Lawmakers advance bill to nullify Iowa Democrats' mail-in caucus plan

DES MOINES — Iowa political parties would be barred from holding remote caucuses and people would need to register in advance to participate in a caucus under a bill House Republicans advanced Wednesday.

The bill, proposed by Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, would effectively scrap the Iowa Democratic Party’s plan to conduct the 2024 presidential precinct caucuses mostly by mail — a plan devised over the last year as the party sought to maintain its first-in-the-nation status in the national Democrats’ presidential nominating contest.

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The Democratic National Committee ultimately stripped Iowa of its status anyway, reshuffling the calendar and elevating South Carolina to the coveted spot for Democrats. But Democrats maintained their plan to allow participation by mail-in preference cards.

Derek Muller, an elections law expert and professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, said the bill may be unconstitutional. U.S. Supreme Court precedent holds that states cannot regulate a party’s internal processes without the party’s approval, he said.

“There are Supreme Court cases talking about how the state can’t interfere with the internal workings of the party,” he said. “And if this is a deal brokered between the Iowa Democratic Party and Democratic National Committee about how they’re going to choose their presidential delegates, I don't know that the Legislature can prevent them from doing that.”

Kaufmann said that interpretation is "dead wrong."

Republicans on a five-member House subcommittee that advanced the bill said the intent was to protect the integrity of the caucuses as a party event and retain the first-in-the-nation status. They argued a mail-in system would constitute a primary, prompting New Hampshire to jump ahead of Iowa in the presidential calendar — knocking off the Republican caucuses’ status as first-in-the-nation in the process.

New Hampshire state law dictates it will hold a primary election earlier than any other state and allows the secretary of state to reschedule the state primary if another state is deemed to have an earlier primary.

“Everybody I’ve talked to, everyone that I’ve had conversations with on both sides of the aisle, nationally and locally, say that when you do mail-in, it’s a primary,” he said. “New Hampshire is obligated by law to jump us if we do this.”

New Hampshire officials have said they will still hold their primary before any other state, despite the DNC’s calendar placing South Carolina as the first state where Democrats would cast their votes for president. In a Twitter post Wednesday, New Hampshire GOP Chair Chris Ager shared an email from the state's Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan, who said he would consider a mail-in process to be a primary.

"Any change of caucus format in Iowa that moves in the direction of a primary election, including the use of mail-in or absentee ballots, will trigger New Hampshire's law protecting our first presidential primary position," Scanlan wrote in the email.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement she will “do everything I can” to protect the status of the caucuses.

“The Iowa Democrat Party is unwilling to accept that their changes, an all-mail-in system of ballots, are by definition a primary and not a caucus,” she said. “Because of this, our coveted status as first in the nation is in jeopardy.”

Kaufmann is the son of Republican Party of Iowa Chair Jeff Kaufmann and a senior adviser for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. He said he and others on the bill had had a conversation with people involved, but had not had a direct conversation with Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart.

Kaufmann said the bill has no relation to his employment by the Trump campaign.

A 70-day registration period before the caucuses is meant to prevent parties from sending large numbers of people into the opposite group’s caucus, Kaufmann said. He said anyone can still register with whichever party they want.

National Republicans left their presidential nominating calendar the same for 2024, leaving Iowa in the first spot. The state party will conduct in-person caucuses in 2024.

The Iowa GOP gave its support to the bill in a news release Wednesday. Chair Jeff Kaufmann said the state Democrats’ plan would “ignite unnecessary one-upsmanship with New Hampshire and its first-in-the-nation primary.”

The bill would also allow the Iowa Secretary of State to leave the Electronic Registration Information Center, a national bipartisan voter roll maintenance organization, and work with other groups or lists to maintain its voter rolls. Iowa was one of several Republican states to announce its exit from the group this spring.

The bill is scheduled for a full committee vote Thursday, making it eligible for a floor vote in the House. In a statement, Republican Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver of Grimes said no decision has been made about the bill’s future in the Senate.