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At each voting stage along the way to superdelegate rules reform for the 2020 cycle, the final tally has seemingly demonstrated consensus. And there has been consensus on the Unity Reform Commission and now during the Rules and Bylaws Committee consideration of changes. But it has been hard-won consensus often following multiple hours-long meetings over the last 13 months spent exploring various contingencies in the hopes of avoiding some unintended consequence while also planning for the future. Like the Unity Reform Commission before it , the Rules and Bylaws Committee gave the go-ahead today to a reform proposal to curb the influence of superdelegates with just a couple of dissenting votes (27 ayes, 1 nay, 1 abstention). However, unlike the URC, the RBC called an audible and devised an alternate proposal not prescribed it in the preceding step. The URC was given strict guidelines on superdelegates by the 2016 convention resolution that created the group. What the resolution called...

The Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) once again took up the issue of superdelegates and 2020 at its recent meeting in Providence (the one on June 8 that ran concurrent with the DNC Executive Committee meeting). On some level, one could argue that battle lines were drawn. However, it was yet another incremental push toward an altered treatment of the fraction of Democratic national convention delegates who have been unpledged in past cycles. Much of the work of the previous four 2018 meetings of the RBC have centered on the two plans that emerged from the Unity Reform Commission report . But both the complexity of those two reform proposals and the fact that the changes required to implement either of them would require an amendment to the charter of the Democratic Party -- and thus a two-thirds supermajority vote of the full DNC -- set the bar for passage quite high. As those plans have lost steam another gained traction. First raised at the first of two March RBC meetings , the plan...

From the Omaha World-Herald : Nebraska Democrats are weighing whether to scrap their decade-old practice of holding presidential caucuses.    The Nebraska Democratic Party’s platform committee voted with no dissent Friday at Southeast Community College to advance a resolution calling for the elimination of presidential caucuses before the 2020 election.    When the resolution was introduced, there were cheers from the group, and several people exclaimed that they dislike the caucuses. The unanimously passed resolution to abandon the caucuses for a primary to allocate national convention delegates will now go before the state convention. Win or lose there, the decision will likely not be finalized by the state central committee until 2019 after the Democratic National Committee has set its rules for delegate selection for the 2020 cycle. Related: Nebraska Democrats Signal Caucus-to-Primary Switch for 2020 March Presidential Primary Bill Dies as Nebraska Legislature Ad...

North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper (D), made quick work of SB 655 . The bill came to the Tar Heel state chief executive on June 14 and was signed today (June 22). The bill untethers the North Carolina presidential primary from carve-out South Carolina and schedules a consolidated primary -- presidential and state/local offices -- for the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. North Carolina now joins California as the only two states to have officially moved up (and to the same earliest allowed date) on the 2020 presidential primary calendar . The Tar Heel state also shifts up the allocation of its delegates to coincide with a number of its neighbors; mainly the leftovers from the 2016 SEC primary. Importantly, the change represents a shift of another large group of delegates toward the beginning of the 2020 primary calendar. The 2020 calendar is not 2008 yet, but it is moving in that direction. ...and before the most intense period for primary movement in any cycle: the yea...

Citing party resources stretched too thin and depressed primary turnout, the Nebraska Democratic Party is considering abandoning its caucuses for a primary to allocate national convention delegates in 2020. Prompted by the promise of an earlier voice in the presidential nomination process and no clear hope of a legislative move to shift up the primary in the Cornhusker state, Nebraska Democrats in 2007 first established a (then-compliant) February caucus/convention system for allocating national convention delegates in 2008. And while the move has driven grassroots enthusiasm and drawn candidate attention over the last three cycles in a way that a May primary may not have, the caucus/convention process has diverted party resources (around $150,000) that could otherwise have been spent winning elected offices further down the ballot. The process of creating that separate caucus has also had implications for the May primary. First, the switch to a caucus rendered the presidential conte...

After over a year on the back burner, legislation to solidify the date of the North Carolina presidential was resurrected by the state Senate on June 12. SB 655 unanimously passed the Senate in April 2017, but was amended and passed with more resistance last June by the state House. It was upon its return to the Senate that SB 655 lost momentum, stalling based on a seemingly noncontroversial change. The difference between the Senate-passed version and the House-amended version? A change in the date on which the legislation would take effect if/once signed into law. The original bill called for the date change to take effect on the signature of the governor. However, the House version would have delayed that until January 2019. Basically, the House amendment had the effect of exempting the 2018 midterm primaries, keeping that round of elections in May and pushing all primaries in subsequent cycles -- presidential and midterm -- to March. Again, that was a minor difference. And while...

This post is part of a series examining efforts -- both attempted and successful -- to move presidential primary election  dates for 2020  during the now-adjourning  2017-2018 state legislative sessions  in capitols across the country. While  shifts tend to be rare  in sessions immediately following a presidential election, introduced legislation is more common albeit unsuccessful more often than not. -- During the  2016 cycle , for the third time during the post-reform era, the Arkansas legislature again shifted up the date of its presidential primary , joining a group of mainly southern states in the SEC primary coalition. After some inter-chamber wrangling over how to accomplish the primary shift, legislation ultimately became law, but only temporarily . At the conclusion of the 2016 cycle, the new law met its sunset and the Arkansas primary reverted to its previous May date for subsequent cycles. That is, unless and until the legislature made the...

This post is part of a series examining efforts -- both attempted and successful -- to move presidential primary election  dates for 2020  during the now-adjourning  2017-2018 state legislative sessions  in capitols across the country. While  shifts tend to be rare  in sessions immediately following a presidential election, introduced legislation is more common albeit unsuccessful more often than not. -- If the Massachusetts General Court is in session, then state Rep. James Dwyer (D-30th, Woburn) has a bill before the state House to consolidate all of the primaries in the Bay state in June. In every session since Dwyer first took office, he has filed legislation -- in 2011 , 2013 , and 2015 -- to shift the presidential primary back to June from March and the primaries for other state offices to June from the late summer/early fall. And in each instance the bill has died with little consideration. That dynamic was again on display during 190th session of ...