Republicans to be invited to address Democratic caucus review panel

CEDAR RAPIDS - When Iowa Democrats meet Saturday to begin a post-mortem on their historically close - and crowded - 2016 precinct caucuses, among the first people they will hear from will be Republicans.

Dave Nagle, a former Eastern Iowa congressman and party chairman who will lead the review panel, wants to hear from current and former GOP state chairmen Jeff Kaufmann and Bill Schickel, respectively.

'I've asked them to come and talk to us about what they learned from their 2012 review and how they applied it to 2016,” Nagle said Monday.

'There's a lot that both parties have to do - find facilities and precinct chairs, bring tech to bear and so on,” he said. 'The difference is in how we count. That's just one aspect.”

He expects a formal invitation to go out to the GOP officials Tuesday.

The Democratic review comes after precinct caucuses that saw many participants waiting in lines at caucus sites too small to accommodate the nearly 171,000 Democratic caucusgoers.

The turnout and the outcome - Hillary Clinton edged Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by a quarter of a percent - caused some Sanders supporters to question the results and led to calls for change.

So he wants to hear from the GOP which conducted their own internal review after the 2012 caucuses that ended in confusion when Mitt Romney was named the winner by eight votes on a caucus night that drew what was then a record turnout of 122,000 Republicans. Two weeks later when the results were certified, Rick Santorum was declared the winner by 34 votes.

Nagle recalled that when Republicans did their review, there was communication between the staffs of both parties, in part, because of the shared priority of maintaining Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses.

In that spirit, Nagle wants the 'two parties to march this forward together.”

'We need to look at this from the standpoint that this is a state institution like the State Fair,” he said. 'We need to work together whenever possible to preserve this through our combined efforts.”