This weekend, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) held its “Summer” Meeting. One of the items on the agenda was the RBC’s draft of the various documents that together comprise the rules for the 2020 nomination process. For first time readers of this site, the Democrats have a multi-step process for drawing up the rules for delegate selection. Typically, step one is a Festivus-type Commission in which the party head appoints a Commission drawing from all parts of the party for an airing of the grievances from the last cycle. (Sometimes, this step is skipped when a Democrat wins the White House, particularly when a Democratic incumbent is re-elected.) That Commission then drafts suggestions. Step Two is the Rules and By-laws Committee (RBC) of the DNC actually takes those suggestions (and other suggestions by RBC members) and amends the rules from the last cycle to incorporate those suggestions that have the support of the RBC. Step Three is that the full DNC then reviews and approves the new set of rules and issues them to the state parties. Step Four is that the state parties then (taking into account both legislative changes in their state and the new national rules) draft the state rules. Typically, the state rules need to be completed by the late spring/early summer of the year after the mid-term. Step Five is that the state rules are then submitted to the RBC for review for compliance with the national rules and approval (or directions to make changes to comply with the national rules).
The reports out of the Summer Meeting suggests that the RBC drafts were adopted essentially intact; so what follows is based on the draft plans that were approved by the RBC: the Call for the 2020 Convention and the Delegate Selection Rules for the 2020 Convention. (Both linked documents show the changes to the old rules.) There are several important details/changes in the draft documents from the RBC. (If you want to skip the technicalities of the rules, what these may mean in practical terms is at the end of this post.)
First, the 2020 Convention will take place in mid-July. (Call, Preamble). The DNC will select the site later this year or early next year. The delegate selection process will end by June 20, 2020. (Call, Part III).
Second, the formula for allocating delegates to the states remains relatively the same. A base of 3200 that allocates delegates based on the average of each state’s share of the popular vote (over the last three elections) and the state’s share of the electoral vote. (Call, Part I.B). A state can get additional delegates for going later in the process (a bonus for going in April with a larger bonus for going in May or June) and/or being part of a “regional cluster” (a minimum of three neighboring states occurring after the fourth Tuesday in March). (Call, Part I.C). Each state also gets 15% over its base delegation (for Pleged Party Leaders and Elected Official Delegates a/k/a PLEOs). (Call, Part I.D). For those territories (and Democrats Abroad) that do not have electoral votes, the rules assigns each territory a number of delegates. (Call, Part I.E). In terms of the composition within each state’s delegation — 75% of the base delegation is considered to be “district” delegates and 25% of the base delegation is considered to be the at-large delegation. (Rule 8.C). The sequence for choosing delegates remains district delegates then PLEO delegates then at-large delegates. (Rule 8, Rule 10, Rule 11).
Third, “superdelegates” (members of the DNC, elected officials, and certain former party leaders) are now “automatic delegates.” (Call, Part I.F&G&H). An automatic delegate can opt to run for a “pledged” delegate slot giving up their automatic status if they win. (Call, Part I.J). Those attending the convention as automatic delegates will not be eligible to cast a vote on the first ballot for President, but will be able to vote on later ballots. (Call, Part IX.C.7.b&c).
Fourth, the existing requirement that candidates for the Democratic nomination must be Democrats is beefed up by requiring candidates to sign an affirmation that they are Democrats. (Call, Part VI). In particular, the affirmation is that the candidate is a member of the Democratic Party, that the candidate will accept the nomination if the candidate wins, and the candidate will serve as a Democrat if elected. (Call, Part VI).
Fifth, the rules for state delegations on the various standing committees of the Convention (Rules, Platform, Credentials) are changed to recognize non-binary genders. (Call, Part VII.E). Such individuals do not count toward the requirement that the delegation be balanced between men and women. (Call, Part VII.E). A similar change is made to the rules regarding the state delegation to the convent. (Rule 6.C)
Sixth, there is a change to the rules regarding participation in the delegate selection process. The current version of Rule 2.C (defining who state parties must allow to participate) refers back to Rule 2.A and its subparts. The new version just refers back to Rule 2.A. Whether this change is stylistic only or substantive is unclear. This question could matter because Rule 2.A.1 requires that a voter’s party preference must be publicly recorded before a person is eligible to participate. (Currently in states that do not publicly record in which primary a voter opts to vote, the state parties record participants in delegate selection meetings on a form signed by the participants in which the participants self-identify as democrats.) However, Rule 13.H now requires that — if a state has party registration — any candidate for delegate must be a registered Democrat.
Seventh, in some sections, the rules replace “primary” with “process.” (Rule 2.F&G). The rules also now include a provision encouraging the use of a state-run primary, but still permit other “processes” (i.e. caucuses) with certain requirements, including efforts to allow participation by those who unable to attend their local caucus. (Rule 2.K; Rule 2.K.1&8-9). One of these new requirements is that caucus states must now record and count the initial first preference vote of attendees and the allocation of delegates to the national convention must be based on and fixed by that initial first preference vote. (Rule 2.K.4-8).
Eighth, the timing rules remain the same from 2016 — Iowa followed by New Hamphshire followed by Nevada followed by South Carolina in February and everyone else beginning on the first Tuesday in March and all “first determining steps” — primaries and initial caucuses — occurring on or before the second Tuesday in June.
Ninth, in a minor change to the “threshold” for earning delegates, if no candidate reaches fifteen percent, the threshold will be half of the vote total of the candidate who finishes first. (Rule 14.F).
What will be the practical effect of these changes? If I understand the intent of these rules and the states are required to comply with them, some of the caucus states may see significant changes to how they announce results and allocate delegates. For example, for the purpose of electing county or district level delegates, many caucus states have a period of time after the “first preference” vote to allow attendees who support a candidate beneath the fifteen percent threshold to either move to a viable candidate or persuade supporters of other candidates to join them and bump their candidate over fifteen percent. These states then report how many delegates were won to the next level where the same process repeats with delegates only being allocated at the district and state conventions. Under the new rules, while these same processes for choosing delegates to county conventions will continue, the initial vote will now be reported and that vote total will be what drives the allocation of delegates. This change could lead to dramatically different outcomes from the early caucus states.
For example, in Iowa in 2016, Governor O’Malley won 0.54% of the delegates to the county conventions. That probably translated into getting around 5-10% of the initial vote. Those voters then went to another candidate. (Did they uniformly go to Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton or was their behavior based on precinct-by-precinct deals?) Imagine how differently the subsequent process would have gone if instead of announcing essential a 50-50 tie, the results had been Senator Sanders of Secretary Clinton winning by 10%. Or back in 2008, Joe Biden won about 1% of the county convention delegates and Bill Richardson won about 2%. If you again assume that translates to around 10% of the vote, who did that vote go to on the second round. If it mostly went to Barrack Obama, think about how a three-way tie between Secretary Clinton, President Obama, and John Edwards would have impacted the future primaries.
The other big change is the one that has gotten the most attention — the loss of the vote on the first ballot for automatic delegates. The impact of this change may depend on how these delegates act (and how the losing candidates act). The last two competitive cycles have seen the battle for pledged delegates continue through the last primary. In 2016, there were no other candidates who won any delegates. In 2008, however, John Edwards won 32. In 2004, the early “dropouts” won over 200 delegates. If we have another close battle that goes to the last primary and no candidate wins an absolute majority (the situation in 2008), then the dropout candidates and the automatic delegates could have an impact on whether the convention goes to a second ballot. If the dropout candidates release their delegates and request them to vote for the “winner” of the primaries, then things should work as normal (particularly if the automatic delegates make clear what will happen on the second ballot). On the other hand, if the dropout candidates obstruct the process, there will be a second ballot on which anything could happen. (My preference would have been for a solution that would have reduced the impact of the automatic delegates, perhaps a half-vote or quarter-vote similar to how some of the territories increase the size of their delegations. However, that was not an option under the resolution creating this cycle’s commission.)
The change that I, for one, will wait and see what guidance is coming from the RBC is the change to gender balance to reflect the possibility of non-binary genders. Depending on the guidance, I can see practical issues related to implementation. For example, in most states, the delegate election process has a separate ballot for men and women. With non-binary genders in the mix, it seems like the logical process will now be a uniform ballot — at least if a candidate self-identifies as non-binary. (And in states that elect delegates on the primary ballot, will the Secretaries of State modify the ballot in accordance with the party’s directives — probably since the Republicans do not have separate elections for male and female delegates.) Given the number of different scenarios for potential finishes, how do those scenarios work in practice. (Easy if the non-binary candidate finishes in the mix for delegates or clearly finishes outside the mix. On a uniform ballot, however, it is possible that you will have to skip over male candidates because the male slots are filled to get to female candidates to fill the female slots or vice versa. What if the non-binary gender candidate is somewhere between the last male slot and the last female slot.) I also know that, in my state, we have traditionally pre-assigned the “odd” district delegate slot to assure state-wide gender balance after the election of district delegates. With the potential for non-binary gender candidates competing, I do not know if we will be able to do that (as such candidates might take the “odd” slot in some districts but not others throwing the attempt at balance off when all districts are combined.)
In short, a lot is staying the same, but the changes could make things interesting in another 18 months.
