Ask and you shall receive

Bill would return California's 2012 presidential primary to June

"The measure's sponsor, Assemblyman Paul Fong, says consolidating the presidential and state primaries in June would save tens of millions of dollars.
February 05, 2011|By Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles TimesFor years, Sacramento lawmakers worked to give California voters a bigger say in national politics by scheduling the state's presidential primary as early as they could.

The series of moves culminated in 2008 with a Feb. 5 vote, the earliest in state history. But now a legislative effort is underway to move the California primary back where it started — to June, on the last day of the 2012 nominating season — as a way to save tens of millions of dollars. "That's a lot of money," said the bill's sponsor, Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Cupertino), "at a time when every penny counts."

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/05 ... r-20110206

Republicans in the Missouri House yesterday introduced a bill (HB 503) to move the Show Me state's presidential primary from the first Tuesday after the first Monday in February to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. Missouri now becomes the sixth state scheduled to have a February or earlier contest to introduce legislation to shift its presidential primary back to the national parties' newly designated first Tuesday in March starting line.


The bill was introduced by House Elections Committee chair, Tony Dugger, and was co-sponsored by 14 other Republican representatives. Among that 14 were five of the six other Republican members of the Elections Committee; the committee to which the bill will most likely be referred. With a nearly two to one Republican to Democrat ratio in the House, this is a bill that will likely not require any bipartisan support until it gets to Governor Jay Nixon's desk -- assuming it passes both Republican-controlled Houses first. Of course, as the only Democratic check within the state government -- in terms of presidential primary timing -- Nixon would be compelled by Rule 20.C.7 of the 2012 Democratic Delegate Selection Rules to sign legislation bringing the state's nominating contest back into compliance with those rules. Not doing so could open the Democratic Party in the state to additional penalties from the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. That scenario, however, is unlikely.


One other additional note about this bill concerns its language. The terminology is slightly different from the language witnessed in other similar legislation in other states, but the meaning is essentially the same. By inserting "after the first Monday" into this segment of the election law, Missouri legislators are setting up a situation where they could fall a week after the earliest allowed date (should it continue to be the first Tuesday in March) when and if the first Tuesday in March falls on March 1. While states like Oklahoma, Virginia and Tennessee would continue to hold contests on the first Tuesday of March, Missouri would have to wait until the first Monday has passed in order to hold their presidential primary. Again, this would not occur all that often.

Ohio's 2012 presidential primary election might have to be moved to later in the year if state lawmakers are slow to draw new congressional districts this year, incoming Secretary of State Jon Husted said yesterday.

Husted, a Republican, said some officials of county election boards have expressed concern that they might not have enough time to prepare for the scheduled March 6, 2012, primary if legislators drag their feet on paring Ohio's 18 congressional districts to 16, as required by new census data.

Virginia
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Missouri
Minnesota
Massachusettes
Ohio (I have heard of some possible changes but nothing lately)
Rhode Island
Vermont
Maryland ( they have competing bill introduce to move the primary to April 3rd)

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I see a Huck winning SIX of 10 there to go with his Iowa, SC, Fl, and TX wins.

FC,

Is Texas still working on moving their's to Super Tuesday or even a week or so after?

WASHINGTON — Florida should keep its early presidential primary date in 2012 and the Republican National Committee would be wise to accommodate the important swing state, Republican U.S. Sen Marco Rubio says.

Both parties have agreed that only four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — should have primaries before March 1. When Rubio was state House Speaker, the legislature moved Florida’s 2008 primary to January to give the state more influence. The 2012 primary will be in January as well unless the legislature changes the date.

Says Rubio: “I think if the Republican Party wants to pay for the elections in Florida, they can have them any day they want. But as long as the voters of Florida are going to pay for this election, it should be on the most meaningful day possible. An election in late January costs the same as an election in April, but it’s a lot more meaningful.”


Rubio added: “I’m OK with Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina — those are established states and I don’t think Florida desires to get ahead of any of them. But after that, why should Florida be behind anyone else? And as a Republican, I’ll tell you this flat out, no Republican can win the presidency of the United States without winning the state of Florida. We cannot win the presidency without winning Florida as a Republican, and so it behooves us to make sure that whoever our nominee is is someone that is palatable in Florida and does well in Florida. And the best way to do that is by winning the primary.”

Asked about the possibility the RNC would strip some or all of Florida’s delegates to punish the state for holding its primary too early, Rubio said, “If the RNC thinks the way to win Florida — which they cannot win the presidency without — is to sanction the most important swing state in the country, then good luck to them.”

Rubio said he plans to be neutral in the 2012 presidential primary and in the 2012 Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat of Democrat Bill Nelson.

Virginia
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Missouri
Minnesota
Massachusettes
Ohio (I have heard of some possible changes but nothing lately)
Rhode Island
Vermont
Maryland ( they have competing bill introduce to move the primary to April 3rd)

===

I see a Huck winning SIX of 10 there to go with his Iowa, SC, Fl, and TX wins.

FC,

Is Texas still working on moving their's to Super Tuesday or even a week or so after?

In Texas: The Democrat-filed bill to move the Lone Star state's presidential primary from the first week in March to the first Tuesday in February -- and into violation of the national parties' delegate selection rules -- was read into the record yesterday and referred to the Elections Committee in the Texas House. This is only significant because the bill was introduced in November and has been on the sidelines ever since. The big question in Texas is whether Republicans in the legislature are going to be to moving the state into violation of the parties' rules. On the one hand, the state would face sanctions. On the other, a state as big as Texas and as important to the Republican electoral vote coalition in the general election might deserve a better spot at the GOP nominating table, at least in the eyes of state legislators there.

Well here is some information on OH. Basically they have till Dec. 7th, 2011 to get thier redistricting done which is the deadline for candidcay pettitions. It sounds like for government, this is a really tight schedule. Go figure.

Any later resolution of redistricting puts undue stress on the local eclections boards and a possible outcome is to push back the primary date but for now no alternate date has yet been discussed.




The rest of the article here
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/01/04/copy/slow-redistricting-could-delay-ohios-presidential-primary.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

The primaries on Super Tuesday look very favorable for Huckabee.

The thing I'm unsure about is if Huckabee will run. If he does run, I believe he's the favorite. Of the 4 frontrunners (Huckabee, Romney, Palin, and Gingrich), Huckabee by far has the least baggage.

Huckabee should be the clear favorite to win in Iowa. If he wins Iowa, he'll win South Carolina too because this time there won't be a Fred Thompson splitting the vote in SC. By then, he's the undisputed national frontrunner. Super Tuesday in March will then end the nomination contest with Huckabee being the clear winner. States voting later won't matter (and 90% will go for Huckabee too).

The biggest thing that could make that scenario not happen is Huckabee not running. If he doesn't run, I'm not sure who wins the nomination. It's wide open, but I know this. It won't be Romney. I doubt it would be Palin or Gingrich either. My guess is that whoever the social conservatives unite behind wins the nomination in the abscense of Huckabee.

I would agree with all that, but point out that the primary calender is still evolving and there will not be a clear road map till mid summer.

Currently, Huckabee is leading or at the top of state polls from FL to PA and VA to KS. If Palin sits out, then that may open up the upper midwest and western states. He may already be able to navigate a path to victory, but with Palin out, then the path is much more defined.

Is that the real reason Huckabee is waiting til late summer to decide?

More than a third of the states have early Republican presidential primary elections scheduled next year that would violate national party rules, throwing the campaign calendar into disarray and risking sanctions that would diminish their influence at the nominating convention.


Front-loading the 2012 primaries“The calendar itself is total chaos,’’ said Saul Anuzis, a Republican National Committee member from Michigan who helped craft the Republican National Committee policies that protect Iowa and New Hampshire as the first states in the primary lineup. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.’’

Nineteen states are violating party rules with primaries or caucuses scheduled before March 1, 2012, as state GOP leaders seek to boost their state’s influence by being among the first to hold primary votes. The move puts them at odds with national GOP leaders, who seek an orderly and extended primary season.

While some states are willing to bend to the national party’s wishes, others are at least initially insisting on keeping early dates. If conflicts over the schedule are not resolved soon, there will be a repeat of 2008, when states that leapfrogged over others to claim an earlier primary date generated acrimony among party leaders and confusion among voters and candidates.

Already, the unsettled situation is preventing prospective candidates from crafting a campaign strategy beyond the four states that both parties have pledged will go first: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

For candidates such as former governor Mitt Romney, who is detail-oriented and has spent three years laying the groundwork for a presidential run, the uncertainty complicates his plans on where to direct resources. Romney, who is widely expected to announce a run for president this spring, declined to comment.

Washington (CNN) - As Florida Republicans threaten to disrupt the presidential nominating calendar by holding their 2012 primary date in January instead of later in the year, Iowa's Republican governor is vowing to protect the traditional first-in-the-nation status of his state's caucuses.

"We will move up," Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, a Republican, told CNN on Saturday at the National Governors Association winter meeting. "We did it last time. We will do it again. We will be first and New Hampshire will be after us. We will work them on whatever we have to do."

William March at the Tampa Tribune has put together a nice piece on the back and forth among early state GOP chairs, the RNC and the various actors/decision-makers in Florida over the timing of the Sunshine state's 2012 presidential primary. It isn't or shouldn't come as a surprise that the powers-that-be in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are up in arms over the potential for Florida -- or Florida's state legislature -- to stand pat with a January 31 primary that would disrupt the national parties' plans for a later start to the vote-casting portion of the nomination process in 2012.


In fact, it appears that South Carolina Republican Party chairwoman, Karen Floyd is picking up right where her predecessor, Katon Dawson did in 2008: making outlandish claims that don't necessarily jibe well with the reality of the situation. Dawson threatened move South Carolina's 2008 primary to before Halloween to protect the Palmetto state's first-in-the-South status in the face of Florida's defiance of the 2008 delegate selection rules. Now Karen Floyd is saying that all options should be considered including:

"I would not be averse to pulling the convention if Florida doesn't follow the parameter of the rules," said Karen Floyd, party chairman in South Carolina, one of four states approved by both parties to hold early primaries.

...but also:

"There's nothing off the table," Floyd said.