in the weakest position we have been since the pre-Harold Hughes dark ages. It’s not just First that we have lost—it’s the entire way we have done things for 50 years.

Every hour and dollar wasted on fighting a battle for First that is already lost is time and money not spent building for the future. First will be very hard to replace. But accepting the loss and accepting our diminished role in the nomination process is a necessary first step in the long hard fight toward winning back the state.

Why I'm Quitting The Caucuses

I never set out to be The Caucus Organizer for the Johnson County Democrats. The role landed on me by accident in 2004. Nearly every experienced party activist was involved in a presidential campaign, and almost no one was doing the logistics work of finding rooms, recruiting chairs, stuffing packets, and getting training done. The skill set overlapped closely with my job at the county auditor's office, so I stepped in to help. 

Each cycle, my role got bigger and bigger. By 2016 I was seen as the Person In Charge, a role I repeated in 2020 and again in the recent midterm caucuses.

But after a lot of struggling, I've decided it's a role I won't take on again.

Each cycle, the job got bigger because the turnout got bigger. I don't mind hard work. I regularly put in 80 hour weeks during election season. But I do mind work that's futile. I do mind work that's counter-productive. And I'm no longer comfortable with enabling a system that I believe is wrong.

The first year I was involved in caucus planning, Johnson County took a great leap forward in turnout, from 4000 attendance in 2000 to over 11,000 in 2004. For the first time, we saw rooms that were crammed beyond capacity. 

So we started getting bigger rooms. But the turnout kept growing - to 18,363 in 2008, even though the January 3 date meant most of our students were out of town. We jumped to 19,513 in 2016 and 21,436 in 2020. My personal caucuses kept getting bigger, too - from 100 in 2000 to 300 in 2008 to 430 in 2016 to 750 in 2020.

Some might think that such high turnout is a blessing - wow! you must have signed up a lot of new volunteers and committee members! Nothing could be more wrong. 

The change of the caucuses from neighborhood meeting to mass attendance event means more new people not trained in tradition and parliamentary procedure, and less committed to organizing the party, who just want to vote and go home - which 90 percent of attendees do as soon as the delegate counts are locked in.

But first we make them stand in line for 45 minutes, and then we make them stand in a corner for three hours to vote. And this chaos is their first impression of the local party.  

The rules of a caucus are set up for 40 people in a living room. Once the caucus grows above the capacity of a grade school gym - this isn't just a Johnson County problem, the average Iowa Democratic caucus goer attended a caucus of 191 people - those rules just don't work anymore. You can't organize in a crowd of 945 people, the biggest Johnson County caucus on record. You can only do crowd control and anger management.

Each cycle, I started earlier. Each cycle I booked bigger and bigger rooms, sometimes at costs in the thousand of dollars, until we were in the biggest indoor spaces that existed in each precinct short of Carver Hawkeye Arena.

Better organizing and training and planning can only do so much, even if your county's volunteer organizer has 24 years of professional experience in election administration. All I managed to do was make a bad situation slightly less bad.

Spaces larger than a grade school gym, in or near neighborhoods, are few and far between. Smaller precincts, one suggestion I keep hearing, won't help - that just means we would need three grade school gyms where only one exists. All we can do is book the one gym that exists and pray that no one calls the fire marshal.

When the biggest room in or near the precinct is no longer big enough, the only answer is to get some of those people out of the room.

But the overcrowding isn't even the biggest problem. Fairness and access is the biggest problem, and that's not just logistics - it's a challenge to us to live up to our ideals.

The Democratic Party is the party of voting rights, and we need to be the party of voting rights not just on Election Day, but on Caucus Night. We need fewer people in our caucus rooms but we need more people in our nominating process.

We already limit who can attend a caucus by making it a mandatory must attend in person meeting - even the satellite caucuses we had in 2020 still required attendance in one place at one time and required more advance planning and pre-registration than many people's schedules allowed.

The overcrowding makes attendance a physical and mental endurance test - walking many blocks in the dark from the nearest parking space, and sitting uncomfortably or standing for hours, large cavernous spaces with bad acoustics, and high confusing noise and stress levels that strain the capacity of those of us on the autism spectrum. I've seen seniors near tears at our office, begging for an absentee ballot.

A state or district party that only has to pull off one large convention can or should manage to check off all the ADA boxes. It's asking too much for a county party, with no financial help from the state party, to conduct dozens of district-convention-sized caucuses all at the same time, and be 100% compliant and legally liable if someone sues. It's not that we don't care - it's just that there aren't that many sound systems and babysitters and sign language interpreters available all at once.

There's other barriers to participation - schedules, transportation, and physical presence in your community. This one hits me close to home. My wife missed the 2008 caucuses because our sons were small and did not want to go, and in 2016 she had last minute mandatory overtime. I would have missed last month's mid-term caucus if my county had not decided to go virtual, as I was out of state helping care for my aging parents.

I'm no longer willing to book the rooms and recruit and train the chairs for the same old Must Be Physically Present process. I'm not even willing to attend anymore, knowing that there are so many others who can't.

I want to pass my experience along to anyone else who wants this role, and I'm willing to help implement new ideas - not minor repairs, but real changes.

Our long range goal should be a presidential primary. I understand all too well that Republicans control our state government and are not interested in changing. But it should still be our goal. I'm working to get it into our platform, and I'm hoping that at some point a legislator will be brave and introduce a primary bill.

While we pursue that goal, we should also work to make our last caucuses better. 

The mid-term caucus, where dozens of counties converted to a virtual or hybrid format in just two weeks, shows that we can be really creative and inclusive when we're given the chance. 

2024 may be our opportunity to try new things. President Biden is likely to run for re-election, which will largely take questions of Who Benefits? out of the mix. And with the long time New Hampshire Secretary of State retiring, we may have a chance to do what we haven't before.

Give people what they want. Let them vote and go home - let them vote all day long and go home. Give them absentee ballots - real ones that they can mark at home in secret. We should experiment with true absentee ballots, or multi-day early voting like Nevada did in 2020, or a "firehouse caucus" format where voting is open all day long at caucus sites, or all of these things.

I'm not here to argue about First, or about how representative my state is. That's up to the national committee. But I will say that we can no longer accept First as an excuse for a flawed process. For me, it's time to work on improving that process rather than enabling it.