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Showing posts with label North Carolina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North Carolina. Show all posts

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NORTH CAROLINA

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This is part thirty-three of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

NORTH CAROLINA

Election type: primary
Date: March 15 
Number of delegates: 72 [30 at-large, 39 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: no official threshold
2012: proportional primary

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Changes since 2012
The period between 2012 and 2016 was a bit of a roller coaster ride with respect to the process for allocating national convention delegates in North Carolina. In the late summer of 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation (that was ultimately signed into law) tethering the presidential primary in the Tar Heel state to the South Carolina primary. As the latter is a carve-out state, that moved North Carolina out of compliance with the national party rules regarding the timing of delegate selection events.

That also set off an eventual 2015 discussion about untethering from South Carolina and changing the non-compliant primary date to avoid sanction. Revisiting the primary date issue gave rise to an additional wrinkle: changing state law to shift from a proportional allocation to a winner-take-all allocation. Legislation coupling the winner-take-all provision with a March 15 primary -- the first day following the close of the proportionality window when states have the option of awarding delegates in a winner-take-all fashion -- made its way through the general assembly and was signed into law.

But then the North Carolina Republican Party overrode the legislative decision on the method of allocation, opting in a September 2015 Executive Committee meeting to continue with the traditional proportional method of allocation.

The long and winding road ended up pushing the North Carolina primary -- the presidential one along with the primaries for state and local offices -- up seven weeks on the primary calendar from May but maintained a proportional allocation of delegates. The state party also decided to continue allocating delegates with no qualifying threshold. North Carolina is the last of the truly proportional states -- no threshold -- on the Republican presidential calendar. It is also the final southern state primary.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
With no threshold, there is little to the North Carolina method of delegate allocation. Every candidate still in the race will qualify for some delegates. The real question is how the rounding rules work. The  North Carolina Republican Party plan of organization does not include the specifics, but in consultation with the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, the rounding operates under a closest to the threshold rule. Any fractional delegate above 0.5 is rounded up and anything below is rounded down.

In the event that the rounding leads to an overalloation of delegates, then the superfluous delegate is removed from the total of the candidate with the remainder (fractional delegate) closest to the rounding threshold. Should the total rounding lead to fewer than the full North Carolina apportionment of delegates being allocated, then the under-allocated is added to the total of the candidate closest to the rounding threshold. These rounding rules are consistent with those used in neighboring Virginia.


Binding
There is a lack of clarity at this time as to what the release procedure is for delegates bound to candidates who have withdrawn from the race, and furthermore how long delegates would be bound to a candidate at the national convention (the number of ballots). As of now, the tentative judgment of the North Carolina Republican Party is that the delegates would be bound all the way through the balloting with no release procedure (similar to Iowa). However, that is not set in stone.



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State allocation rules are archived here.


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Recent Posts:
Vox 2016 Delegate Projection Model  Explainer

The Impact of Divided National Parties on Presidential Elections

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS

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North Carolina Presidential Primary Shifts to March 15 After McCrory Signature

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North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (R) signed HB 373 into law on Wednesday, September 30. The action untethers the presidential primary in the Tar Heel state from the earliest South Carolina presidential primary and sets a firm date (March 15) for the 2016 cycle.

The move two years ago to push the North Carolina presidential primary away from the usual May date where it was consolidated with other primaries has been controversial ever since. Not only did it introduce budgetary issues -- having to fund a new and separate presidential primary election -- but it made the state's parties vulnerable to national party penalties for conducting their delegate selection processes through a non-compliant (too early) primary. Both factors put almost instant pressure on partisans in the legislature to make a change.

The General Assembly sought to deal with the latter factor (primary timing) first and in the last months has moved to shift the May primaries up to coincide with the earlier presidential primary to solve the budgetary expenditure.

Now that the bill has passed the legislative hurdle and been signed into law all of that is settled for 2016. That means that the March 15 North Carolina presidential primary will coincide with similar contests in Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. However, bear in mind that this change -- North Carolina primaries in March -- is only in effect for the 2016 cycle. The date called for in the law is specific to 2016. That means that everything will revert to the way it was prior to the signing of this law after 2016. The regular primary will shift back to May and the presidential primary will once again be tied to the South Carolina presidential primary.

That is not unlike how New York has handled its presidential primary scheduling the last two cycles. The primary is scheduled on a February baseline, but has been shifted temporarily -- with a sunset in the law -- to compliant dates for 2012 and 2016. Strategically, that method forces the legislature to think about and act on the presidential primary date every cycle (as opposed to letting the negative inertia of a late, consolidated primary lead to a maintenance of the status quo; a late date).

But for now, North Carolina is compliant with national party rules and will have a March 15, 2016 presidential primary date.


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Trouble Seems to be Brewing in North Carolina

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North Carolina may or may not be a microcosm of the national Republican Party, but one thing is for sure, the disagreements between the two chambers in the North Carolina General Assembly are not confined to just the legislature. Now, Governor Pat McCrory and the Republican Party in the Tar Heel state are involved, and the presidential primary is at the heart of at least one of the feuds (for lack of a better term).

The controversial presidential primary legislation that narrowly passed the House after a less contentious trip through the Senate last week has drawn the ire of both the governor and the North Carolina Republican Party. Neither is seemingly pleased with the rider added to HB 373 during conference committee stage that has opened the door to legislative caucuses creating campaign committees to raise money (thus circumventing the state parties). That raises the potential for a veto though Governor McCrory can allow the bill to become law without his signature as well. A veto would mean that North Carolina would not shift into a March 15 primary date and would end up non-compliant with Republican National Committee delegate selection rules (tethered to the South Carolina Republican primary).

To top it all off, the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee voted over the weekend to stick with the proportional delegate allocation method the party has traditionally used throughout much of the post-reform era. Assuming that HB 373 is signed or becomes law, that would be at odds with the new primary law that calls for a winner-take-all allocation of delegates. As FHQ explained then:
Finally, the winner-take-all language would come into some conflict with the rules of the North Carolina Republican Party regarding delegate allocation if passed. The party rules do defer to both national party rules and state statute (which the winner-take-all provision would be if passed and signed into law), but do call for the proportional allocation of national convention delegates based on the results of the presidential primary. Yet, RNC rules give precedence to state party rules in those cases of these types of disputes. And while those issues between the state party rules, the national party rules and the likely new state statute have not necessarily been squared, there are no signs of any storm clouds on the horizon. The state party is not raising any concerns over this legislative change at this point. And it is unlikely to with the RNC deadline to finalize delegate selection plans looming next week.
Well, now it appears there are some storm clouds. The bill, should it become law, does not provide cover to the state party because the only out is if there is a conflict with national party rules. If North Carolina had, by law, a winner-take-all, March 15 presidential primary, then that winner-take-all allocation would be compliant with the RNC rules. There is no national party violation there. Thus there would be no out for the North Carolina Republican Party under the presumed law. And unless the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee changed the wording of the party rules deferring to state statute, then it is stuck with a winner-take-all allocation.

Well, it is stuck unless the state party wants to take the state to court over the presumed new law. That route costs money and also takes time. Both are important, but with an election looming, that is potentially more time than is likely needed to keep the decision of the primary in limbo. The outcome is likely to favor the party -- freedom of association and all -- but the bigger question is the wait for all interested parties concerned. Keep in mind the filing window for the March 15 primary is set for the first three weeks of December. If that February option for the presidential primary comes back on the table, that pushes things up in to November at least another three weeks.

The other option is to take the conflict to the RNC credentials committee heading into the national convention next summer. RNC rules give precedence to state party rules over state law, so the NCGOP could likely argue effectively to retain a proportional allocation of its national convention delegation. However, that task would be all the more difficult if the party rules specifically state that it defers to state law.

If it was not already a mess, one could call all of this messy. But this just got a little messier.


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North Carolina Moving Closer to March 15 Presidential Primary

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The conference committee report on HB 373, the bill to shift the North Carolina presidential primary as well as its primaries for state and local offices to March 15, is on the calendar in both the House and Senate of the General Assembly today. That report is a compromise hammered out between the two Republican-controlled chambers and is expected to pass through each.

The bill would not only create a consolidated primary on March 15, but would also change the baseline delegate allocation called for in state law to winner-take-all from proportional. The latter is a change from the standard operating procedure that the North Carolina parties have used throughout much of the post-reform era. The former re-consolidates the two sets of primaries after the separate presidential primary was created in 2013 and tethered -- against national party delegate selection rules -- to the South Carolina primary. That violation required a move of the presidential primary and consideration of that move prompted the impetus for moving the typically May primaries for other offices to March as well.

Thus, this legislation would completely reshape North Carolina's position and meaning in 2016 presidential nomination processes. Instead of being on the wrong side of the calendar in May -- typically after some candidate has reached the requisite number of delegates required to clinch a nomination -- the Tar Heel state will have some measure of influence in 2016. What that influence is remains to be determined by, among other things, the number of active and viable candidates who remain on or as the process approaches March 15.

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Rather than put out multiple posts, FHQ will track the process in this space, updating as news emerges.

UPDATE (12pm): The North Carolina Senate passed HB 373 by a 30-13 vote.
UPDATE (3:30pm): The North Carolina House narrowly passed HB 373 by a 52-49 vote.


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Winner-Take-All Presidential Primary Clears Hurdle in North Carolina

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On Wednesday, September 23, the North Carolina Senate Committee on Rules and Operations considered HB 373, the bill that would move a now consolidated primary -- presidential and other offices -- to mid-March.

The date of the presidential primary election has been a (near) certainty for a while now, but it was unclear what new items, other than shifting up the May primary for state and local offices, would make it into the conference committee report. It was also uncertain whether all of the provisions in the most recent versions of the bill would carry over.

The March 15 date was in there. The consolidated primary was in there. So too, was the winner-take all provision altering the traditionally proportional allocation method North Carolina parties have used through much of the post-reform era. This continued inclusion of the winner-take-all delegate allocation language is of note for a number of reasons

First, it aligns North Carolina with two other winner-take-all states on March 15: Florida and Ohio. That is 237 delegates that could be split among a number of winners (one in each state) or depending on the winnowing process could go to just one winner. The latter contingency -- one candidate winning all 237 delegates -- would be in a commanding lead in the delegate count. And with those delegates alone would be nearly 20% of the way toward the 1236 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination.

The move away from proportional allocation to a winner-take-all plan was also something that supporters of Scott Walker, chief among them Senator Bob Rucho (R), had guided through the legislative process to this point. With Walker bowing out of the race for the nomination earlier this week, the strategic need for a winner-take-all primary may also have disappeared. That did not seem to be the case today as Rucho indicated the move to an earlier winner-take-all was about increasing North Carolina's voice in the process.

Finally, the winner-take-all language would come into some conflict with the rules of the North Carolina Republican Party regarding delegate allocation if passed. The party rules do defer to both national party rules and state statute (which the winner-take-all provision would be if passed and signed into law), but do call for the proportional allocation of national convention delegates based on the results of the presidential primary. Yet, RNC rules give precedence to state party rules in those cases of these types of disputes. And while those issues between the state party rules, the national party rules and the likely new state statute have not necessarily been squared, there are no signs of any storm clouds on the horizon. The state party is not raising any concerns over this legislative change at this point. And it is unlikely to with the RNC deadline to finalize delegate selection plans looming next week.

HB 373 is on the calendar in both the House and Senate for Thursday, September 24.


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North Carolina Inching Closer to a March 15 Presidential Primary

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From Colin Campbell at the News and Observer in Raleigh:
House and Senate leaders have agreed to move all 2016 primaries to March 15, according to House Speaker Tim Moore.  
The move would mean candidates for president, governor, U.S. Senate and down-ballot races would all go before voters earlier than the May date used in past primaries.  
“The consensus is to move the primary to March,” Moore told reporters after a midnight budget vote Friday morning. “The rationale behind moving the primaries was (presidential elections) have a very high turnout.”
The devil's going to be in the details on this one. The March 15 primary date has been something of a foregone conclusion for a while now. That move got held up by drawn-out budget negotiations and then the push -- in the context of those same budget negotiations -- to hold all of the state's primaries on the same date to save the state money.

That all seems settled, but it remains to be seen whether the changes to delegate allocation language -- to make the Tar Heel state a winner-take-all primary -- carries over into the conference committee report that will be considered by both the North Carolina House and Senate. That is something to watch as this moves forward.


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North Carolina House Votes Not to Concur With Senate on March 15 Presidential Primary Bill

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The North Carolina House on Tuesday, September 2 vote unanimously -- 104-0 -- to not concur with the Senate changes to HB 373. That bill would move the presidential primary in the Tar Heel state back into compliance with Republican National Committee delegate selection rules with a March election.

The motion to not concur was brought by North Carolina Republican National Committeeman and state Rep. David Lewis (R-53rd, Harnett).

The bill now heads to a conference committee to work out the issues between the two chambers. Meanwhile the clock is ticking down to the October 1 RNC deadline that requires state parties to have their delegate selection plans finalized.

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UPDATE: 2:15pm
Gary Robertson at the Associated Press has more on the motivation behind the move to shift the discussion of HB 373 to a conference committee:
Lewis and Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, told The Associated Press lawmakers are discussing several other election changes, many of them technical and some sought by the State Board of Elections. But they also said separately that holding only one primary in March also was being examined.
There is a lot layered into such a short bill. The expenditure for a separate presidential primary election has always been present, though not a sticking point in the proceedings to this point. Democrats in the minority in both chambers of the General Assembly have favored the later and consolidated May primary date, but majority Republicans have largely ignored that issue to this point. Creating a consolidated primary but scheduling it for March would follow the lead of states like Arkansas (earlier this cycle) and Alabama (in 2011). That would reduce the state and county spending on elections, but have ramifications elsewhere. Filing deadlines, for example would have to shift likely into December (from February) if they are to maintain the same filing window.

Bear in mind also, that this bill currently changes not only the date of the North Carolina presidential primary, but also resets the baseline method of delegate allocation in the state. To this point, state law has required a proportional allocation of national convention delegates. HB 373, however, switches that to a winner-take-all requirement. The only relief state parties have from that mandate is if that winner-take-all requirement is inconsistent with national party rules. North Carolina Democrats would then be able to adopt alternate proportional allocation rules in line with DNC requirements.

A winner-take-all allocation for North Carolina Republicans, on the other hand, would be consistent with RNC rules, but would seemingly conflict with the proportional state party rules (re)adopted at the state convention earlier this year. The proposed change in HB 373 does not include an exemption if the state law and state party allocation rules are mismatched. Yet, the RNC rules give precedence to the state party rules if such a conflict exists.

[NOTE: FHQ just spoke with Gary Robertson at AP and he said that Rep. Lewis in his comments to the press after the House vote did not bring up the allocation provision as one that required any further ironing out in HB 373. But it was not a matter that was asked about either.]


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North Carolina Still Doesn't Have a Presidential Primary Date

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Just over five weeks ago now, the North Carolina Senate passed legislation scheduling the 2016 presidential primary in the Tar Heel state for March 15. That positioning was purported to have been a deal cut between both the House and Senate to move the North Carolina primary more clearly into compliance with national party rules.1

What seemed like a done deal five weeks ago does not necessarily appear to be such a slam dunk at the moment. Part of this has to do with the current state of play in the North Carolina General Assembly. Due to have adjourned in July, the legislature has been embroiled in an inter-chamber dispute over the budget for the coming fiscal year. Several times since July, the body has had to pass continuing resolutions to fund the state government and buy itself some time to pass a true budget for next year.

But the amended HB 373 -- the bill setting the presidential primary date for March 15 -- passed the state Senate at a time in late July in which non-controversial bills (particularly those not germane to the budget situation) were regularly moving through the chambers. And it appeared that HB 373 was heading toward a similar conclusion. Since it passed the House previously in a different form, the Senate committee substitute to HB 373 with the presidential primary language only required a quick concurrence on the House side. And it looked as if that concurrence would in fact be quick as the bill was added to the House calendar a day after it was received from the Senate. Then, however, the bill was pulled from the calendar and re-referred to the House Committee on Rules where it has been bottled up ever since.

There it sits. Is HB 373 a casualty of the current budget fight? Is it being held in the House as a means of attempting to extract concessions out of the Senate in the budget negotiations?2 The answer is that we don't know. But what we do know is that the North Carolina presidential primary is still tethered to the February South Carolina primary and that carries with it some ramifications for the state parties in the Tar Heel state as 2016 approaches.

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1 As it stands now, the North Carolina presidential primary is scheduled for the Tuesday after the South Carolina primary. And with carve-out state South Carolina likely to end up in February, the result for North Carolina -- given the current state law -- would be a non-compliant primary that would subject the state Republican Party to the so-called super penalty (reduction to 12 delegates) and potentially open the Democratic Party in the state to more severe penalties as well.

2 The budget impasse as mentioned above is an inter-chamber affair pitting majority Senate Republicans against Republicans controlling the House.


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March 15 Presidential Primary Bill Unanimously Passes North Carolina State Senate

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The North Carolina state Senate on Tuesday, July 21 passed the committee substitute to HB 373 by a 45-0 vote on its second read and then without dissent on a voice vote on its third read. The measure to schedule the 2016 North Carolina presidential primary for March 15 now heads to the House for concurrence.

This legislation would untether the North Carolina presidential primary from the South Carolina primary for the 2016 cycle alone and align the election with similar contests in Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. After 2016 the statute would revert to its previous version; scheduling the presidential primary for the Tuesday following the South Carolina primary.


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North Carolina Committee Favorably Reports March 15 Presidential Primary Bill

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The North Carolina state Senate Committee on Redistricting on Monday, July 20, unanimously passed the committee substitute to H 373. The amended bill scrapped the original language about paper ballots and inserted several provisions detailing the procedure behind the 2016 presidential primary in the Tar Heel state.

The bill would set March 15 as the date of the 2016 presidential primary and that primary only. After the 2016 cycle the position would revert to the position on the calendar as called for in current state law; tethered to the South Carolina presidential primary. The legislation favorably reported by the committee to the floor would also change the method of allocation in the state from proportional to winner-take-all (while also allowing state Democrats and out to continue holding a proportional primary).

For more, see FHQ's analysis of the changes from this past weekend.


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North Carolina Legislature Zeroing in on March 15 Presidential Primary Date

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The deal to break the stalemate between legislative chambers, moving the North Carolina presidential primary back into compliance with national party rules, came more into focus on Friday, July 17. From Mark Binker at NCCapitol:
North Carolina will hold its 2016 presidential primary on March 15 under a deal struck by House and Senate leaders late Friday.  
The tentative measure, which guts the material dealing with paper ballots originally in House Bill 373 and replaces it with the presidential primary language, is scheduled to go before the Senate Redistricting Committee on Monday. It was distributed to committee members just before 8 p.m. Friday night.
That state Senate committee substitute to HB 373 not only establishes a March 15 date for the presidential primary, but also calls for altering the section dealing with how delegates are allocated to candidates. The current statute calls for the proportional allocation of delegates.

There are a few interesting notes attendant to this development:
1. First, HB 373 is not the presidential primary bill that earlier this year passed the state House. That was HB 457, and the amended bill (HB 373) that the Senate Redistricting Committee will take up next week differs from it in that is calls for a presidential primary on March 15 and not March 8.

2. That is not without significance. By pushing the presidential primary back a week further, the proposed new law would allow the North Carolina Republican Party to allocate delegates in a winner-take-all fashion. The earlier date proposed in HB 457 would have meant that the primary would have fallen in the proportionality window, and thus the allocation of those delegates would have been required to be proportional.

3. As stated above, Republicans in control of the North Carolina General Assembly have simultaneously taken advantage of the proposed date change by trading out the former proportional allocation for a proposed winner-take-all mandate. This has several potential implications.
[a] It would align a proposed winner-take-all North Carolina presidential primary with a bevy of other probable winner-take-all primaries on March 15. Of the other states, only Illinois -- with its loophole primary allocation -- is clearly not winner-take-all. Florida Republicans have made the necessary rules change, Ohio Republicans have signaled a similar move and Missouri Republicans when they have held primaries have tended to use a winner-take-all method. 
[b] From our July 2015 vantage point, a winner-take-all North Carolina primary alongside a series of other winner-take-all contests and in tandem with a large field of candidates adds more strategic intrigue. [Winnowing caveats apply:] The talk thus far has been about a Bush-Rubio showdown in Florida on March 15, but if Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio are also winner-take-all, Florida could serve as a distraction for a couple of Sunshine state natives while other, at-that-point viable candidates focus on getting as many of the 190 (non-Florida/Illinois) delegates on the line on that date. 
[c] Such a statute-based requirement for winner-take-all allocation would seemingly put North Carolina Democrats in the lurch. Democratic National Committee delegate selection rules forbid anything other than a proportional allocation of delegates. A winner-take-all requirement would place the party in violation of those rules. However, as with the statute now, the proposed law would provide an out to state parties facing a conflict between state law and national party rules.1 That, in turn, would provide state Democrats some cover. 
4. One other difference between HB 457 -- the House-passed presidential primary bill -- and HB 373 is the language of the date change. Note that HB 373 changes the date of the 2016 presidential primary to March 15. Only the 2016 primary. And that does not mean that the North Carolina primary in subsequent cycles reverts to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in May. Instead, it means that North Carolina would again have a primary tethered to the South Carolina primary; likely in violation of 2020 national party rules.2 That sounds more provocative than it actually is or would be. All it would do is force North Carolina legislators -- similar to those in New York -- to have to consider the date of the presidential primary. They would be forced to make a change. Legislators would be less motivated, as they were for many years in the Tar Heel state -- to move a primary that is already in a compliant position (one concurrent with primaries for state and local offices especially) even it if is in a late calendar position.

In any event, there will be much for the committee to consider when they take up HB 373 this coming week. If it passed committee and then the full Senate, it will have to head back to the state House for its consideration of the Senate changes.


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1 Interestingly, the language of the clause allowing national party rules to supersede state law on delegate allocation, does not change from how it exists now. Yet, the implementation of it will be different in 2016 than it was in 2012. The proposed winner-take-all requirement is in direct violation of the DNC rules. That would give a state party the leeway to make a change that reflects the national party guidelines. Tar Heel state Republicans in 2012, however, could not so clearly exercise that out. As FHQ explained then, there was no conflict between the Republican National Committee rules for 2012 and the state law requiring a proportional allocation of national convention delegates. Any contest on or after April 1, 2012 could allocate delegates in any manner the state party saw fit. But what that meant was that there was no conflict between the national party rules and the state law calling for a proportional allocation of delegates. Any conflict could only arise if the North Carolina Republican Party opted for a winner-take-all allocation in violation of the state law. That sort of conflict is not covered in the out provision.

Now, truth be told, had North Carolina Republicans wanted to allocate delegates winner-take-all in 2012, they likely could have, but it first would have meant a court challenge which would have been costly both in terms of money and time.

2 Bear in mind that we do not yet have the marked up version of the bill, only a committee substitute proposal. It could be that the South Carolina tethering provision is struck, but that is not listed as one of the changes this bill makes.

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Thanks to Richard Winger at Ballot Access News for passing this on to FHQ.


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Makings of a Deal Emerge in North Carolina Presidential Primary Impasse

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The showdown between the North Carolina House and Senate over the positioning of the Tar Heel state presidential primary in 2016 may be in its waning days. According to North Carolina Republican Party Chair Claude Pope (via Jones and Blount), a deal has been reached between the state party and leaders in the General Assembly to move the North Carolina presidential primary back into compliance with national party delegate selection rules.

The details of the deal were not immediately made clear -- specifically the date of the contest -- but news that defenders of the tethered position in the Senate are open to a change is significant. It was on the Republican-controlled Senate side that the amended version of an omnibus elections bill added the presidential primary date change in 2013. With the end of the 2013 session bearing down on them, and with it pressure to get the elections bill through before that adjournment, the Republican-controlled House went along with the date change.

But that decision has put the North Carolina Republican Party in a vulnerable position ever since. A North Carolina presidential primary scheduled on the Tuesday after a February South Carolina primary would put Tar Heel state Republicans in violation of the Republican National Committee rules; most importantly the so-called super penalty that would reduce the size of a state delegation (with 30 or more delegates) to just 12 delegates. In the case of the North Carolina Republican delegation to the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland that would mean a more than 80% reduction.

That super penalty has been effective during the 2013-15 period in bringing formerly rogue states like Arizona, Florida and Michigan back into compliance with the national party rules. North Carolina, however, has held out to this point.

That looks to be changing though. The House has already passed legislation to shift the North Carolina presidential primary to March 8. In the lead up to that bill's introduction, there was a push, led by Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest (R), to move the primary back to March 22 to facilitate a winner-take-all primary. Whether that latter option is still on the table remains to be determined. Given that state Senate proponents have valued the earliness of the tethered primary, it would seem that March 8 would likely be the latest date on which they would schedule the primary. But joining the SEC primary on March 1 -- the earliest, compliant date under the rules -- may still be an option as well.

The prognosis for any deal passing the General Assembly would have to be tentatively rated as pretty good. The House bill passed nearly unanimously and as long as the deal sets the primary date on or after March 1, it will likely have the votes of Democrats. The current law has them out of compliance with the Democratic National Committee which places some urgency behind action on their parts as well. Democrats may be in the minority in the North Carolina General Assembly and have options limited to those proposed by Republicans, but they still also have to act to bring about a change.

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Thanks to Jonathan Kappler for the heads up on the Jones and Blount story.


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