re: #182 FFL (GOP Delenda Est)

I can only hope that the DNC wises up and both gets rid of caucuses and non-Democrats running in the Democratic primaries. Sanders has been a negative for the party twice now, and given what is needed to fight the GOP I doubt they can continue to just let this stuff slide. It might lose votes to fringe 3rd party candidates, but they also don’t need to give the resources and exposure to the fringe either since it appears to have the same extortion effect; e.g. “Our candidate or we stay home!”.

I’m in-and-out only for this comment.

This is something a lot of people who are not directly involved in law or politics do not understand.

States set the rules for elections, including primaries and caucuses. States have to pay for primaries, and parties have to pay for caucuses. Thus any state which is cheap (that is, run by Republicans) tends to hold caucuses so they don’t have to pay for them.

Iowa statues specifically call for caucuses. To get rid of the Iowa Caucus, you first have to flip the state legislature to Democratic control, or something has to cause the GOP to start wanting to pay for caucuses.

Here in Nebraska, that something was a whole bunch of contested GOP seats. The GOP didn’t want to run and pay for caucuses, and they control the Unicameral, so they passed a law changing our caucuses to a primary for this and future elections.

In theory, the Democratic Party could choose to hold a primary in Iowa if they paid for that itself, but it would be hideously expensive for the party.

PARTISAN NOMINATIONS—PRIMARY ELECTION, §43.4 (Iowa statutes requiring caucuses not later than the fourth Monday in February)