"The Iowa Democratic Caucuses As We Knew Them Are Finally Dead," reads the Friday headline at New York. 

The truth is, The Iowa Democratic Caucuses As We Knew Them died on December 1, 2022. That night the incumbent Democratic President of the United States said "Our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process," and announced a calendar of five early states that did not include Iowa - a decision quickly ratified by the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee.

What followed was ten months of denial and secrecy by the Iowa Democratic Party which finally ended Friday with an announcement that the party would release the results of the "mail-in caucus presidential preference" on March 5, Super Tuesday, the earliest date allowed by the DNC.

And after all that delay, the final plan looks a lot like what I recommended on December 10: hold the caucus meeting on the same night as the Republicans (which turned out to be January 15, 2024) but only conduct the legally required business of electing precinct level officers and uncommitted delegates. Then after the caucus, at a later date that was compliant with the DNC calendar, we could conduct the mail-in presidential vote.

That's exactly what IDP is going to do, according to an email sent to "SCC Members, Leaders, and Friends" just three minutes before the Friday press conference, which is basically no different that reading it in the Des Moines Register.

What took so long? No one really knows, because IDP leadership was very tight-lipped about the "vigorous and lengthy negotiations with the DNC" from December till this week. Rank and file Democrats deserve to know the details of that. I have a strong opinion but no evidence. Let's just say I think Georgia removing itself from an early Democratic state slot scheduled for February 13 or 20, because Georgia Republicans would not cooperate, was a key factor in the delay.

The entire process was too closed, too secretive, and too long. We should have been discussing how the 2024 process could and should work, in public, way back last winter, with Iowans and not with national committee members, and made the announcement in spring or early summer. That would have set expectations and reduced confusion.

The delay also made it impossible for President Biden and his supporters to start planning for the fall 2024 campaign, because of extremely strict rules against campaigning in non-calendar compliant states. We had to watch fringe candidates Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chaos agents who could care less about rules, speak unanswered at the Iowa State Fair and get free media, while local activists had to worry about whether we were allowed to dust off an old Biden-Harris 2020 sign for a parade - all because IDP refused to set a contest date.

One thing we do know, from the last minute message to the grassroots leaders, is that IDP is playing for the future. "A fight right now over the early state calendar only weakens Iowa Democrats’ future chances," said IDP Chair Rita Hart. "I have repeated reassurance from the Rules and Bylaws Committee and its co-chairs that the presidential nominating calendar discussions will once again be opened up for 2028."

DNC Member Scott Brennan is more direct: "We intend to be first in 2028." Slow down, Scott.

True, Hart and Brennan recognize an important reality: 2024 doesn't matter. It matters even less now that Kennedy is taking his ball and going home for an independent campaign. And there is a certain benefit to Iowa's somewhat cooperative approach to the DNC, as opposed to New Hampshire's defiant insistence that they will break the calendar to stay First. (If they follow through, their delegation could and should not be seated at the national convention at all.)

But this Play For 2028 approach is one more sign of denial. Treating 2024 as a temporary setback means we won't be focused on building an Iowa Democratic Party for a post-First future. We'll still be counting on the national campaigns, organizers and money to come in and do it for us, like they have for the last 50 years - just not this one cycle. And we'll be spending 2025 and 2026 distracted by the Rules And Bylaws Committee again, just like we spent 2022 and 2023.

As for this year, the Iowa Democratic Party is preparing to spend a lot of money which could be used for more important things in order to conduct a pointless vote in an uncontested renomination race, simply to prove that we have learned how to count votes after our problems in 2016 and 2020, in the hopes that if we succeed, all will be forgiven and we will be restored to our "rightful" place on the calendar. We have county auditors who can count votes, at taxpayer expense, but more on that later.

The reality is, there are no "Iowa Democrats' future chances." The whole point of the DNC calendar reform was to get rid of Iowa (and take New Hampshire down a notch). They didn't like our process, they didn't like our demographics, they didn't like our recent election results, and they didn't like our arrogant attitude that First was our birthright.  

Four more years won't make us significantly less of a red state - rebuilding will take Iowa Democrats much longer than two cycles. It won't make us any less old or any less white or any less rural. And exile from the early states for one meaningless re-election cycle won't be enough punishment for a lot of corners of the party. Maybe we'll get some other small token of appreciation for behaving better than New Hampshire, but Iowa doesn't deserve to be considered for an early state slot until we get a state-run primary and until we win some elections.

For now, I need to be just a little positive and look at some details. The timeline announced Friday is as follows:

• Iowa Democrats will be able to request a presidential preference card (sic) starting November 1, 2023.
• Presidential preference cards (sic) will be mailed starting January 12, 2024.
• Iowa Democrats will hold our in-person caucuses January 15, 2024.
• The last day to request a presidential preference card (sic) is February 19, 2024.
• The Iowa Democratic Party will release results of our 2024 mail-in caucus presidential preference (sic) on March 5, 2024.
• Iowa Democrats will accept presidential preference cards (sic) postmarked on or before March 5, 2024.

First of all, let's use honest language. Now that we don't have to play word games with the New Hampshire Secretary of State, let's drop the stupid and confusing term "presidential preference card." It's a ballot. And it's not a "mail-in caucus presidential preference" - it's a party-run primary.

The first ballot request date, November 1, is really, really soon. It's still not clear what form those requests will take. If they're on line, accommodation will need to be made for those without computers. If they're paper, they'll need to be distributed somehow. And there are many people who will only be able to get a request form if someone prints it and mails it to them, which is an expense. Who does that - the state party or the locals?

Ballots will be mailed January 12. There is a five week overlap period when requests will be coming in and ballots will be both be coming in and going out. This overlap period includes Caucus Night. That means some people will come to the caucus with their ballots in hand and will want to turn them in. I would also expect IDP to include ballot requests in the caucus materials. That's a lot of stuff to juggle for a volunteer caucus chair and there's a risk of ballots getting misplaced. It might be better to hold off on mailing the ballots just four days, until after the caucus.

That said, many people will not trust the post office with a ballot and will want to return it in person. In earlier versions of the plan, IDP talked about county drop boxes. How will county parties be expected to manage and safeguard that? The average county chair does not have a box that's built like a tank and a 24 hour security camera like an auditor does.

The party plans to both announce results on March 5 and accept ballots postmarked March 5. That's going to mean a second set of results after caucus night to include the late arrivals. I think this is a rhetorical point. IDP wants to complain about the recent Republican driven change in state law that requires ballots to arrive before polls close on Election Day. Fine - but we'll need to set some specified cut-off date.

As for March 5, I was hoping for a different date. Iowa's results will be buried in the flood of results from both parties in other Super Tuesday states (to the extent that anyone cares about Biden 98%, Williamson 2% results). I would have preferred county convention day, March 23. This would have been a fun news handle for the county conventions (to the extent that anyone cares about Biden 98%, Williamson 2% results). But, as I expected, IDP clearly decided that the important thing was to go as soon as possible to emphasize that we really, really want to be an early state again.

Not discussed in the party release: Whether or not names will be printed on the ballots, and if so, the process to qualify. Will they be machine countable, which is way more accurate than a hand count? If not, are we going to quibble about whether "Joe" or "Biden-Harris" or "Bidin" votes will count?

So there's a lot more details to be fleshed out, and that will need to happen in less than four weeks before those requests start coming in.

In the big picture, there is good news. The most important change happened months ago, even before Iowa Democrats were demoted in the calendar. The old system where people had to stand in the corner for hours of endless headcounts and realignments, in crowds of up to 900 people, is over. Anyone who simply wants to vote for president does not need to attend a meeting at one and only one specific time and place. Since Iowa Republicans will not cooperate with an auditor-run primary election, a mail-in party run primary is as good as Democrats can do. The party of voting rights needs to contrast our improved, inclusive system with the same as it ever was Republican caucus where if you cannot attend, you cannot vote. And we should push for more.

The next legislative session starts very close to caucus night. Democratic legislators should emphasize voting rights by introducing a bill for a real, auditor-run Iowa presidential primary. It doesn't matter that Republicans won't assign it to a committee. It's a point that should be made and it's a point that will make national news. And, if you think trying to get back into the early states is important, it's a point that will help our standing with the rest of the national Democratic Party.

I never said the blog was dead. It's only semi-retired, and I have always reserved the right to don the beret as needed for special occasions. So on this Easter Monday the blog rises from the grave.

It's been a long Iowa caucus tradition that the two parties set aside their policy differences and work together on process issues. It's also been a long tradition that the parties don't tell each other how to conduct their own business.  You want to have a straw poll and call it a caucus? Fine. You do you. We'll be over here counting our preference groups.

That tradition has been stained to the breaking point in the months since the two national party committees made different decisions about Iowa's traditional First role - the Republicans keeping Iowa first, the Democrats completely banishing Iowa from the early state window.

This week, that bipartisan tradition snapped entirely. The final break was House Study Bill 245, a late session surprise from Rep. Bobby Kaufmann - a Trump campaign advisor and the son of the state party chair. Given the prominence of the sponsor, the unusual method of introduction, and the late date, I'm assuming this will pass.

The bill makes two key changes in caucus process. The first change ends the long bipartisan tradition that Iowas can register to vote or change party on caucus night. The bill would instead require voters to choose and register with the party 70 days before the caucuses.

It's clear what's at play here. The Trump wing of the Republican Party of Iowa is worried about anti-Trump Democrats and no party voters crossing over. But guess what? Crossovers happened EVERY time there's a caucus in a re-election cycle, as independents go where the action is. 

But if Iowa Republicans suddenly see that as a problem, they can change their process without changing the law. They can simply make the 70 day requirement a party rule. Is that mean spirited and vote suppression? Sure, but it's their party event and thus their business. You set your rules, and let us keep our doors open to people who want to join the Democrats on caucus night.

The other change would lock the caucuses into the status quo of 2012 and earlier by requiring caucus voters to attend the precinct level caucus in person. 

This is designed to kill the Iowa Democratic Party's plan to separate the presidential vote from the caucus itself, and conduct a by mail presidential preference process. It would also kill the satellite caucuses that were attempted in 2020 and on a very small scale in 2016 - even though most of those were at the same time as the precinct caucuses. There were serious flaws and inconsistencies to the satellite caucuses, but they did open up the process to some people who could not attend.

Even the Republicans had a very limited caucus participation program for military and overseas voters. I look forward to the Kaufmanns explaining to our troops why they can't vote.

Republicans may be concerned that the New Hampshire Secretary of State will call the Democratic mail-in process an "election" and move New Hampshire's date in front of Iowa. They are also worried that people might vote a Democratic absentee ballot, then attend a GOP caucus.  

That seems to be an exaggerated fear for this cycle, since the Democratic nomination is not likely to be seriously contested. No one's going to want a Democratic mailed ballot except the committed party activists and the leftists who want to cast an anti-Biden protest vote. Neither group is likely to show up at a Republican caucus. The people who might be inclined to monkeywrench the Republican process are the same people who care about being on the county central committee or about getting their platform resolution passed.

Going forward, if  there even is a going forward, double caucusing is legitimate concern and a challenging problem. But it should addressed by the two parties working together and finding an answer that works for both of their processes.

You know what system works to allow absentee voting and prevent people from participating in both parties process? A state run primary election.

But that's clearly not going to happen - even Democrats didn't introduce a for-show bill - and this bill clearly is. So what do Democrats do?

The Republicans clearly want us to run our caucuses just as we did in 2012 and earlier (with the elimination of the questionable "improvement" of the satellite caucuses, and the addition of the early party registration requirement). That is the absolute last thing we should do, for all the reasons of disproportionate representation and inaccessibility and exclusion that I have talked about for years.  (Granted, the overcrowding would not be as bad in a re-election year.)

That gets us in even more trouble with the DNC than we're already in. First off, the sitting Democratic president and presumptive nominee has directly said "Our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process." Second, we are likely going to be dragged along by the Republicans into holding our caucus on a date that does not comply with the DNC calendar. Eliminating the mail-in vote would break yet another rule - the requirement that caucus states have an absentee process. It seems increasingly unlikely that Iowa's national delegation will be seated at the Chicago convention. 

Making Iowa Democrats look bad is not the GOP's main motivation here - I'm convinced this has more to do with internal Republican politics - but it's a nice bonus.

As I outlined in December, it was possible for the Iowa Democratic Party to both comply with state law and still follow the DNC calendar rules. State law does not say that we have to vote for president before any other state. It simply says that we need to hold a caucus and elect precinct level party officers before other states vote for president, The law does not require a presidential vote at the caucus - and I see nothing in HSB 275 that changes that.

Iowa's original plan, as presented by then-chair Ross Wilburn to the DNC Rules And Bylaws Committee last August, was to conduct a mail in presidential vote in the weeks before the caucus night meeting, announce the results on caucus night, and then conduct the legally required party business at the caucus. My proposed variation on that would be to have the caucus meeting, but then hold the mail in vote later, at a calendar compliant date.

Maybe such a vote in March of 2024, or a straw vote at a county convention, could be called something other than a caucus and used to allocate the national delegates. Or maybe it can't.

Another piece of bipartisan cooperation has fallen by the wayside. It's a lousy trick to blindside Democrats this late in the session. 

Iowa Democrats were blindsided by our own national party in 2019. In order to address the new requirement of an absentee caucus system, we spent months planning a phone-in "virtual caucus" system - only to be told with no warning just four months before the caucuses that it was unacceptable.

Now we're getting blindsided by our fellow Iowans - who used to be our allies on caucus issues.

If the Republican position was always going to be "Democrats doing a vote by mail caucus is unacceptable" - and I'm pretty sure that was the case - they should have signaled that ASAP. We should have know that before Wilburn even presented the idea to Rules And Bylaws. Months of planning time have been lost.

Also lost are all the benefits Iowa Democrats used to gain from first. Now we're boxed into a position where we will have to scramble just to comply with state law and have a meeting, and where the biggest win we can hope for is getting seated at the national convention with hotels closer to the United Center than to Davenport.

A couple years ago I raised the idea that Iowa Democrats may have no presidential nomination process at all - that our caucus process would be prohibited and that at some point the state party leaders would quietly choose a delegation. The first part of that has already happened. It's looking increasingly likely that rank and file Iowa Democrats will never get any chance to express their personal presidential nomination preference.